Lady Lovecraft

HP Lovecraft Books: Three Ways to Complete Your Collection

2011-10-01T18:06:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Buying H.P. Lovecraft books to complete a collection is a previously unimaginable experience, thanks to the diverse options now available. From the humble days when HPL’s fiction was tightly controlled by Arkham House, to the explosion of Lovecraft at the publishing presses ever since his work passed into public domain, offering have expanded at a stunning rate. Still, there are only three quick and easy ways to complete a Lovecraftian collection, or at least come extremely close to it. Use these books to complete your personal collection of Lovecraft’s dark fantasies in a cost effective way.

Necronomicon: The Best Weird Tales of H.P. Lovecraft

Two fat volumes from Gollancz represent the cheapest way to bring together the Providence author’s best known and most obscure writings. Necronomicon: The Best Weird Tales of H.P. Lovecraft binds together his most well respected efforts, from the fragmentary “Night Gaunts” to late, complex novellas such as “At the Mountains of Madness.” This nearly nine hundred page tome is one heavy paperback, but it is sturdily constructed and nicely illustrated.

With the arrival of Eldritch Tales: A Miscellany of the Macabre, Gollancz has created a high quality companion volume that taps Lovecraft’s lesser known pieces. In this book, HPL’s juvenile pieces, poetry, and important non-fiction tie ins like “Supernatural Horror in Literature” and “The History of the Necronomicon” cross paths. An excellent sampling of his collaborative and ghost written stories are thrown in for good measure.

Both gigantic volumes are edited by Stephen Jones and illustrated by Les Edwards. Together, they represent the quickest and cheapest path to collecting all of Lovecraft with the fewest books possible.

The Del Rey Lovecraft Collections

Throughout the 1990s and into the early 2000s, Del Rey’s H.P. Lovecraft books represented a widely acceptable way to obtain his tales in a mass market form. Though these collections are extraordinarily cheap on the mass market, you’ll need four Del Rey books to complete a Lovecraft collection. The big themed collections begin with The Best of H.P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre, a book clearly designed to draw in newcomers.

Under the Del Rey imprint, the saga continues with The Road to Madness and Dreams of Terror and Death: The Dream Cycle of H.P. Lovecraft. These H.P. Lovecraft books constitute themed volumes built around his early fiction and dream addled tales, respectively. They chart an affordable path to a comprehensive collection, and the cover art by Michael Whelan remains nothing short of iconic.

Most recently, Del Rey’s fourth book came out, granting readers access to Lovecraft’s collaborations and ghost written pieces. The Horror in the Museum does what a only more expensive Arkham House book was previously able to do. If you’re willing to throw bibliophilic preferences to the wind, snapping up this volume with the other three Del Rey collections is a great way to get all Lovecraft essentials onto your shelves.

H.P. Lovecraft: Masters of the Weird Tale

Centipede Press is the Lamborghini quality publisher of the horror world, and that extends to their gigantic tome, H.P. Lovecraft: Masters of the Weird Tale. Don’t think of this 1200 page Cyclopean terror as just a very expensive hardcover. It herds together all Lovecraftian necessities into a slipped case deluxe edition, and pairs it with a separate book of rare HPL photography unavailable elsewhere.

The only downfall of H.P. Lovecraft: Masters of the Weird Tale is that it may only be a high end avenue to getting nearly all H.P. Lovecraft books in one for a limited time. Centipede Press has limited this museum of a book to three hundred copies. Unless that changes, this miniature Lovecraft library will probably slide into the hands of a few hundred lucky collectors, and live on only as legend. At least, until the next deluxe press dares to place Lovecraft’s fiction into an equally outstanding presentation.

H.P. Lovecraft books will undoubtedly continue to multiply as the years pass. However, shortcuts that let you complete your collection will probably remain modest, well kept secrets, available only to true Lovecraft fanatics.

-Grim Blogger

(Posted by Grim Blogger at 9:00 AM)

Scientists Afflict Computers With 'Schizophrenia' to Better Understand the Human Brain

2011-07-11T17:17:00.000-07:00

Scientists Afflict Computers With 'Schizophrenia' to Better Understand the Human Brain

ScienceDaily (May 6, 2011) — Computer networks that can't forget fast enough can show symptoms of a kind of virtual schizophrenia, giving researchers further clues to the inner workings of schizophrenic brains, researchers at The University of Texas at Austin and Yale University have found.

The researchers used a virtual computer model, or "neural network," to simulate the excessive release of dopamine in the brain. They found that the network recalled memories in a distinctly schizophrenic-like fashion.

Their results were published in April in Biological Psychiatry.

"The hypothesis is that dopamine encodes the importance-the salience-of experience," says Uli Grasemann, a graduate student in the Department of Computer Science at The University of Texas at Austin. "When there's too much dopamine, it leads to exaggerated salience, and the brain ends up learning from things that it shouldn't be learning from."

The results bolster a hypothesis known in schizophrenia circles as the hyperlearning hypothesis, which posits that people suffering from schizophrenia have brains that lose the ability to forget or ignore as much as they normally would. Without forgetting, they lose the ability to extract what's meaningful out of the immensity of stimuli the brain encounters. They start making connections that aren't real, or drowning in a sea of so many connections they lose the ability to stitch together any kind of coherent story.

The neural network used by Grasemann and his adviser, Professor Risto Miikkulainen, is called DISCERN. Designed by Miikkulainen, DISCERN is able to learn natural language. In this study it was used to simulate what happens to language as the result of eight different types of neurological dysfunction. The results of the simulations were compared by Ralph Hoffman, professor of psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine, to what he saw when studying human schizophrenics.

