HP Lovecraft - Classic Or Dud?

Thread should be called: Classic or Jervas Dudley?

If only.

Random thought today -- Monty Python's "Galaxy Song" (ie Eric Idle's breezy song from The Meaning of Life about earth, the Milky Way, etc.) is near perfectly parallel to Lovecraft's world (well, universal) view. There's all the same sense of huge cosmic perspective and our infinitely small place in the scheme of it all but where Lovecraft put it all in stark mind-altering terms Idle goes for a hint of warm empathy plus outright snark with the final line. (See also Douglas Adams' Total Perspective Vortex for something that falls squarely between both extremes, actually.)

http://images.slashdot.org/articles/08/08/22/0242231-2.png

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/55/156586685_2815921b43.jpg

sorry, i know they are old but they still crack me up.

^always loved that first one.

"there are so many lovecraft collections out there...which are the essential ones to start with?"

Arkham editions are the best, but for a starter set, I always recommend Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre trade paperback with the complete Michael Whelan wraparound cover.

http://ebooks-imgs.connect.com/product/400/000/000/000/000/031/787/400000000000000031787_s4.jpg

(It's quite funny. I'm totally riffing on The Shadow Over Innsmouth" for my NaNoWriMo project, but HP Lovecraft is something totally new and unknown to the chick lit crowd, so I think I'm getting away with it.)

Maybe after the success of Pride And Prejudice And Zombies you could do things the other way round, and present us with The Dirty Drone Rock Boy Over Innsmouth.

...if I could get the chicklit world to accept Richard D. James as a romantic hero, I'd be all over this.

I think this should be possible - write about his lovely long hair being tussled by the wind, or something.

Surely you mean - "his lovely long tentacles, being tussled by the wind..."

"I stared into his watery and unblinking eyes".

"The vapid horrors that I glimpsed within I will have to leave for others to describe."

lol i saw the worst adaptation of the dunwich horror on syfy recently

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbWyUEKSVd0

Hey! Lovecraft fanatics.

Did the Deep Ones in the Shadow Over Innsmouth have an actual species or cultural name, apart from "Deep Ones"?

I think they're only called Deep Ones in the story, but is there anything else in the apocrypha?

Pretty sure they are only referred to as Deep Ones. "Residents of Y'ha-nthlei" is too cumbersome? Derleth may have grafted on some more backstory, but knowing him it's probably to give them more of a role as emissaries of Dagon and Hydra.

Well, Y'ha-nthleic Genetic Material is kind of a mouthful. I'm sticking to calling them Deep Ones, but I need something to call that... lineage.

I've had to work out a whole way to genetically handle the way they interbreed with humans. Because, technically, they must be only semi-compatible, like horses and donkeys, so their offspring might be sterile. I'm getting around that enough to get Y'ha-nthleic genetic material into my townspeople by making it gender-linked. Male hybrids are sterile, but female hybrids can interbreed with humans. (The gender of the offspring is really dependent on which sex chromosome was provided by the Y'ha-nthleic partner.)

See what I mean? It's complicated.

I had quite some... brain bending trying to figure out Cthulhu's genitalia, though. Seeing as squid sex really is quite icky. (I was listening to Aphex Twin at the time, so I decided to give him a Calyx, like a flower.)

new trailer for the new film!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd5gWGfnK5M

these are the same guys who did the excellent period adaptation of Call of Cthulhu

my fav lovecraft story!

I was in a used bookstore last weekend when this guy comes in and walks up to the counter.

Guy: Do you have any titleless books?
Owner: Excuse me?
Guy: Titleless books. Do you have anything in the back room or in storage that has no name or you just don't know what it is?
Owner's wife: Oh, I thought you said Titleist books - like a book about golf balls!
Owner: That's what I thought too! No, we don't have anything like that here. Is there something specific I could help you try to find?
Guy: I'm looking for the Necronomicon.
Owner: The Necronomicon? What is that?
Guy: It's a rare book. There are only supposed to be 3 copies in all the world. It's rumored that one is in The British Museum in London.
Owner: Hmm...well, do you know the author?
Guy: Well, it's referenced in the works of H.P. Lovecraft.
Owner: Oh, Lovecraft! I think he's a horror writer.
Owner's wife: Ooooo...
Owner: But you don't know who the actual author of the book is?

