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Category: H.P. Lovecraft

Adventures In Straw Polls: Fear, Lovecraft, and Me

Adventures In Straw Polls: Fear, Lovecraft, and Me

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howard_philips_lovecraft_by_harsht-d48pzaoOnce upon a time, H.P. Lovecraft, he of the vaunted Cthulhu party set, set down his principles for crafting scary stories. He opined that terror is the oldest and most basic emotion available to humankind, and then went further, stating that those things unknown to we mortals are that which are most fearsome. His exact phrase, from the essay “Supernatural Horror In Literature,” (last revised 1935) reads: “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”

I disagree.

So far as I can discern, it’s the fear of what is known (or at least readily imagined) that is most terrifying. For example, being wounded and then dismembered by a lunatic straight out of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Hostel, or being attacked by a shark while swimming.

Curiously enough, I’m getting set to either torpedo or defend this idea in public. I’ve been asked to be on a panel at April 25th’s Ohioana Book Festival in Columbus, Ohio. The panel topic is “Horror, Suspense, and the Supernatural,” and my fellow panelists include Julie Flanders, Debra Robinson, and all-around horror vet Tim Waggoner, with whom I share a publisher (Samhain).

Some brave audience member is sure to ask “What is horror, anyway?” even though “What isn’t horror?” might make for a better question, and then they’ll move on to asking about how authors scare people. Our tricks and devices. Do we, for example, rely on the known or the unknown to conjure our effects?

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Future Treasures: New Cthulhu 2 edited by Paula Guran

Future Treasures: New Cthulhu 2 edited by Paula Guran

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New Cthulhu 2-smallLast month I did a quick survey of Prime Books, looking at 24 volumes in their recent catalog. And an impressive lot it was, too (and trust me when I tell you, after 20 years in this industry, I don’t impress easily.)

One of the more intriguing books in their catalog was Paula Guran’s anthology New Cthulhu: The Recent Weird, which my kids bought me for my birthday last year (Isn’t that sweet? I have children who give me anthologies of Lovecraftian horror to celebrate my birth. Just nod and agree, it’s better for everyone.) It contained no less than 27 Cthulhu Mythos tales, all written this century, including stories from Neil Gaiman, Charles Stross, Marc Laidlaw, Laird Barron, Paul McAuley — and even Michael Shea’s chilling novelette “Tsathoggua,” first published right here at Black Gate.

So I was very pleased to see that a follow up volume, New Cthulhu 2: More Recent Weird, with stories from Laird Barron, Caitlín R. Kiernan, John Langan, John Shirley, Simon Strantzas, Helen Marshall, Michael Shea, Carrie Vaughn, Charles Stross and many others, is on the schedule for later this month.

Here’s the book description:

Many of the best weird fiction writers (and creators in most other media) have been profoundly influenced by the genre and the mythos H.P. Lovecraft created eight decades ago. Lovecraft’s themes of cosmic indifference, minds invaded by the alien, and the horrors of history – written with a pervasive atmosphere of unexplainable dread – are more relevant than ever as we explore the mysteries of a universe in which our planet is infinitesimal and climatic change is overwhelming it. A few years ago, New Cthulhu : The Recent Weird presented some of the best of this new Lovecraftian fiction from the first decade of the twenty-first century. Now, New Cthulhu 2: More Recent Weird brings you more eldritch tales and even fresher fiction inspired by Lovecraft.

And here’s the complete Table of Contents.

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New Treasures: Jazz Age Cthulhu by Jennifer Brozek, A.D. Cahill, and Orrin Grey

New Treasures: Jazz Age Cthulhu by Jennifer Brozek, A.D. Cahill, and Orrin Grey

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Jazz Age Cthulhu-smallI like these Innsmouth Free Press folks. They’ve done some impressive work recently, including Nick Mamatas’ collection The Nickronomicon, Love & Other Poisons by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, and the anthology Future Lovecraft — not to mention the ongoing Innsmouth Magazine, edited by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Paula R. Stiles, which has produced fifteen issues so far.