In order to model the process, Grasemann and Miikkulainen began by teaching a series of simple stories to DISCERN. The stories were assimilated into DISCERN's memory in much the way the human brain stores information-not as distinct units, but as statistical relationships of words, sentences, scripts and stories.

"With neural networks, you basically train them by showing them examples, over and over and over again," says Grasemann. "Every time you show it an example, you say, if this is the input, then this should be your output, and if this is the input, then that should be your output. You do it again and again thousands of times, and every time it adjusts a little bit more towards doing what you want. In the end, if you do it enough, the network has learned."

In order to model hyperlearning, Grasemann and Miikkulainen ran the system through its paces again, but with one key parameter altered. They simulated an excessive release of dopamine by increasing the system's learning rate-essentially telling it to stop forgetting so much.

"It's an important mechanism to be able to ignore things," says Grasemann. "What we found is that if you crank up the learning rate in DISCERN high enough, it produces language abnormalities that suggest schizophrenia."

After being re-trained with the elevated learning rate, DISCERN began putting itself at the center of fantastical, delusional stories that incorporated elements from other stories it had been told to recall. In one answer, for instance, DISCERN claimed responsibility for a terrorist bombing.

In another instance, DISCERN began showing evidence of "derailment"-replying to requests for a specific memory with a jumble of dissociated sentences, abrupt digressions and constant leaps from the first- to the third-person and back again.

"Information processing in neural networks tends to be like information processing in the human brain in many ways," says Grasemann. "So the hope was that it would also break down in similar ways. And it did."

The parallel between their modified neural network and human schizophrenia isn't absolute proof the hyperlearning hypothesis is correct, says Grasemann. It is, however, support for the hypothesis, and also evidence of how useful neural networks can be in understanding the human brain.

"We have so much more control over neural networks than we could ever have over human subjects," he says. "The hope is that this kind of modeling will help clinical research."

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by University of Texas at Austin.

Journal Reference:

Ralph E. Hoffman, Uli Grasemann, Ralitza Gueorguieva, Donald Quinlan, Douglas Lane, Risto Miikkulainen. Using Computational Patients to Evaluate Illness Mechanisms in Schizophrenia. Biological Psychiatry, 2011; DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2010.12.036

Cubist Cthulhu

2011-07-08T02:02:00.000-07:00

Gods' Amusement: Role Playing Game

2011-07-08T01:48:00.000-07:00

Found via: The Unspeakable Vault of Doom

Call of Cthulhu Demotivational

2011-07-08T01:41:00.000-07:00

Guest Blogger: Jeffrey Thomas Reviews "Engines of Desire" by Livia Llewellyn

2011-07-08T01:13:00.000-07:00

Found via The Cosmicomicon:

On this eve of long promised, righteous destruction, The Cosmicomicon continues its much talked about, days old tradition of bringing you the best guest bloggers working and lurking in the murky biz.

This week is no different, as noted author/artist and Punktown creator Jeffrey Thomas (featured recently in Alex Luggo's guest blog review on pages prior) marvels at the roar and hum of Livia Llewellyn's widely celebrated Engines of Desire:

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A Review of ENGINES OF DESIRE by Livia Llewellyn

- Jeffrey Thomas

It’s no novel observation that it’s always exciting to discover a writer you’ve never read before; what greater satisfaction could account for one’s love of reading? Sometimes the pleasure comes from discovering someone others discovered quite a while before you. Last month, for instance, I completed BRAVE NEW WORLD, and in January I came across this guy named Cormac McCarthy. (I always feel a bit late to the game when it comes to movies and music, too -- but better than never, and all that.) Other times, the author you discovered is relatively new, or at least wholly new to you. Recently, writers who became favorites of mine with just one book were Richard Gavin (with OMENS) in 2009, Otsuichi (ZOO) in 2010, and Simon Strantzas (BENEATH THE SURFACE), earlier this year. And now, maybe not too late this time, here I am discovering Livia Llewellyn, via her new collection ENGINES OF DESIRE (Lethe Press).

There’s a lot to admire here, and where to begin? I’m always impressed when a writer can work confidently within multiple genres or subgenres, and the stories in ENGINES OF DESIRE could be called a mix of horror, dark fantasy, science fiction -- though I wouldn’t blame Llewellyn if she’s as uncomfortable with such limiting categorizations as I am. Better to say, then, that she’s unfettered by genre. The stories tend to be either quite long or quite short, which again impresses; she’s going to let this story be the length it wants to be, whereas many other writers seem to weigh their efforts on the scale of whatever is going to fit the word range of the next zombie anthology. And where so many writers go through the motions of being shocking and edgy, Llewellyn makes them look like posers, writing as she does unflinchingly of infanticide, incest, madness and self-destruction. Her female protagonists are both empowered and compromised. Childbirth is a repeated subject matter, and repeatedly viewed not as a means of bringing joy and promise into the world but perpetuating the suffering of the doomed and damned.

Among the standouts in these ten stories, we have the grim, apocalyptic “Horses” (and I’ll just stop introducing each story as grim right now -- that’s a given; this is not a feel-good bunch of tales), about a woman discovering the most basic imperatives of a human being, at the hour of human extinction; “The Engine of Desire,” a chilling tale of erotic obsession, the reading of which is like watching a film of a tornado brewing in reverse, from terrible aftermath to the first churning storm clouds; the increasingly nightmarish “Jetsam,” one of my favorites, about the resonance of 9/11; “The Four Hundred Thousand,” about a future civilization where young women are used to spawn whole armies that serve as a metaphor for the pointless sacrifices of war; the eerie, icky, enigmatic “Omphalos,” about the implosion of a most insular family; and easily my favorite, the concluding novella “Her Deepness.”

