HP Lovecraft - Classic Or Dud?

btw does anyone have any DUNSANY recommendations

its that time of year to be reading rad horror/fantasy stories

in the land of time collection has pretty much every dunsany story u need i think

dunsay was a little too... for me.

too HARD 4 u

"dunsay" wtf

lol ian i feel the same way abt lovecraft tbh just...

i can feel that. sometimes he's a little much, but when he's on it's really fucking on.

and i love reading his letters. there are five large volumes + ephemera and it's really interesting reading.

i do want to read houellebecq's (who can also be too ott) book on him tho which i read about in the nyrb

kind of o_O that max missed the u dunsay joke - too easy?

too involved in baseball atm

houellebecq wishes he was as bizarrely racist and xenophobic as lovecraft can but its all positioning for him instead of genuine visceral disgust at non-WASPs--he just comes across as a poseur

trying not to think about baseball atm

excerpts of houllebecq i read in bookstores seemed sub-literotica.com at best.

its all positioning for him instead of genuine visceral disgust at non-WASPs--he just comes across as a poseur

idk i genuinely believe he wants to fuck hot teenagers and is disgusted w/anyone who wants to prevent this from happening pretty sure thats not a pose tbh

stop projecting!!

if holloubecq were actually hardcore the way he thinks he is he would be disgusted at the thought of sex and female genetalia

lol if holloubecq were as hardcore as he thinks/fronts hed be writing unformatted rapefic on alt.sci.cyborgstories. or hed be vladimir sorokin i think. all this aside id still like to read that book on lovecraft he wrote *shrug*

any 'serious' lovecraft criticism is probably worth reading to be honest. never seen the hollebecqueeeue around though.

haha max's wasp love knows no bounds

Are S.T. Joshi's books good?

Joshi has made himself into the major academic authority on Lovecraft over the years. He has his quirks, but he's thorough, professional and I think the fact that HPL is being taken increasingly seriously outside the world of fandom is down to his efforts.

Anyway, the hell with Holloubecq, check out W. H. Pugmire for a really original take on the mythos.

the hooleybeck book is terrible, i think: can't really remember why i thought that, though

other than because it's terrible

I posted this on a Jack Chick thread, didn't get much response:
http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=135

I find it hilarious.

Lovecraft shouldn't need to be patronized by hip literary nazis to be cool.

There's a fairly cool Charles Stross story called "A Colder War" that's actually meant to be his version of a direct sequel to "At the Mountains of Madness" It updates the Lovecraftian madness within the context of the different madness of the Cold War. Here it is: http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/colderwar.htm

Stross also has a couple of novels set in a similar setting: "The Atrocity Archives"; which explicitly goes into the Nazi occultist/Cthulhu which is obvious a connection to make as anyone has ever thought of. And "The Jennifer Morgue" which deals with the fallout from the Cold War

There a Bruce Sterling story in his "Globalhead" collection called "The Unthinkable" which goes over the same ground as "A Colder War", admittedly with not as apocalyptic a conclusion...

Stross knows his HPL and is a thoroughly righteous dude. Buy his books.

I met him many, many years ago at a student sf convention at Leeds Uni. I suspect he, like the rest of us, has mellowed with age. :)

Dunsany is very, very twee. Too much for me, anyway. But he influenced all the best people.

Clark Ashton Smith and Arthur Machen seem to be the what-to-read-after-HPL recommendations these days. But I've only read a couple of CAS stories and no Machen.

Michel Hollaback just sounds too damn annoying and k-punk-worthy.

Read Machen, jon! The Great God Pan & The White People are the places to start imo.

Oh dude I do plan to. I expect big things.

Worth mentioning from our own era-- Thomas fuckin Ligotti.

Ligotti is great - "Grimscribe" is as perfect a collection of weird ficton as you'll find.

As for Dunsany. the Fantasy Masterworks collection "Time and the Gods" is about much Dunsany as anyone needs, and yours for less than a tenner. Yes, it's twee and fey and all the rest of it, but there is an absolute bleak cynicism at it's core which redeems all his excesses.

