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Topic: Cthulhu Mythos: Do you love it, like it, recommend it, deal with it, or hate it? (Read 771 times)
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MarkSieber
Administrator
Dead By Dawn
Posts: 17229
It Looks Just Like A Telefunken U47
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Bloch and Lovecraft corresponded with one another extensively, but I'm not sure if they ever actually met. I read Bloch's autobiography, but I can't remember.
Lovecraft and Bloch even killed each other off in stories. Here's a bit about it from Bloch's Wiki page:
The young Bloch even appears, thinly disguised, as the character "Robert Blake" in Lovecraft's story "The Haunter of the Dark", which is dedicated to Bloch. In this story, Lovecraft kills off the Bloch character, repaying a courtesy Bloch paid Lovecraft with his tale "The Shambler from the Stars", in which the Lovecraft-inspired figure dies; the story goes so far as to use Bloch's then-current street address in Milwaukee. (Bloch even had a signed certificate from Lovecraft [and some of his creations] giving Bloch permission to kill Lovecraft off in a story.) Bloch later wrote a third tale, "The Shadow From the Steeple", picking up where "The Haunter of the Dark" finished.
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It Looks Just Like a Telefunken U47
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JDAR
Dead By Dawn
Posts: 1571
Jan a/k/a "dancing with 2leftfeet"
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I highly recommend DEEPER - it's a fun read whether you have heard of HPL or not.  After finding that the story is based upon H P Lovecraft's "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" . . . . and that the Edward Lee THE INNSWICH HORROR is also - I'll be digging that HPL story out of my TBR Mtn. I've had Tim Curran's THE HIVE sitting here forever. Now that I know he plans a sequel, I need to read HPL's "In the Mountain of Madness" (at least, I think that's the one  ) My fave horror movie is FROM BEYOND - which is based upon an extremely short story. HPL packed so much into those few pages, I actually was able to pull more out of the story and enjoyed the movie even more. Jan  |
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« Last Edit: September 08, 2009, 06:31:47 PM by JDAR »
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Not enough books - just too little time.
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Chris Conlon
Triple Feature
Posts: 233
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It's a mistake to lump Lovecraft together with all the other Cthuhlu Mythos writers.
Lovecraft was a genuine original, with a small but real genius for creating mood and atmosphere in fiction. "The Call of Cthulhu," "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," and maybe three or four others are surely among the finest examples of dark fiction ever published. Increasingly his reputation has moved beyond genre boundaries, as his inclusion in the Penguin Classic line as well as the Library of America attests. Lovecraft is well on his way to becoming recognized as a totally mainstream classic writer, the 20th century's Poe.
The many writers who came along in his wake, from Derleth on, all created what is essentially fan fiction. Some of it is fun to read; but most of it is complete and utter dreck which shows no understanding at all of what made Lovecraft a great writer. Most later "Mythos" fiction consists of little more than brainless monster stories--very definitely not what Lovecraft himself wrote. (If anyone thinks my assessment is too harsh, well...all I can suggest is that they read pretty much any anthology of later Mythos fiction. Good luck finding anything beyond the momentarily entertaining.)
Lovecraft, alas, is a writer whose reputation has had to be rescued from the efforts of his most ardent admirers, whose hackwork has often been confused with the genuine article in the public mind. I find it very dispiriting to hear people say things like (and I've actually heard this kind of thing more than once), "Well, I've never read Lovecraft, but I read some other people's Mythos stories in a book once and they were lousy, so I don't think I'd like him."
People can talk about what later Mythos fiction they like or don't like, surely; but the work of Lovecraft's followers have nothing to do with the man himself, who must be considered entirely on his own merits as a writer.
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