“Her Deepness” is about as New Weird as New Weird can be, and again I hate categorizing here. That subgenre has been declared dead before it was even declared legitimate. I think some of those pronouncing it dead did so for their own purposes, owing to their competition with or envy of other authors whose future work they hoped to thwart by labeling it passé in advance. Politics, don’t you know. But categories do have their use when taken with a grain of salt, helping us stumble into the vicinity of things we’re going to like, and I was pleasantly surprised to find something of this particular flavor in Llewellyn’s book. “Her Deepness” could also be called Lovecraftian, but again that would be limiting it too much. It’s a dense, complex story about a sculptress with mysterious powers of shaping stone, called to the outer reaches of an impossibly vast, gritty, alternate Earth megalopolis to release a god-like being said to be trapped within rock, like some sentient fossil. In this tale most especially, Llewellyn indulges her considerable powers of description and setting, her ability to craft hard-edged characters who might not often be likable but are all the more fully real for that, her abundant and fresh imagination, her ability to generate an atmosphere heavy with a true sense of doom, and a prose voice full of glittering black poetry. Like many of the stories here, “Her Deepness” flirts with and ultimately plunges into the hallucinatory. It’s a heady experience. Forget I called it New Weird. Writing like this can never be passé, so I don’t want to run the risk of giving the wrong impression. I will say, I think Livia Llewellyn can hold her own alongside a China Mieville or a Jeff VanderMeer. I will say that much.

And I will say this: I have another favorite writer. Ah…so this is why I read.

Book Review: Dead But Dreaming 2, by Alex Lugo

2011-07-08T01:07:00.000-07:00

Found via The Cosmicomicon:

As most of you not living under a piece of rusted sheet metal or inside a Rapture shelter now know, Dead But Dreaming 2 thundered out onto the streets last Friday, and Alex Lugo, living in such close proximity to the home office of Miskatonic River Press, was one of the first individuals on the planet to receive his copy.

Fittingly, and just days later, Alex - being the voracious consumer of all manner of weird, speculative, and Lovecraftian fiction that he is - had not just read the anthology from cover to cover, but had also written up a review for publication here at The Cosmicomicon.

Big thanks to Alex (who had previously reviewed Jeffrey Thomas' novel Thought Forms in early May) for his review, and just know that although it might not seem that way, I IN NO WAY bribed him with filthy lucre, bauble, or trinket to write such lovely things about my story "Transmission." Either he's totally cracked, or possessed of exceptionally refined literary taste. I'm not certain which is true, and dare not contemplate... Instead, I'll just be grateful and humbled.

____________________________________________________________________________

Review of Dead but Dreaming 2

By Alex Lugo

Dead but Dreaming 2 is the second installment in a series of wonderful, Lovecraftian anthologies published by Miskatonic River Press. The first Dead but Dreaming was a cult hit, considered by many to be the finest collection of Lovecraftian and Cthulhu Mythos tales ever published. Knowing that, you can probably assume that Dead but Dreaming 2 has quite a lot of expectation to live up to, and it does. But, I'm very happy to report that it delivers on every single promise, and then some. Within the pages of this eldritch tome are 22 tales written by the modern masters of horror. Each story is a take on Lovecraftian themes, and each one is executed with impressive craftmanship. Honestly, there wasn't one piece in this collection that I disliked. Every single story evoked the power and the horror of Lovecraft’s mind bending realms, while also shining with originality.

If you're new to Lovecraftian and Cthulhu Mythos fiction, you may think it is impossible for a Lovecraftian tale to be original. Is it not just mere pastiche? Not at all! If one simply copies Lovecraft’s prose and clichés, the story will fail miserably. Conversely, a good writer of Lovecraftian or Cthulhu Mythos fiction must be extremely original so that his or her own ideas and style can shine through the master's shadow - ergo the reader sees more of the author’s voice than Lovecraft’s, but can still feel the vibe of the gentleman from Providence. Because of this delicate balancing act of tribute and discovery, I believe that the great modern writers of Lovecraftian fiction are actually more original than most of their fiction writing peers because they have to achieve a goal that is somehow familiar but not just another pastiche. It is because of this that Dead but Dreaming 2 is so great, because each tale is an exceptional, unique take on Lovecraftiana, and as such, the book overflows with impressive originality. Although I enjoyed every single story, three really tickled my fancy.

First off is "Your Ivory Hollow" by ye queen of eldritch horror, W.H. Pugmire. The tale is a semi-sequel to Robert Bloch’s "The Skull of the Marquis de Sade", and in the span of six pages, you become one of the pivotal characters in the story. Like the style of Lovecraft’s "Pickman’s Model", the speaker addresses you like you are an integral part of the unfolding story. This makes the tale more engrossing, and ultimately scarier. In only a half dozen pages, you will read of strange magick, infernal gems, suicide-inducing poetry, and utmost - insanity. Pugmire’s work never fails to amaze and enthrall me. His writing is like a paradox, as his tales both mystify and horrify the reader.

My second favorite story, although not in order of best to least best, is "Father’s Day" by Brian M. Sammons. This was my first time reading a tale from Mr. Sammons, and I am confident it shall not be my last. The story introduces the reader to a strange, nameless boy brought up by his mother, who one day decides to venture to Innsmouth, Massachusetts (the setting for Lovecraft’s epic tale "The Shadow over Innsmouth") to find his father. I will not spoil anything, but if you are familiar with Innsmouth’s abhorrent secret, you should get the gist of the boy’s situation. The tale is a sad mini-epic, and you will find yourself sympathetic towards a very strange boy who is far more than just "weird".

