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HP Lovecraft fans?

Abdul Alhazred

Philosopher
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Sep 4, 2003
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Do you like the works of HP Lovecraft?

There is a link to lots of good information including many of his works on line HERE

If you've never read him, I recommend you start with The Call of Cthulhu. It's not his first or necessarily his best, but it's the most well-known and in some way the most typical.

There are two kinds of hard-core Lovecraft fans. Folks like me who think that it's the most screamingly funny send-up of woo-wooism ever, and hard-core woo-woos who don't know when they are being got at.

For a description of such woo-woos see THIS.

I have no connection with the linked site besides liking it.
 
I'm a big Lovecraft fan; note ol' squidface in my avatar. My personal favorite story is probably the Color out of Space. It's not necessarily his best work story-wise, but stylistically it's hard to top.

-Uther
 
Uther said:
I'm a big Lovecraft fan; note ol' squidface in my avatar. My personal favorite story is probably the Color out of Space. It's not necessarily his best work story-wise, but stylistically it's hard to top.

-Uther
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I think my opinion of Lovecraft is pretty self evident, given my screenname and avatar.

Another good work for first time Lovecraft readers is The Dunwich Horror. It is structured a bit more like a conventional horror story than many of Lovecrafts other works, but still has a lot of elements that are Typical Lovecraft. I think that this makes it a bit more accessible than some of his other works, and a good bridge between conventional horror fiction and his weirder stuff.
 
I've come to enjoy Lovecraft. The Mr. has been a huge fan of his for a long time. "The Dunwich Horror" is a great story to start with, I agree. It's the one the Mr. gave me to read, and it got me hooked.

Right now I'm reading a collection of all the Dream Cycle stories, "Dreams of Terror and Death". It's kind of cool to read them all together like this. One of my favorites of these is "The Doom That came to Sarnath". It reads as quite a cautionary tale.

Lovecraft does seem to attract quite a few nuts. The Mr. and I aren't among them, but we do know some personally. We haven't had the heart to tell them about Chthulu - or Santa, for that matter.
 
I preferred "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" and "The Shadow Over Innsmouth".

The most Lovecraftian lovecraft story must be "The Un-nameable" - practically a send up of his own powers of description (ie grab a bag of melodramatic adjectives and pour). (Make that a BIG bag).

I did know someone at University that thought a friend of his had a Greek copy of the Necronomicon!!! Wouldn't believe it was a hoax, kept looking at me as if I was mad!

Now comes the real test - who's played the roleplaying game?
 
Giz said:

Now comes the real test - who's played the roleplaying game?
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Me, though the rest of my gaming group didn't like it so we only played it a few times. The final straw came, I think, when one of my players went insane, decided that the rest of the group was monsters in disguise and grabbed the groups only gun (a high powered hunting rifle) and blew everyone else away.
 
The REAL big question is, who has read any of the Cthulhu mythos stories by authors other than Lovecraft, such as August Derleth.

I have read a few, but so far, none have been as good. A couple of Derleths stories were passable, but most were Cr@p
 
Love the Mythos - I have plush Cthulhu overlooking the office. I also made some "Cthulhu Tested - Mother Approved" magnets I when I used to work in a sign shop.

Derleth is boring, tho'.
 
The big problem with Derleth is that he turns the unknowable (aliens? whatever?) into elementals. And then assumes there are counter balancing (Good-aligned) Elder Gods. Jeez, talk about not quite sharing Lovecrafts vision of a fragile humanity alone in a dark universe with no protectors, where what we term sanity is really ignorance.
 
I've NPCed a one shot Live Cthulhu role playing game. Pretty interesting. The best part was one of the players was playing John Edward, who started to see some of his phony mediumship skills becomming real. I got to play the spirit of the Mad Arab that he contacted. The best advice for his predicament? Kill yourself now!


Quote from MST3K

Crow: I one time had a Call of Cthulhu character that survived three whole days!

Tom: Oh please, that was only because you hid all the dice.

Crow: I know, but he lived three whole days!!
 
Been a fan of ol' HP for many years. One of my faves is The Lurker at the Threshhold...Possibly due to the fact that I read it alone down in the country, with the accompanyment of bullfrogs and whipporwills....(read to see why!)

Several of Lovecraft's stories were adapted for TV, mostly the the Night Gallery. I recall them doing Pickman's Model, for one.