The guy didn't know who wrote the Necromonicon and so the best the shop owner could do was to guide him gently over to the horror and fantasy paperbacks, where there was mostly some Stephen King and Anne Rice.

Dude leaves and walks back in the door about 5 minutes later: "It turns out that the Necronomicon is a fictional book that H.P. Lovecraft made up for his stories."

Phew. I was worried for a second there.

ahahaha no way thats brilliant

They spent a minute or two trying to determine who the author could be and the whole time I was biting my tongue, because I wanted more than anything in the world to jump out from behind the shelves and yell "I've heard it was written the 'Mad Arab' Abdul Alhazrad!" then cackle and run out the door.

You should have gone the distance and then be devoured by invisible demons. (That might sting a bit, true.)

i have two anthologies of short stories but only scraped the surface. read "Dagon" and "the nameless city" so far.

but seriously kkvg, that's the best story. i wish you'd said something.

It is an amazing story.

"Morning. Just wondering - got any books knocking about the back bound in an unusual leather that might at first be mistaken for pigskin, or that drive you mad if you gaze upon the contents?"

I mean he could have bothered his arse looking up the ISBN no at least?

978-0380751921

There. Not hard, was it?

too bad they didn't have the 70s paperback version in stock. here ya go...

some nerd in my high school performed "The Conjuration of the Fire God" for his AP English class project.

That was before he founded Tool, yes?

nah that's the 1995 july re-issue necromnicon, not worth a damn that one, doesn't even have the original illustrations iirc

i wish you'd said something.

I was waiting for the shop owner to issue me store credit for two boxes of books that I'd brought in and didn't want to jeopardize my chance at $20.

lol i remember seeing a 'necronomicon' in a book store in nyc last time i was there (it was just some kind of humanitarian joke book though)

was inspired by this thread to look at some cthulhu mythos websites and oh god this is golden

http://www.mythostomes.com/content/view/85/1/

highlights:

The Book of Old Ones,” by “Scorpio,” is a small, sixty-seven page grimoire which utilizes the Cthulhu Mythos of H. P. Lovecraft. The book treats the Old Ones, horrifying god-monsters from beyond reality, as helpful house-elves. The thrust of the book is that Mythos abominations can be invoked easily to conveniently solve all sorts of common, every-day problems. For those of you expecting a sanity-shattering book of evil, this is not it

The tome begins with a brief introduction explaining the Mythos, and Scorpio's system of magic. This introduction makes it clear that Scorpio did not do his homework when it comes to the Mythos he bases his belief system upon. He links the Old Ones to the four elements as Derleth did, something Lovecraft never would have done. He also attributes the discredited “black magic” quote to Lovecraft.

The book then describes “the ritual of the Old Ones,” which will help you “align yourself with the magical power of the Old Ones.” This seems like a really bad idea. Why would any sane person want to get closer to what Lovecraft called “abysms of shrieking and immemorial lunacy?”

I'm not sure if this book is supposed to be taken seriously. It reads like a parody in places. I mean, “The Deep Ones Helped Kevin N. Regain His Lost Virility?” "How the Byakhee can bring love into your life?" Can this be serious? Channeling servitors of Nyarlathotep to write a self-help book? The end result would be something like "The Book of Old Ones."

When I feel stressed out, I call on my spirit animal, the black goat with 1000 young.

did you try amazon?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Necronomicon-Weird-Fiction-Lovecraft-Gollancz/dp/0575081562

(and hammersmith whsmith has a copy.)

http://chud.com/articles/articles/24627/1/DEL-TORO-TO-FINALLY-CLIMB-THE-MOUNTAINS-OF-MADNESS/Page1.html

would watch

Yup

a much better use of his talents than this new Haunted Mansion movie. looking forward to it.

http://muzski.darkfolio.com/gallery/470268

Thanks, those are great!

ho ho, blocked as potential nudity by my work overlords.

No nudity, only shadows out of time.

Also, The Monsters of H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, As Drawn By Children: http://www.comicsalliance.com/2010/11/16/children-draw-h-p-lovecraft-cthulhu/

if ilx had avatars

http://i52.tinypic.com/keuesy.png

http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond/2011/07/h-p-lovecrafts-commonplace-book/

i found some of those obscurely moving e.g. Man with unnatural face—oddity of speaking—found to be a mask—Revelation.

148 Vampire dog.

haha