Last, but not in any way least, is "Transmission" by T.E. Grau, proprietor of the unholy Cosmicomicon! This is T.E. Grau’s first tale published in print, and I can assure that there is much more to come! The story begins with a man wandering west to California. He does not look for fortune or fame, but simply a greater meaning to his shiftless, vagabond life. While driving in the deserts of Nevada, the main character picks up a radio transmission of what seems to be just another stupid religious fanatic crowding the AM dial. Yes, he is a religious fanatic, but quite the opposite of stupid. He is a messenger of the Meaning, something for which the main character has desperately sought, but the meaning of the Message, transmitted out into the desert night, is too horrifying and cosmic to even describe. The tale starts off with a rough and tumble prose style, which then becomes more mysterious, and, towards the conclusion, morphs into a tale of extremely well crafted atmospherics that is both mesmerizing and terrifying. The story ends with a twist that nobody will see coming. I can rightfully say that T.E. Grau is a strong force in weird fiction, and he has only just begun. Hear me and listen: T.E. Grau is THE one to watch! Dead but Dreaming 2 is an extraordinary anthology of fantastic, original Lovecraftian fiction. Within these pages you will find masterpieces of the weird tale from writers such as the incredible Donn Webb, and the remarkable Joseph S. Pulver Sr. If you have any level of interest in Lovecraft and weird fiction, this is the book for you.

LNN interviews scholar and historian Chris Perridas: Author of "HPL and His Legacy"

2011-07-08T00:48:00.000-07:00

Found via The Lovecraft News Network:

Author, scholar, and blogger Chris Perridas is currently one of the most prolific Lovecraft historians actively writing today. His popular blog H.P. Lovecraft and His Legacy contains a staggering 2,000 articles and has been viewed by nearly 100,000 people. But Perridas chronicles more than just Lovecraft: he runs concurrent blogs analyzing other literary and biological subjects related to the Weird.

Perridas maintains a grueling daily publication schedule, and he is thus the primary gatekeeper and guru of Lovecraftian media and the masses. We were thrilled when he offered to answer a few questions about his work in a fascinating interview.

LNN: How did you get started with your blog?

PERRIDAS: I started the blog when someone came into my office in 2001 on an afternoon after a long day of business and mentioned he'd just reread Lovecraft. "Hmm," I thought, "that name sounds familiar." I recalled that a biology teacher in High School - about 1970 I guess - mentioned the name, but I wasn't into that kind of thing, so I'd dismissed it back then.

I went to Barnes and Noble that weekend and was surprised there was so little by the man, HPL, but I got a book and read it. Before that I thought, horror, eh. I'd studied ghost stories as folklore, but not horror per se. I had been into sword and sorcery and science fiction as a kid. Never particularly liked horror, though I was a big fan of the Universal Monsters as a kid.

I was immediately hooked on HPL. I saw the folklore element of Lovecraft, and the eerie fantastic writing, and when I got to Colour Out of Space I wondered if he was a chemist, as I am. That got me going. That and the vast cosmicism of the writing.

One thing led to another and before long I'd read most of his fiction, sent off for numerous biographies and other things about Lovecraft, and began to record my notes and some things that caught my interest into Blogger. I knew nothing about blogging, so I asked few people for advice and plunged in. I was startled to see that two or three people were readng the blog back then, and while I had no idea who they were, I thought that there might be some interest in what I was doing, so I tried to minimize the typos, write the best I knew how to do, and let it evolve naturally. I incorporated new tools as they became available, and the most fun is the little Yahoo Group I host. People I read and admired, are now people I converse with regualrly - how cool is that?

My fascination for HPL is less his fiction and more of his mystery of a life. He's a bit of an enigma, as anyone who ever knew him or knew of him will attest. The mystery of how an obscure writer became so entrenched in the lives of other - and perhaps greater - writers is a sociological connundrum as well, and one I decided to pick apart and understand.

LNN: Just so I can be clear, could you please list the diverse projects, groups, and blogs you currently manage?

PERRIDAS: Currently I am associate editor with Arcane Wisdom (publisher Larry Roberts), and a contributor to Dark Recesses.

I host a cordial yahoo group about Lovecraft in coordination with my "H. P. Lovecraft and His Legacy" blog, which I usually refer to as HPLblog.

Mr. Lovecraft has been an important part of my literary life for several years, but I have more interests than that one note. I have a "Weird Beasts" blog to which I post occasional odd scientific and human interest news on how animals interact. I also have begun a "Young Lin Carter" blog of discoveries I've made about his per-1960 life.

I also post occasionally to what I refer to as "The Antiquarian Thread". I have several incarnations, as this is highly experimental at this time. One version is at Blogger, one is at "The Haunt" a forum attached to Horror Mall, and another is at Dark Recesses. As it is a thought experiment about how to educate newer horror fantasy fans to authors who've come before, I don't have a solid definition of how this will work.

LNN: If I were to anoint you with a title, it would clearly be the preeminent Lovecraftian archivist of the 21st century. Your daily, indefatigable efforts cataloging incursions of HPL into contemporary culture are so prolific as to be nearly unbelievable. How much time does it take per day to manage your various projects and do you get help from anyone to do so? What does your family think of the project?

PERRIDAS: I'm uncomfortable with "21st century archivist" or any other title, but that aside, I use the tools Blogger gives and it automatically lets me post at times I select. I peruse Ebay, the auction houses, read through my copious emails, and news feeds and pick out items that appeal to my interests. Most of the time these are the same things that interest the blog readers!

I get moral support from good friends, occasional bits suggested by readers, but I do the blog by myself. All typos are mine.