Jazz Age Cthulhu is a handsome paperback containing three brand new novelettes inspired by Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, set against the background of the Roaring Twenties, by Jennifer Brozek, A.D. Cahill, and Orrin Grey.

Journey to Kansas City, the “Paris of the Plains,” a city of glamor and sin where cults, secret societies and music intermingle. Visit Assam, India, where a British dilettante wakes up one morning covered in bruises and welts, with a dead man in her bed and no memory of what happened in the last 24 hours. Her only clue is a trashed invitation to the exclusive Black Ram Club. Relax on the resort island of Pomptinia, an Italian enclave of wealthy socialites, expats and intellectuals. But beware — the sea conceals dark secrets.

We last covered Innsmouth Free Press with their anthology Sword & Mythos, edited by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Paula R. Stiles. We covered Jennifer Brozek’s collection Apocalypse Girl Dreaming back in October, and her heroic fantasy anthology Shattered Shields, co-edited with Bryan Thomas Schmidt, in September.

Jazz Age Cthulhu was published by Innsmouth Free Press on December 15, 2014. It is 146 pages, priced at $10 for the trade paperback and just $3.99 for the digital edition.

See all of our recent New Treasures posts here.

Who Should Be Writing the Cthulhu Mythos Today? Announcing the Winners of Weirder Shadows Over Innsmouth

Who Should Be Writing the Cthulhu Mythos Today? Announcing the Winners of Weirder Shadows Over Innsmouth

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Weirder Shadows Over Innsmouth-small2Three weeks ago we invited Black Gate readers to win a copy of the new Lovecraft-inspired anthology Weirder Shadows Over Innsmouth, by suggesting who should be writing Lovecraftian horror today.

To make it challenging, all entries had to be a single sentence.

We received a near-record number of entries for this contest, too many to print here. But I’ve selected 20 of the more interesting, and reproduced them below.

Two winners were randomly drawn from a list of all qualified entries, and those two lucky readers will both receive a copy of Stephen Jones’s new horror anthology Weirder Shadows Over Innsmouth, on sale now in trade paperback and digital formats from Titan Books.

First up is Jeffery Helms:

The writer I would most like to see write a Lovecraftian horror story today is Scott Snyder, whose comic work has elements of history, folklore, myths, and horror.

That’s certainly a fascinating choice. Scott Snyder’s work on American Vampire and Batman has garnered a lot of attention, and I’d like to see what he could do in Lovecraft’s back yard, too.

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New Treasures: Cthulhu Lives!, edited by Salomé Jones

New Treasures: Cthulhu Lives!, edited by Salomé Jones

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Cthulhu Lives-smallI don’t know much about Ghostwood Books, but I know they produce attractive books. They have a small but intriguing back catalog, including the story cycle/anthology Red Phone Box, with contributions from Warren Ellis and Salomé Jones, and Marion Grace Woolley’s Iranian historical fantasy Those Rosy Hours at Mazandaran.

Jones has assembled a diverse array of contributors for her new anthology Cthulhu Lives!, including Michael Grey, Tim Dedopulos, G. K. Lomax, and many others. There’s also an afterword by Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi. Here’s the book description.

“That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die.”

At the time of his death in 1937, American horror writer H.P. Lovecraft was virtually unknown. The power of his stories was too vast to contain, however. As the decades slipped by, his dark visions laid down roots in the collected imagination of mankind, and they grew strong. Now Cthulhu is a name known to many and, deep under the seas, Lovecraft’s greatest creation becomes restless…

This volume brings together seventeen masterful tales of cosmic horror inspired by Lovecraft’s work. In his fiction, humanity is a tiny, accidental drop of light and life in the vast darkness of an uncaring universe a darkness populated by vast, utterly alien horrors. Our continued survival relies upon our utter obscurity, something that every fresh scientific wonder threatens to shatter.

