Category Archives: H. P. Lovecraft

What Do H. P. Lovecraft and John W. Campbell, Jr. Have in Common?

Things From Outer Space
Hank Davis, ed.
Baen
mass market paperback $7.99
ebook $6.99 Amazon, $8.99 publisher’s website

This book came out at the end of August. I’m still reading it, so this isn’t going to be a review of the whole book. That will come after I finish reading it. I am going to discuss John Campbell, Jr.’s classic “Who Goes There?”, which is the lead story and the inspiration for the anthology.

I’m also going to discuss H. P.. Lovecraft’s “At the Mountains of Madness”. That’s not the Lovecraft story in the book, btw. Davis chose “The Colour Out of Space”. Probably because it fit the theme better than AtMoM.

I have read somewhere, and it was long enough ago that I don’t recall where, that Campbell may have been inspired to write “Who Goes There?” after reading “At the Mountains of Madness” in Astounding Stories in 1936.

I don’t know if this is true, but there are some strong similarities between the stories. There are some key differences as well. Continue reading →

Some Thoughts on HPL, on the Occasion of His Birth

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Other than the Dublin Ghost Story Festival (which I can’t afford to attend), there’s not a lot happening this weekend of any significance. Which is fine, because there won’t be much to distract from observing HPL’s birthday today. I intend to read something by him later, provided both the two-legged and four-legged people in the house will leave me alone.

I thought I’d mark the occasion by sharing a few thoughts. It’s become particularly fashionable in recent years to bash the Gentleman From Providence. While this is nothing new, it seems to have gained momentum.

When I was younger, the most common complaint I heard was that Lovecraft’s prose was too purple. I didn’t pay that much attention to the criticism at the time because I was more into science fiction. It was only as my interest in fantasy began to eclipse my interest in SF that I really started getting into his work. I’ve always found his writing to be readable. While there is some merit to the complaints about Lovecraft’s style being outdated (which to a large degree boils down to matters of taste), they’re not a deal breaker for me. Continue reading →

In Observance of Henry S. Whitehead’s Birthday

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Henry S. Whitehead was born today, March 5, in 1882. He wrote a number of stories for Weird Tales during its early years before his untimely death in 1932. Much of his fiction focused on the Caribbean, where he was stationed for a number of years as a minister of the Episcopal Church. H. P. Lovecraft visited Whitehead for several weeks in 1931. He had a great respect for Whitehead as a person and as a writer.

To mark the occasion, I read “The People of Pan”, which was first published in the March 1929 issue of Weird Tales. The story is available in Voodoo Tales The Ghost Stories of Henry S. Whitehead. Continue reading →

Happy Birthday, Clark Ashton Smith

Hearing Whispers Out of the Dust

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Whispers Out of the Dust
David J. West
ebook $3.99, paperback $14.99

Take the Mormon settlement of the West, mix in some M. R. James and H. Russell Wakefield, throw in a healthy serving of H. P. Lovecraft and a dash of Robert E. Howard, stir in Native American lore, bake in the desert heat and wash down with a lake formed by a damn, and what you’re likely to come up with something that resembles Whispers Out of the Dust.

David J. West has begun to build a body of work in the subgenre known as the weird western, and his most recent book is a solid addition to the field. It’s also one of his most ambitious projects to date. (And I absolutely love that cover.)

St. Thomas, Nevada was settled by Mormon pioneers, but the area had been home to the Anasazi and other tribes long before. The Mormons, many of them anyway, moved away when they discovered they were in Nevada rather than Utah and Nevada wanted to collect several years of back taxes. Still, the town survived until the Hoover Dam was built, and the waters of Lake Mead covered it up.

That much is historical fact. What David does is add a dose of fantasy which he blends so smoothly that you find yourself believing things you know can’t really be so. (At least you don’t think so.) The footnotes (endnotes, really) certainly add to the feeling of verisimilitude. David includes a number of photos he’s taken, which give you an idea of what the area looks like. Continue reading →

A Review of Apotheosis

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Apotheosis
Jason Andrew, ed.
Simian Publishing
ebook $4.99 print $19.95

Okay, I’ve been putting off writing this review, but it’s time to put my nose to the grindstone and get it done. A few weeks ago, one of the contributors to this anthology, someone I’ve known for a while and consider a friend, asked me for a review. Since said contributor didn’t have access to a review copy, I went ahead and bought one. The theme of a world after the Elder Gods return has been done before in other anthologies, but I’ve never gotten around to reading any of them. It sounded intriguing.

Either I didn’t think things through, or I simply wasn’t the target audience for this anthology. The stories fell into three categories basically: those I liked, those I had no strong reaction to, and those I absolutely didn’t like. For me to like an anthology, most of the stories need to be in the first category. I didn’t find most of the stories to be to my liking, a condition that became more true the deeper I got into the book. I read it straight through over several days, which may have been part of the problem. I’ve been reading (and in my own fiction, writing) some pretty dark stuff lately; I could use a break. I suspect there are some stories I would have liked better if I’d read them separately from the others and mixed with other types of fiction.