On a good week, I spend daily about an hour and a half, but it could be 3 hours per day or more. A lot of that comes in spurts. I've seen massive auctions of rare items that I had to sift through and study, do research on their background, and so forth. Those are exciting times, but they can keep me up to 2 AM. Then it's bleary-eyed off to work!

I love getting email, and correspondence from blog readers. One weekend I had over 70 emails to sort through, but that's a bit atypical. Mostly, it's well wishers – lurkers – who tentatively want to confidentially share a story, incident, or item with me. I believe that the isolation of Lovecraftians from one another, and the nature of privacy among collectors, makes the community guarded and cautious.

My wife has little interest in horror, or Lovecraft, and so quietly tolerates my proclivities to acquiring musty old books from the early 20th century. My neighbors, relatives, and friends are equally uninterested so the topic rarely comes up. When it does, they are stunned to realize the number of stories and articles I've published, and the modicum of notoriety I've carved out.

LNN: You mentioned that, "My fascination for HPL is less his fiction and more of his mystery of a life." This is actually something I hear from many of the long-standing figures in the world of contemporary Lovecraftiana. What then, beyond mere fandom, is the significance of Lovecraft and his ideas for you? More specifically, what have you discovered after all these years of study about "The mystery of how an obscure writer became so entrenched in the lives of other--and perhaps greater--writers" and how has it impacted you?

PERRIDAS: When I first crossed paths with Lovecraft, I enjoyed his sophisticated language, his blend of horror and weird tale themes, but mostly his use of folk lore and scientific structuralism to convey realism. It's similar to my own thought process, and this is precisely what turns many people off about Lovecraft. He's often tagged as having adjectivalism. Even in his own day people wondered at his relatively stiff way of writing and lack of characterization.

However, as I've tracked his trajectory through the shadowy corners of history, Lovecraft is more of a "feeling" or an "idea" than a person or of his writing. His close friends alternatively adored and wondered at his posing as an old man, at his oddities, and at his erudition. This next metaphor might easily be misconstrued, but Lovecraft's life is a miniature of what occurred with Jesus as the end of the 2nd century neared, or perhaps Socrates – other names could be used, but these will suffice. His powerful presence, his attempt to master the weird tale, awed his contemporaries and inspired a generation of young men who sought to continue that legacy. However, times changed as 1940 came, and scientifiction trumped horror fantasy splitting the modern weird tale into factions.

If Poe was our John the Baptist, and Lovecraft our weird tale Jesus, then August Derleth was our Paul. Larry Roberts and I have written that Derleth was singly important – for better or worse – to carry that legacy. By most accounts, he was bullish and spent every dollar and wrote every book with the single purpose to keep Lovecraft in print. Time and again, I've found obscure pulps and pamphlets in English and Spanish that have the unmistakable hand of Derleth – often he appears side by side with Lovecraft. After Derleth's death, we must honor Mr. Joshi and Robert Price who worked so hard with many colleagues to keep Lovecraft alive into the 21st century.

Yet, the concept of Lovecraft today, I believe, has morphed into something beyond the factual. There have always been small elements that equated Lovecraft's horror with other sociological peripheries that incorporated cabalism. Lovecraft used it himself in his stories.

In the social consciousness, 80 years of Lovecraft has merged with Fortean ideas, and some ideas of Aleister Crowley, and has become some amalgam that one might compare to Gnosticism, if we continue the Christian metaphor. Derleth had a stranglehold on Lovecraft's copyrights (the canon), and that has relinquished with dagonbytes and the advent of the internet. That, and the proliferation of all sorts of Lovecraft inspired fiction – much very good and other not so good, we are on the cusp of entering an era where the real Lovecraft may be completely pushed aside. Mainstream Hollywood has discovered Lovecraft, and what might be termed unhindered Lovecraftploitation.

For me they mystery of Lovecraft consists of how his life of elitism was shattered and thrust into the lower middle class of Providence. His reaction to that coupled with other family traumas made his zealous as a missionary. Others see Lovecrafty as a nihilist or a cosmicist. I see him as trying to find his way. Through every literate venue he could find he propagated a blend of Edwardian Naturalism and elitism. Lovecraft is the hero of all his stories. In many of them, the central character is thrust into an unknown world and while roughed up, emerges essentially changed – translated – into a new creature. This metamorphosis is somewhat akin to salvation. However, what saves is the preservation of key essentials of civilization, literacy, and the fact that the character has spent years reading certain texts, holding onto certain concepts, and resisted change by barbarous outside forces.

The population of Providence doubled between 1880 and 1910 (276,000 to 542,000) and was nearly 700,000 at his death. Many of these were minorities and immigrants, and they had to have traumatized the citizens of College Hill. Before we throw stones at Lovecraft's racism and ethnicism, we need to examine our own traumas when we see hordes of immigrants coming across our borders, and experience psychosis of terrorists around every suburban tree. His life, in microcosm, is our life today. Is it any wonder he idolized the Romans – who experienced their own Visigoths.

LNN: How does your background in science affect the way you read and interpret Lovecraft and how did it influence your own personal fiction as part of the Terrible Twelve?

PERRIDAS: When I began to write, I discovered a group formed by R. J. Cavender called the Terrible Twelve. He had a brilliant concept: Gather together fledgling writers to expand the borders of horror. However, his loose reins and a room full of Apersonalities generated both light and heat. From that cauldron emerged many names you will soon hear about – Sarah Berniker, Fran Friel, Boyd Harris, Bailey Hunter, and so many others. We mercilessly critiqued one another, and explored weird mixes of Bizarro, Horror-eroticism, metafictional, vulgarian, bloody stories, and things that are yet to have names. Many were never published – who would dare? – it was challenging, fun, and an experience of a lifetime.

