Hey good lookin'!
H.P. LOVECRAFT.
I was going to write some kind of
intro for this, but there are about a million websites about who can tell
you more correctly and in more detail. A good place to start is the 'H.P.
Lovecraft Archive'. 'Sides, if you don't know what I'm on about, you'd
best leave before you have a heart seizure from the confusion.
STORIES.
Lovecraft wrote a shedload of material. Quite apart from his stories, he wrote enough letters to put even the most psychotic emailer to shame. But, I haven't read any of his letters, so let's never mention them again.
If you're looking for good books to read, try these:
'The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories', published by Penguin, with additional notes by S.T. Joshi. This book is a must for ANYONE interested in Lovecraft, and it's a good buy just for the explanatory notes at the back. It's got a damn good selection of stories, with a good range from his literary career.
HarperCollins also have a series of 3 Lovecraft 'Omnibuses'.. 'Omnibi' .. whatever. These are good as they've got a LOT of stories in all three volumes. Somehow I think they HarperCollins ripped the copies of the books straight out of Arkham House's publications, as they've got a damn ancient looking typeset, and an introduction by August Derleth.
Enough of this bollocks. Here's
what I reckon about some of the classier stories:
The
Dunwich Horror.
The Colour Out of Space.
The Whisperer in Darkness.
The Shadow Over Innsmouth.
The
Call of Cthulhu.
The Shadow Out Of Time.
NEW!!
Read some HPL stories here!
OTHER AUTHORS.
Where to start? There are more Lovecraftian authors than you can poke a stick at. Most 'Lovecraftian' authors make use of what shall hereafter be referred to as 'Cthulhu Mythos' element. If you have no idea what that means, head on back to the HPL Archive page. Some use the mythos as Lovecraft did, leaving the protagonists vague and ill defined. Others follow the lead of authors like Derleth, and segregate the 'gods' into elementals, both good and bad, introducing a much more Christian outlook of battles between the forces of good and evil.
Well, being a poor bludger, and the library not stocking much Lovecraftian content, you'll have to put up with even more ill informed, ranting reviews.
Chaosium's 'Call of Cthulhu' Collections.
MOVIES.
If I had to describe the transition of Lovecraft's work from the written page to film, it would be 'shite'. Most of them got turned into B movie crap. If you want to see a list of the above movies, try the Lurker in the Lobby.
Not wanting to get off'f my high horse, I can safely say that I've seen two direct translations of Lovecraft's stories, 'Re-Animator', and 'The Ressurected'. I saw Re-Animator a looong time ago, and thus will only 'review':
The
Ressurected.
(The Case of Charles Dexter Ward)
I had a bad dream last night where I was forced to watch a really bad movie over and over again. That reminded me that I had also seen:
At The Mouth of Madness.
MUSIC.
'Music?? Lovecraftian music?? Is
this man on crack??' I hear you say (having hacked into the Government's
mind reading satellites). But yes! Perhaps the most ROKKEN of Dread Cthulhu's
devotees are the Canadian band 'The
Darkest of the Hillside Thickets', from the mysterious land of 'Canadia'.
Your, by now, hypersensetive ears, attuned to occult frequencies, can also
pick up songs like Metallica's 'The Thing That Should Not Be'. I heard
that one done as a cover by Primus, on a $10 CD that I bought for its 'multimedia'
content, which didn't work on my computer. No wonder it cost $10.
The
Darkest of the Hillside Thickets.
Great Cthulhu. He's nassty.
If you've got any comments or whatnot,
MAIL
ME here.
I haven't got any more to say, so piss off back here.