For some reason, in the numerous film adaptations, they kept changing titles around. As I recall, they did The Case of Charles Dexter Ward with Vincent Price, but titled it something different. (The Dunwich Horror?)


I created a series of small, impressionistic sculptures based on the Mythos, and whenever I show em' at local art shows, I get a lot of confused looks and questions. I even made up an information sheet to go with em'. The only one I've sold to date is a recreation of the figurine that's central to "The Call of Cthulu".

Most sci-fi and horror writers have at least taken a stab at a Mythos story, one of my favorites is T.E.D. Klien, who wrote a couple of stories and one novel, The Ceremonies. It's out of print, according to Amazon, but available from libraries.
 
Bikewer said:
information sheet to go with em'. The only one I've sold to date is a recreation of the figurine that's central to "The Call of Cthulu".
[/B]
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If it is the Bronze of Cthulu on the dias w/ all the glyphs & the nasty green patinia, I now own it... :D
I'm a big fan of the mythos, except for anything written by Lumley (he really lost HPL's concepts) My favorites are "The Temple", "The strange tale of Arthur Jermyn" & "the shadow over Innsmouth", & yes, I play COC...
 
Neil Gaiman did a few bits of Mythos Stuff that works pretty well, as far as non-Lovecraft stuff goes. I think their in his Smoke and Mirrors short story collection.
-LF
 
Ravenwood said:

If it is the Bronze of Cthulu on the dias w/ all the glyphs & the nasty green patinia, I now own it... :D
I'm a big fan of the mythos, except for anything written by Lumley (he really lost HPL's concepts) My favorites are "The Temple", "The strange tale of Arthur Jermyn" & "the shadow over Innsmouth", & yes, I play COC...
Click to expand...

The Strange Tale of Arthur Jermyn and especially The Shadow Over Innsmouth are my favorites, even though these are not strictly part of the Cthulu mythos.

Never heard of the role playing game, but that sort of thing doesn't appeal to me anyway. Still, somehow I like the fact that it exists.
 
Nyarlathotep said:


Me, though the rest of my gaming group didn't like it so we only played it a few times. The final straw came, I think, when one of my players went insane, decided that the rest of the group was monsters in disguise and grabbed the groups only gun (a high powered hunting rifle) and blew everyone else away.
Click to expand...
I hate my first post to this board to be pedantic like this, but I just have to point out the use of the word player above where you probably meant character.

The humor in one of the players going insane and blowing everyone else away is just too much to ignore given that you're playing Call of Cthulhu. Of course, if you're still around to tell the story, then who else could have done it? *backing away slowly*

Oh, and so this isn't totally off topic, I too am a big fan of Lovecraft's work. I think I'll have to go with "The Dunwich Horror" as my favorite for now.
 
Giz said:
...snip...

Now comes the real test - who's played the roleplaying game?
Click to expand...

shamefacedly raises hand...

Not just played it, mind you, but....







DM-ed it.
And added mythos references to other systems. Like WhiteWolf...
 
Somewhere back in all the discussion, the question of tribute or pastiche stories was raised. Has anyone seen Shadow Over Baker Street yet? Lovecraft's Great Old Ones meet Sherlock Holmes. I read over some of it at Borders (yes, I am that cheap...) tonight and some of it's actually very good. Neil Gaiman starts out with a rousing tale called "A Study in Emerald", which has some not unexpected plot twists.

Derleth is kind of a love/hate case for me; I have to respect the fact that he carried the torch when the Elder Gentleman from Providence wasn't known and popular, however, the Great Old Ones/ Elder Gods clash is not protypical good v. evil. I would give several body parts for one copy of The Outsider and Others, with the distinctive black and gold Arkham House cover, but that's about as likely as walking into a used bookstore and finding a strangely bound copy of an old Arabic text that translates itself... heh...
 
Candace said:


shamefacedly raises hand...

Not just played it, mind you, but....







DM-ed it.
And added mythos references to other systems. Like WhiteWolf...
Click to expand...

Oh!

Did any of your characters go insane? :D :D :D :D
 
Bikewer said:
For some reason, in the numerous film adaptations, they kept changing titles around. As I recall, they did The Case of Charles Dexter Ward with Vincent Price, but titled it something different. (The Dunwich Horror?)
Click to expand...

The Vincent Price movie you are referring to was The Haunted Palace (one of the best Corman's I think). The Dunwich Horror was a B grade movie with as I recall Dean Stockwell and Sandra Dee.
 
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