My personal fiction explored blends of ghost lore, science fantasy, and eroticism. In most of the stories, a regular person experiences a drive by horror and that person must come to terms with his repressed sexuality and examine his own strength of character and will to survive.

LNN: More specifically, for better or for worse, Lovecraft's recent rise in fame has been accompanied by a vigorous dilution of his ideas as they have expanded to genres and mediums well outside those he originally intended. To the purists, this is lamentable. To others, it's wonderful. What impact do you think things like The Adventures of Lil' Cthulhu--which, for the record, I think is fantastic--have on Lovecraft's image and reputation? What do you think are some of the benefits and costs of this diverse application of the mythos and his ideology?

PERRIDAS: It's been about a century since Lovecraft began to write seriously. His letters are the bulk of his career, each one preening his correspondent, and proselytizing his beliefs upon them. Often his stories attempt the same thing, but they aren't obvious unless one compares his letters with his stories. There is a term, historicity, that compares what actually happened with what was perceived to have happened by a particular audience or society. Lovecraft's Mythos was a hodge-podge and playful expression to engage his colleagues in exploring the concept of how our minds deal with the concept of 'alien'. He selected vermin to represent these outside forces. In reality, he probably conceptualized Portuguese, Italians, and other minorities as rats, frogs, crabs, octopus. He was specifically repelled by seafood, so that was a choice of vermin he used a lot. However, when that fiction is divorced from the life of Lovecraft, how does one propagate the Mythos.

Today we sort of have a blend of Cthulhu-mythos, Fortean, magic, and National Enquirer stuff emerging into new horror fantasy art forms. This is the wonder of the horror genre, in my opinion. It's fluid. Writers take our deepest cultural fears – which change with each generation – and deconstructs them, demythologizes them, and then re-mythologizes them into new expressions. We don't recognize this as its happening, and often horror and humor are two sides of the same coin. In the past it's been Spike Jones or Mark McLaughlin poking us, or Poe, Lovecraft, Jackson, or Ligotti terrorizing us. We have our own writers doing this now, but they're too close to us. They're still working word magic. (My bet is on Brian Keene right now!)

Complicating matters is that 20th century society morphed images and words together in complex forms. Lovecraft's world had movies, but he was primarily moved by words on a page. That world is gone, and our literary expressions must be encased in sound, visuals, and words – words still being the most essential element of that expression.

LNN: What are your plans for your various projects in the near future? Will we see even more blogs and groups from Chris Perridas in the coming months and years, or is there a consolidation planned in the works?

PERRIDAS: I have a demanding full time occupation, and I moved into writing as a stress reliever. However, that avocation has now picked up its own dynamic. I'm now 53, and since I do everything myself I am faced with some difficult choices.

I still plan to continue the HPLblog, but now that I've exceeded 2100 posts and it’s taken on an encyclopedic and indexed form, I'm struggling to know where to go from here. Barring some new revelations at auction houses, most of Lovecraft's trajectory has been sketched in my blog posts. I have almost every year of his life and subsequent chronicled by some publication, and a fair portion of his friends, followers, and notable fans documented. I'm proud that some of them are now acquaintances. Readers of the blog hang on and let's see where 2010 takes us.

I have wanted for some time to write several serious articles. First is whether Lovecraft was a spy for Houdini. I want to write up an overview of the importance of Adolphe de Castro as a Jewish leader and significant literary figure. HPL's comments have misled some folks, I think. I'd like to publish an essay on the dynamism of young Lin carter's life prior to 1960. Those who only know his from his fiction have missed a significant influence in the fantasy field.

I have a few experimental blogs that have not yet had enough of my attention. The first is "Weird Beasts" that I'm attempting to define. My intention is that we are about to experience a sense of chock and awe as a society. We barely know the alien life forms on our own planet, and yet we are suddenly faced with millions of planets that are teaming with life so utterly alien – yet utterly familiar – that we will be hard pressed to absorb it all. That's something I'm trying to convey.

I have another experimental blog that I hope will chronicle the splintering and transition of the "weird tale" into scientifiction (later science fiction) and 20th century horror. Unsung heroes such as Sam Moskowitz, Forest Ackerman, and dozens of other amateurs who later became professional writers, essayists, and editors are nearly forgotten. However, they kept the faith of "Antiquarian Thread" and passed it to us despite the onslaught of the Atomic Age science fiction and it's morphing into science fantasy.

I have tentative plans for an electronic magazine, to continue to work with the team at Dark Recesses, and to work with Larry Roberts at Arcane Wisdom. The question for me is how much time will I have to actually execute these ideas and tasks.

I get occasional grumblings that I've overstepped the line by capturing images and putting them up for viewers on my blogs. I always apologize when that happens, but by and large there seems to be an accommodation that this is a resource that is enjoyed. I make no profit from this – not that I object to making profit, I just am not clever enough to come up with a plan to do so.

Visit Chris Perridas' voluminous archives:
The H. P. Lovecraft And His Legacy Blog

http://chrisperridas.blogspot.com/

Other Blogs

http://weirdbeast.blogspot.com/
http://antiquarianweirdtale.blogspot.com/
http://chrisperridas2.blogspot.com/
http://lincarter.blogspot.com/

The LNN interviews Henrik Harksen

2011-07-08T00:44:00.000-07:00

Found via The Lovecraft News Network:

H. Harksen Productions is an independent, small press specializing in dark fiction—specializing in Lovecraftian fiction & Cthulhu Mythos tales. There latest anthology is entitled Eldritch Horrors: Dark Tales.

From the deepest oceans to shadowy woods, dark cities, across wars and unspeakable realms of the unknown-to forbidden books, strange cultists, dread lore & mad, ancient Gods from beyond time & space. The world is not safe; no one is safe.