And, again, W.H. Pugmire is the greatest writer currently active in this genre. The Cthulhu mythos from the drag queen's point of view. Incredible.

Yeah, Ligotti rules. Shadow At the Bottom of the World is the only one I've been able track down for cheap, though. Anyone read the newish one, the "tales of corporate horror" or whatever?

I'll check out Pugmire. Any place I should start?

My only Dunsany contact came from was on a podcast. It was kind of goofy; I think I'd like him more if I was actually reading. The one Machen story I read was pretty good, same for CA Smith.

How do people rate Algernon Blackwood? I know Lovecraft himself loved him, but that seems to be the only time anyone ever mentions him. I have a collection I read a bit of in high school, and don't really remember it (although the version of The Wendigo I read in one of those "Scary Stories" books as a kid still gives me chills when I think about it).

Is Shadow At The Bottom Of The World a real recent Ligotti? Because in the 00's he has actually started to get too deeply depressing for me to handle, really.

It's not just depressing so much as dull - since Nightmare Factory, he's been proselytizing for a kind of philosophical nihilism and it's just as sad and boring as if he'd taken up Scientology.

That's a good way to put it.

How do people rate Algernon Blackwood? I know Lovecraft himself loved him, but that seems to be the only time anyone ever mentions him. I have a collection I read a bit of in high school, and don't really remember it (although the version of The Wendigo I read in one of those "Scary Stories" books as a kid still gives me chills when I think about it).

That's one of the keepers, the other is "The Willows," which is subtler but no less unnerving. After that, a bit pick-and-choose.

Then there's M. R. James, my eternal favorite of the time (and Joshi's least favorite out of that generation).

xpost Shadow at the Bottom is just sort of a greatest hits package, I think.

agreed on Ligotti's nihilist hardman fronting, although I thought it worked well in his intro to Roland Topor's The Tenant.

MR James be born be born

Yog Sothoth rape me lord

Sludge Hai Choi etc etc

Co-sign on "The Willows" and M. R. James.

Le Fanu and Oliver Onions also come to mind as go-to guys for creeping dread.

I don't always have the patience for Le Fanu, but he's got some great stuff. I really love the one about the guy who gets to close to the spirit world on account of drinking too much green tea. And "Carmilla", of course.

Will check out Oliver Onions.

*too close, gah

which ligotti (non lol comics) do u guys rec?

If you can find the Robinson "Nightmare Factory" story anthology, that's the best starter. I don't have "Shadow at the Bottom of the World", but it looks pretty good.

If you like Lovecraft, and want more, try Clark Ashton Smith (The fantasy masterworks collection is great) and William Hope Hodgson ('The House on the Borderland' and 'Carnacki', though approach everything else with caution.)

Another good collection of Lovecraftian stories is Ramsey Campbell's Cold Print.

I'm just reading what Ligotti I can find at the mo, which is only the most recent stuff: Teatro Grotesco & My Work is Not Yet Done (the corporate horror one). Finding it terrific, sort of awkward - the nihilism is ok with me, like he's plugging into 20th century Euro misery, but then that pushes towards a bit of lecturing or social comment or moments of style where he's doing say Thomas Bernhard, which breaks any uncanny or immersive thing going on. But so far TG is successful enough to be unsettling & impressive; and MWINYD guns along a little more, seems less hung up on its literariness. I'd like to read more, the earlier stuff especially.

I figure he'll be hailed with 'omg it's horror but proper literature' by establishment types over the next while. Is this happening already? (not really in England, where I don't think he's been published much till recently).

Anyone have that collection of letters by/to Lovecraft?
Does it include his crazy jew-paranoia screeds from when he was in New York City?

Ditto on the Nightmare Factory recommendation for Ligotti, or if not that, Grimscribe.

Vicerory-- Arkham house published five (i think?) volumes of his selected leters. I have one of them. While I can't think of any particular notes about New York & race mixing, there is iirc an expression of appreciation of eugenics and his belief that white europeens are superior to people with other skin colors and/or skull shapes.

the guy was obsessed with skull shape.