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Historical Cthulhu: That Is Not Dead, edited by Darrell Schweitzer

Historical Cthulhu: That Is Not Dead, edited by Darrell Schweitzer

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That Is Not Dead-smallAccording to H.P. Lovecraft’s legendary canon of cosmic horror tales, the Great Old Ones such as Cthulhu, Nyarlathotep, Yog Sothoth, and all-mighty Azathoth have lurked in the dim places of the cosmos since the beginning of time.

“That is not dead,” wrote the mad poet Abdul Alhazred, “which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die.” One of Lovecraft’s most famous lines is the inspiration for a new hardcover volume of historical Cthulhu Mythos fiction from PS Publishing.

That is Not Dead features all-new tales of cosmic horror set in various periods of history. Here’s what editor/contributor Darrell Schweitzer had to say about the book:

That is Not Dead is a collection of Mythos stories, based on the premise that if the Old Ones have been around since elder aeons, someone should have noticed before Lovecraft’s characters did about 1900. The theme then is lurking presences. Inasmuch as the stories deal with history, it is secret history, i.e. “what really happened…”

Here’s the complete Table of Contents (by historical era).

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New Treasures: Trail of Cthulhu: Mythos Expeditions from Pelgrane Press

New Treasures: Trail of Cthulhu: Mythos Expeditions from Pelgrane Press

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Mythos Expeditions-smallI honestly don’t know why no one has done this before: created an anthology of Cthulhu-based RPG adventures based around dangerous expeditions to the four corners of the earth.

Pelgrane Press does absolutely top-notch game products. The production values are excellent, the art is terrific, and the writing is marvelous. Mythos Expeditions was released to support their Trail of Cthulhu role playing game earlier this year; I bought a copy as soon as it became available and I haven’t been disappointed.

Bon voyage! You are about to depart on ten journeys into the unknown, following the trail of Cthulhu to isolated Pacific islands, into the icy wastes of the Arctic, through jungles and war zones and even off the Earth itself. In the blank spaces of the map, dark deities flourish and evil festers… but the truth waits to be discovered, secret knowledge that man may not be meant to know but that Miskatonic University covets. Into that mystery your Investigators go, armed with gun and camera and notebook, risking their own survival to keep those blank spaces from swallowing up the world. Hurry on board — the gangplank is going up!

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New Treasures: The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by H. P. Lovecraft and I. N. J. Culbard

New Treasures: The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by H. P. Lovecraft and I. N. J. Culbard

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The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath-smallIn January of this year, I reviewed I.N.J. Culbard’s graphic novel adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s At The Mountains of Madness. And I loved it.

Since then, Culbard has produced several additional Lovecraft volumes, including comic adaptations of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and The Shadow Out of Time. And while I was at my local comic shop on Saturday, buying D&D dice for my kids, I spotted another one in the new arrivals rack: The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, a thick 144-page adaption of one of H.P. Lovecraft’s lesser-known fantasies.

Three times Randolph Carter dreamed of the marvelous city, and three times was he snatched away while still he paused on the high terrace above it.” Randolph Carter embarks on an epic quest across a world beyond the wall of sleep, in search of an opulent and mysterious sunset city. When he prays to the gods of dream to reveal the whereabouts of this magical city, they do not answer, and his dreams stop altogether. Undaunted, Carter resolves to go to Kadath, where the gods live, and beseech them in person. However, no one has ever been to Kadath, and no one even knows how to get there — but that won’t stop Randolph Carter from trying.

While The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath is not as celebrated as some of Lovecraft’s more famous work, it is highly regarded by many of his most dedicated fans. It’s also received several high-profile graphics adaptions in the last few years, including a gorgeous hardcover edition from P.S. Publishing (part of their new Pulps Library), and a Kickstarter-funded graphic novel from artist Jason Bradley Thompson. (And if you insist on going old school, of course, there’a also the Ballantine Adult Fantasy paperback.)

The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath was published by SelfMadeHero on November 18, 2014. It is 144 pages, priced at $19.95. There is no digital edition.