The collection includes fourteen new tales of the gruesomely weird by Paul S. Kemp (of Forgotten Realms fame), W. H. Pugmire (with new Sesqua Valley tale!), Gary Hill, Thomas Strømsholt, and others. We spoke with editor Henrik Harksen and asked him to tell us a little about himself, the publishing industry, Victor Borge, and state of Lovecraftian fiction.

LNN: Tell us a little about yourself in general.

HARKSEN: Well, I have a MA in Philosophy, am married with my wonderful wife Hanne with whom I also have a wonderful baby girl, My (yes, I know that name is weird in an English speaking context; the proper pronounciation is the 'y' somewhat like the German 'ü';-)). We also have a cat in our household (rather typical for a Lovecraftian, eh?). Oh, and I live in Odense, Denmark. The same city that fairy tale writer Hans Christian Andersen was born in.

LNN: What is your background in the publication industry, and how did you end up publishing Lovecraftiana?

HARKSEN: I don't really have a background in the publishing industry. Assuming you're talking about a professional level of publishing. Although I have been involved with school magazines and journals (incl. when I was studying Philosophy at the University, where I was Assistant Editor). And for the four issues it existed I helped editing Studies in Fantasy Literature.

It all started years before, though. I have published various amateur publications for a number of years. In fact I have done so ever since I was a child back in the late 1970s. Back then, though, I was creating "LP record covers" for imagined albums. Hehe. So I guess that's where it really started. Go figure:-P Later still I also created "publications" of my own writings (mainly poetry and fledgling short stories; but also the papers at school, college etc.). As you can see, it was way before the Computer Age, so it was back when it was really "copy & paste";-)

It is in connection with the latter that I came up with "H. Harksen Productions". I wanted to write a Copyright note, even in my amateurish mode & state of mind, and for some reason it sounded grander to use a company name instead of merely a name. Don't ask why; I am weird, that's all I can say. And in my wild imagination I also thought it would be cool with an English sounding company name, for, after all it could be great if some day I published Internationally, right? Hehe. (Also, more often than not I wrote in English anyway, even if my native language is Danish.) And, as you can see, my name remained, even in that--at the time fictive--company name.

In the late 1990s I was invited by Derrick Hussey (publisher of the excellent Hippocampus Press) to join the Esoteric Order of Dagon Amateur Press Association, an APA with a time-honored tradition, dedicated to things Lovecraftian and with the world's leading Lovecraft scholar at the helm, S. T. Joshi. Here I started getting more "serious" with what I did, not only when it comes to writing but also when it comes to creating aesthetically satisfying looks of my 'zine, The Philosopher, and the odd booklet I designed once in a while and shared with the members. All of it published through said amateur small press company, hehe.

LNN: Tell us about the mission of H. Harksen Productions. What are your goals for the press?

HARKSEN: My goal with H. Harksen Productions is to primarily (1) publish good, solid, quality stories in the Lovecraftian/Cthulhu Mythos vein (primarily with a focus on new directions of the genre & the ideas), (2) include high quality illustrations and artwork, (3) with aesthetically satisfying layouts and design of the books. The latter is quite important to me. A subsidary goal is to publish non-fiction, Lovecraftian-related books (such as the August Derleth monograph by John D. Derleth published November 2009). In Denmark I have also published a non-HPL horror anthology, which seems to be well received; at this point it is unlikely I will do the same in English.

I am proud that with my first English publication, Eldritch Horrors: Dark Tales, I have managed to gather well-known authors (i.e. Paul S. Kemp, who is a New York Times bestseller of Forgotten Realms novels, and Lovecraftian writers such as W. H. Pugmire) as well as talented new-comers; and succeeded in gathering what I think is an array of excellent pieces of artwork by the esteemed artist Jørgen Mahler Elbang. So I am off to a good start with (1) & (2), I think;-)

A personal goal is to improve my skills. Each publication from me shows improvement--and I learn every step of the way. I wear many hats and I have gotten better at taking the time doing what's needed for each process. I am talking about editing, proof reading, typesetting, designing layout, marketing etc., etc. And since this is all done in what little spare time I have this requires quite a lot of planning. To get closer to these goals I am now receiving help from a good friend of mine from Australia, who will assist in proof reading future products, Phillip A. Ellis (who is an excellent poet of the weird, btw!).

LNN: Your first publication was a purely Danish horror anthology. What prompted the decision to switch to English?

HARKSEN: That is a fair question, but it is really the other way around. Originally I intended to publish in English first--but switched to Danish. The reason is quite simple: I wanted to learn the basics first, and it felt safer doing this when concentrating only on a very local area--in Denmark. Would have been too big if it was the whole wide world from the beginning. Likewise I wanted to have personal contact with the first printing facility I used--so I used one with an office in Denmark. The idea essentially was to learn, before doing a fullfledged International publication. And so I started off with hplmythos.dk#1, Fra Skyggerne og andre Cthulhu Mythos noveller (2007).

Eldritch Horrors: Dark Tales was delayed, but I finally got around to publish it:-) I hope it is the first of many hplmythos.com volumes:-D I have been so fortunate to have so many talented people on this first project, so I am optimistic.

LNN: You wrote a critical essay entitled, "Some Thoughts on The Ninth Configuration," which will be included in the book American Exorcist: Critical Essays on William Peter Blatty. Tell us about this article and how you got involved in horror scholarship.

