H P Lovecraft

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Behold The Cthurkey, An Octopus-Stuffed Turkey With Crab Legs

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Corpsey

bandz ahoy

Looks like Bloodborne could be the game for you if you're a Lovecraftian with a PS4. SPOILERS for the game.

Interesting re how the games mechanics (in their view) make it more deeply Lovecraftian than any game before it.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
It's...complicated. Many, many pages, and quite possibly a doctoral thesis or two for all I know, have been written on the philosophical and spiritual implications of Tolkien's orcs. For a start, the orcs were not originally created evil - they were made from elves who were captured and "twisted" or "corrupted", via unspecified tortures, by Morgoth, the original Dark Lord (Sauron's boss, back in the day). Evil can never create, you see, only pervert in mockery what was originally made by Go(o)d. Morgoth, in particular, is basically Lucifer: originally the brightest and best of the angels but cast into the Pit on account of his hubris before God.

So you have these orcs, which were originally elves, which have been made evil through no fault of their own. But how 'evil' are you really if you have no choice but to be evil? Some writers have even suggested there are hints that the orcs are not totally irredeemable, although it's certainly no more than hinted, if so. It's all about original sin, predestination and free will, of course - Tolkien being slightly more Catholic than, say, your typical pope.

It's funny that good and evil should come up here, as nothing could be more off-topic in a thread about Lovecraft. I've often thought these two writers are in some ways perfectly parallel and in others, diametrically opposed. You have these two guys who were both absolutely aghast at modernity in general and who dealt with the spiritual (Tolkien) and cultural (Lovecraft) threats posed by industry, technology and capitalism by retreating, like any reactionary, into an idealized version of the past. Which for arch-Romantic Tolkien was a fantasy version of mediaeval Merrie England, and for materialist-atheist-Classicist Lovecraft was the stately, dispassionate, scientific Enlightenment. This is slightly complicated by Lovecraft's adoption in later life of moderate socialism, but I don't think that altered his fundamental worldview.

They were both Eurocentric cultural supremacists, I suppose, although to vastly different degrees. Tolkien actually held Jewish culture in rather high esteem. His orcs and Easterlings don't really mirror Russians, Arabs, Turks or any particular 'Eastern' (from a European POV) culture, they're just sort of generically savage and foreign, although I guess the Southrons are pretty unambiguously black.

I don't think I ever read or acknowledged this brillaint reply.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I don't think I ever read or acknowledged this brillaint reply.

Ha, thanks Corpsey. I felt I rather had my thunder stolen by droid's "WILL WHEATON" one-liner that immediately followed.

Speaky of Eurocentric fantasy and dodgy racial politics, they're playing a proper mental bit of Der Ring des Nibelungen on Radio 3 right now!
 

droid

Well-known member
John Langan's new book 'the fisherman' is a fantastic aquatic related slice of lovecraftian menace with one of the best 'lets sort this evil fellow out' expositions Ive read since the case of CDW.

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Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Not to brag or nut'n, but I've been in contact with S. T. Joshi and one of my stories from last December is coming out in the next edition of his Spectral Realms poetry anthology. :D
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Cheers! He initially said it might make it into the next Black Wings anthology of Cthulhiana, but that has now been filled up, unfortunately. Still, I've got a ton of stories now so maybe I can talk him into putting one in the edition after that.
 

you

Well-known member
Not to brag or nut'n, but I've been in contact with S. T. Joshi and one of my stories from last December is coming out in the next edition of his Spectral Realms poetry anthology. :D

This is great... you got a link to it?
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
This is great... you got a link to it?

Oh don't worry, I'll spam it good and hard when it appears! It'll be in the winter issue (Realms is a biannual), so I'm guessing early next year some time.

Edit: looks like your book is coming out just before Christmas - nice one! I see it's on pre-order at Am***n.
 

you

Well-known member
cool, let me know when it drops. Yeah Dec 15th... there are some related essays on the repeater blog.

I finished the Penguin Ligotti book over the summer. I really do enjoy his work. I'm just mad jealous of his skill. I enjoy him much more than HPL, have to say. **dodges necronomicon projectile**
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Ligotti is certainly, in some sense, a far superior writer to Lovecraft. But that's a bit like saying Einstein's physics was more advanced than Newton's. It's like, yeah it is, but of course it is. Shoulders of giants, and all that.
 

you

Well-known member
Well, I wouldn't say one is superior/better to the other. Just that I tend to enjoy and relish Ligotti much more - whereas HPL can feel like a slog. But oddly, not because Ligotti is 'easier' - his style can be taken as being kinda wordy and convoluted in a way... I don't know why, it is not the same difference as enjoying a contemporary writer over Dickens or Dostoevsky. In fact, I'd say I enjoy Ligotti over other horror writers who use easier prose styles. But Ligotti just..draws me in, into that cloacal bleakness behind the veil that is this world... (sorry...)
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Interesting point about the convoluted nature of Ligotti's prose. Lovecraft of course has all these stock phrases he uses over and over again with minor variation, but Ligotti lampshades* this by using the same phrasing multiple times in a single story with no variation. And where it could be annoying and gimmicky in the hands of a less skilled writer, I find it works very well. Certainly complies with Lovecraft's dictum to avoid realism at all costs.

*this term will be familiar to anyone who's spent any time browsing TVTropes.org - well worth a look (and a gloriously wasted afternoon) if you haven't
 

droid

Well-known member
I find ligotti a bit too detached and obtuse (and conversely somewhat obvious) at times myself. Re-read 'Teatro Grottesco' and 'my work is not yet done' and was definitely less whelmed than the first time round (though the short codas at the end of 'work' are still great). Ligotti seems to have a real aversion to the visceral and the manipulative techniques most horror writers use - to his detriment at times (but I guess that's what makes him 'literary').

Ive bigged him up a few times, but Adam Nevill's recent short story collection is outstanding - and it was given away for free to subscribers - this link may work. http://dl.bookfunnel.com/tczxvugqj4 Really unsettling - especially 'doll hands'.

Think I mentioned John Langan's 'fisherman' somewhere above, but you should both read it. Fantastic, semi-scholcky but darkly resonant nautical Lovecraft business.
 

you

Well-known member
Ive bigged him up a few times, but Adam Nevill's recent short story collection is outstanding - and it was given away for free to subscribers - this link may work. http://dl.bookfunnel.com/tczxvugqj4 Really unsettling - especially 'doll hands'.

I picked up The Ritual and Rats. Quite enjoyed both. Did seem kinda 'light'. But I think I prefer short stories in horror. I read short stories generally more and more. I'll probably get that Nevill collection when it comes out, thanks for the tip!
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy

H.P. Lovecraft was the forefather of modern horror fiction having inspired such writers as Stephen King, Robert Bloch and Neil Gaiman. The influence of his Cthulhu mythos can be seen in film (Re-Animator, Hellboy, and Alien), games (The Call of Cthulhu role playing enterprise), music (Metallica, Iron Maiden) and pop culture in general. But what led an Old World, xenophobic gentleman to create one of literature's most far-reaching mythologies? What attracts even the minds of the 21st century to these stories of unspeakable abominations and cosmic gods? LOVECRAFT: FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN is a chronicle of the life, work and mind that created these weird tales as told by many of today's luminaries of dark fantasy including John Carpenter, Guillermo Del Toro, Neil Gaiman, Stuart Gordon , Caitlin Kiernan, and Peter Straub.
 
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