The Doom That Came to Lovecraft

The Doom That Came to Lovecraft

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santhulhuI turned 45 right before Halloween and once again I feel the cold claws of senescence tighten their grip around my throat. I used to pride myself on my memory, which, while not truly “photographic” – assuming such a thing even exists – was always extremely keen. Note that that I said “was.” Lately, I’m finding it harder and harder to keep the details of my wasted youth straight in my mind.

A good case in point concerns when I first encountered the writings of H.P. Lovecraft. I know for certain that it was after I first started playing Dungeons & Dragons, but before Chaosium released its Lovecraft-inspired RPG, Call of Cthulhu. That suggests, then, the likeliest date is sometime in 1980, since, by then, I’d not only have acquired a copy of Gary Gygax’s masterwork, the Dungeon Masters Guide, whose Appendix N cited HPL as one of “the most immediate influences upon AD&D,” but had also made the acquaintance of older players who frequently extolled the virtues of pulp literature to my friends and I.

What I do remember is that, at the time, the very name “Lovecraft” sounded fantastical to me. I almost couldn’t accept that it was a real name, since I’d never heard of anyone with such a moniker before. This probably contributed greatly to the reverence in which I’d later hold his writings, a reverence that has only increased as I’ve grown older and had occasion to read and re-read his stories countless times.

What I also remember was that, not long after learning about the Gentleman from Providence, I rushed to my local library to find copies of his “books,” not yet realizing that most of his output consisted of short stories. What I found were battered copies of some of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy collections, along with the Scholastic Book Services edition of The Shadow over Innsmouth and Other Stories of Horror. The latter had a lasting effect on my imagination, thanks to its creepily comical depiction of a spectral inhabitant of the titular New England town. From then on, Lovecraft’s creations struck a powerful chord with me and, as I later learned, with so many of my fellow gamers. They were the epitome of horror.

How times have changed.

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New Treasures: World War Cthulhu, edited by Brian M. Sammons and Glynn Owen Barrass

New Treasures: World War Cthulhu, edited by Brian M. Sammons and Glynn Owen Barrass

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World War Cthulhu-smallApril Moon Books released Brian M. Sammons’s terrific anthology The Dark Rites of Cthulhu back in May, so when I heard word of his newest, World War Cthulhu, edited with Glynn Owen Barrass, I was very intrigued. World War Cthulhu is a huge and ambitious anthology of original Cthulhu Mythos fiction from some of the hottest talents in the field, including Stephen Mark Rainey, Robert M. Price, Neil Baker, C.J. Henderson, Edward Morris, Darrell Schweitzer, Tim Curran, Jeffrey Thomas, and Josh Reynolds. It was funded by a cloud-funding campaign that successfully concluded back in April; the book has now been delivered in multiple formats — including a deluxe format that includes a color plate accompanying each story. Check out some of the fabulous artwork at the Dark Regions Press website.

The world is at war against things that slink and gibber in the darkness, and titans that stride from world to world, sewing madness and death. War has existed in one form or another since the dawn of human civilization, and before then, Elder terrors battled it out across this planet and this known universe in ways unimaginable.

It has always been a losing battle for our side since time began. Incidents like the Innsmouth raid, chronicled by H.P. Lovecraft, mere blips of victory against an insurmountable foe. Still we fight, against these incredible odds, in an unending nightmare, we fight, and why? For victory, for land, for a political ideal? No, mankind fights for survival.

Our authors, John Shirley, Mark Rainey, Wilum Pugmire, William Meikle, Tim Curran, Jeffrey Thomas and many others have gathered here to share war stories from the eternal struggle against the darkness. This book chronicles these desperate battles from across the ages, including Roman Britain, The American Civil War, World War Two, The Vietnam Conflict, and even into the far future.

Note: as far as I can determine, there’s no connection between this anthology and the World War Cthulhu fiction anthology edited by Jonathan Oliver and released in December of last year by Cubicle 7 Entertainment, based on their RPG of the same name. World War Cthulhu: A Collection of Lovecraftian War Stories was published by Dark Regions Press on August 14, 2014. It is 358 pages, priced at $17.95 in trade paperback, and $5.99 for the digital edition.