Now an anthology that deals with the world after the Elder Gods return isn’t going to be filled with sweetness and light. H. P. Lovecraft made that clear. But too many of the stories struck me as unpleasant people doing unpleasant things to other unpleasant people. There wasn’t a lot of hope in many of the stories, and I think that was the problem I had with so much of the book. (Please note, there were a couple of stories with hopeful endings that didn’t work for me for other reasons.) But even if the odds are astronomically against the characters/humanity, I like there to be some element of not-giving-up.

So I debated on whether to even write the review. I don’t like writing bad reviews. My goal is not to trash someone’s work. I’ll point out flaws, but if I just don’t like something, or in the case of an anthology, don’t like most of the stories, I prefer to just read and review something else. But I had promised a review.

So here it is. I’m going to highlight the stories that worked for me. But I want to say a couple of things first. All of the stories are of professional level as far as the writing is concerned. The authors included in this book know how to write. Some of the best writers are the ones who wrote stories I didn’t like. After all, they got a strong reaction from me. While a particular story may not have been my cup of tea, some of the authors whose works made me want to go for the brain bleach are authors who I would be willing to read again. Because if they can get as strong a reaction from me in a positive way as they did a negative reaction, then that’s a story I’m going to want to read. Continue reading →

Take a Trip into A Lonely and Curious Country

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A Lonely and Curious Country
Matthew Carpenter, ed.
Ulthar Press
Trade Paper, 234 p., $16.95

As Matthew Carpenter points out in his introduction, Lovecraftian fiction has become a mainstay of the fantastic and weird fiction genres, with some of the best-written stories being published on a regular basis. A Lonely and Curious Country is no exception. (Mr. Carpenter didn’t say that, I did.)

The seventeen stories here are perfect examples of what’s going on in the admittedly large subfield of Lovecraftian fiction. They are disturbing, horrifying, Lovecraftian. In some the Lovecraftian element is quite prominent; in others, you don’t realize you’re in Lovecraft country until you’ve almost finished. I’m not going to try to give a one or two sentence summary of each one. Rather I’m going to focus on the ones that stood out to me. YMMV. One other thing before I start discussing the stories. Of the eighteen authors, I had only heard of three of them prior to reading this book (Webb, Price, and McNamee). There are a lot of good writers out there that I need to keep up with. Continue reading →

H. P. Lovecraft Turns 125 Today

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One of the greatest writers of weird fiction, some would the greatest, was born on August 20th, 1890. I am, of course, talking about H. P. Lovecraft. It’s also my mother-in-law’s birthday (Hi, June.), but we won’t go there. It’s just coincidence.

There will be a number of tributes posted today. I’m going to take a slightly different approach here. I first encountered Lovecraft in an anthology I read in the seventh grade. The story was “The Doom That Came to Sarnath.”* I never really took an interest in the Mythos stories in my teens and twenties. Only in my thirties and forties did I start delving into the stories Lovecraft is most known for.

I’ve had conversations with more than one person in which they said as they’ve grown older, they find Lovecraft more and more unreadable. In general, they are talking about his prose.

Curiously, I find the opposite. Maybe I’m reading different stories. There are a number of major stories I haven’t read yet, but I don’t have a problem with Lovecraft’s prose most of the time. It’s an old fashioned style, much more lush that what is standard today. Maybe I read too much Dickens in school or something, but I don’t have a huge problem with it. I appreciate his work more with each new story of his I read. Continue reading →

Guest Post: Discovering Lovecraft by Paul McNamee

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Keith here. What follows is a guest post by Paul McNamee. Normally I wouldn’t intrude but I wanted to include a link to Paul’s blog. Now here’s Paul.

(First, thanks to Keith for the guest spot on Adventures Fantastic.

I am here promoting the new anthology, A LONELY & CURIOUS COUNTRY: Tales from the Lands of Lovecraft. The book is currently available in print from Amazon, and we all hope an ebook is soon to follow.)

Honestly, I don’t remember exactly when or which Lovecraft book I read first. It was the “old days,” the latter half of the 1980s. I was in college. I was interested in horror – mostly by way of Stephen King. And I still had an interest in fantasy – mostly by way of J.R.R. Tolkien.

There was no world wide web. In those days, I never knew what books were coming out. I would wander – mostly in the scifi/fantasy section of the bookstore. I would grab what jumped off the shelf at me.

The Del Rey editions of Lovecraft’s work were appearing on the shelves. The Michael Whelan art certainly caught my eye.

I believe it was THE DOOM THAT CAME TO SARNATH first. It collected tales that were more dark fantasy. But there was enough horror there to pique my interest in that vein, too.

I probably read another volume, possibly THE DREAM-QUEST OF UNKNOWN KADATH. Again, it was slanted more toward the fantastic but contained horror tales as well.

But shortly thereafter, I read THE LURKING FEAR.
Continue reading →

New BAF Post on The Young Magicians

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I’ve got a new BAF post up at Black Gate.

This one is on The Young Magicians, the second anthology of the series that Lin Carter edited. It’s a companion to Dragons, Elves, and Heroes. This one starts at William Morris and continues up to what was then the present day (1969). Included are selections by Lovecraft, Smith, Howard, Kuttner, Merritt. and de Camp, as well as Lin Carter himself.