HARKSEN: The collection was published in 2008 by McFarland. I'd written a (minor) piece for editor Benjamin Szumskyj's Fritz Leiber: Critical Essays, and he kindly asked me if I'd be interested in contributing with an essay to this one; evidently I said yes;-) In "Some Thoughts..." I employ Philosopher Martha C. Nussbaum's theory on literature and philosophy as presented in her excellent essay collection Love's Knowledge (1990). I won't bore you with the details, but in essense I try to demonstrate that using specific parametres (cf. Nussbaum) some heavy philosophical, existential (& religious) features clearly show themself in Blatty's The Ninth Configuration. Features that are especially enlightening qua Blatty's writing.

The article is really a background work for a larger, philosphical thesis I am working on--which revolves around the horror genre (especially HPL's writings & philosophical stance), theory of literature (with particular focus on Nussbaum) & philosphy ("can we get genuine insight/knowledge from a work of fiction?" in particular).

What got me involved in horror scholarship... Hehe... It started with me reading Professor Airaksinen's fascinating and, to me, frustrating The Philosophy of H. P. Lovecraft. Just about everything he wrote in that book grated on my nerves & my senses. It didn't resemble anything I'd read and understood of HPL when some years earlier I'd delved into his letters (the original Selected Letters by Arkham House). But I was going on memory alone, since it had been a while since I had looked at HPL's letters and stories, and that wasn't satisfying. I delved into everything I could get my hand on (at first this was through the University's library), cross-examined it with philosophical theories I knew--learned some new ones along the way--and wrote a paper at the University about some of the things I ended up concluding. A rewrite of this paper was later published as "Metaphysics in "The Music of Erich Zann"" in Lovecraft Studies #45 (2005), edited by S. T. Joshi. I actually contacted Mr. Joshi before joining the EOD, via e-mail, asking him about some of the issues I were working on. At first he wasn't too keen on my core thesis of the paper (although he liked the project and praised it as well as urged me to continue), but when I showed him some hardcore evidence of why I thought it made sense that HPL made a distinction between "ontology" and "metaphysics" he acknowledged my argument. That was a proud day, I can tell you! Almost as proud as the day he asked if I'd mind contributing the piece in Lovecraft Studies. Wow! Me--with a piece in the heart of HPL studies??? I couldn't believe it.

Still can't, actually...;-)

I could say a lot more about horror scholarship--and its philosophical ramifications, in my opinion--but I think this covered the basics of your question ;-)

LNN: What is the state of the market of Lovecraft-themed fiction, both in Denmark and the world wide markets?

HARKSEN: The state of the market seems to be growing again. Tremendously so. Ellen Datlow does excellent editor work, for instance; and the Cthulhu Unbound Series seems to garner much--well-deserved--praise. And even S. T. Joshi has joined the "new Lovecraft/Cthulhu Mythos line" surging these years, editing anthologies for Perilous Press. A writer like the marvelous W. H. Pugmire seems to be more popular than ever and with new works in the pipeline already sold to publishers. So things are looking very good, very good indeed.

I am glad you asked me about the state of "Lovecraftian-themed fiction" and not "Cthulhu Mythos fiction", since I make a distinction between the two. As do many others nowadays. There is nothing wrong with the latter but, a few stories and novels excepted, for many years the Cthulhu Mythos equalled Lovecraft and Lovecraftian fiction. I write a little more about this in my introduction to Eldritch Horrors: Dark Tales, but gladly things have changed. And with focus more and more on the Lovecraftian aspect I am very excited about the current boom.

Sadly I can't say the same about the state of things in Denmark. Yes, on the amateur/fan-base level there is a lot going on, but so far I seem to be the only Lovecraftian trying to publish books with a decidedly Lovecraftian twist. And it is hard to convince the bookstores that it's a good idea having these books on their shelves. I am working against the tides, I must admit, but at least the libraries have been fairly recepting and now that there seems to be a stirring of interest in horror literature, more generally (some of the larger publishers have started publishing horror again), with a little luck times they are a-changing;-)

That said, I am fortunate that the horror society here in Denmark has embraced my project and are very supportive. So I am not complaining.

LNN: Scandinavia is often viewed by conservative Americans as "godless" and "secular." For these people, these terms are pejorative and are used to frighten small children to attend Sunday school and mobilize the right wing political base. However, though many do consider themselves atheists, in fact Scandinavia has a deep, religious tradition, and Denmark even still has a state-sponsored church (at least they still did when I was there). How do Danish beliefs and attitudes towards spirituality--or the lack of them--play out with Lovecraftian ideologies, and how does this affect the way Lovecraft is perceived in Scandinavia?

HARKSEN: The last question first: It has no affect at all. At least, I don't think so. Yes, Denmark still has a state-sponsored church (but besides that it is separate from the state). I would say that the majority of Danes consider themselves, hm, semi-religious. A rather lukewarm description by American standards, but if you really go into a discussion with many Danes I am quite sure most will step away from both outright atheism and all-embracing religion, saying something like "Well, I am sure there is something more but..." This, I think, is tied up with Danes in general having embraced--without knowing it--Søren Kierkegaard's notion of religion as a private matter.

The strange thing is that most Danes feel rather uncomfortable with religion. As for spirituality, well, here it is more or less the same but with an inclination to either believe in "that kind of thing" or dismissing it with a sneer ("superstitious bullocks!"). I think. Many will say spirituality is linked with religion in some way.

Personally I side more or less entirely with HPL's view that there is no God or meaning in the universe. He said something like being "in theory an agnostic, but in actuality an atheist"--I will simply say I am an agnostic with heavy leanings towards atheism;-)

Considering HPL's views on the matter I would say he ought to be more easily appreciated in Denmark than in, say, the US. Oddly enough he isn't--besides the usual cult following & acknowledgment from underground milieus such as roleplay and the heavy metal scene. The main reason for this is that in Denmark we just don't have a strong tradition for weird tales in literature. What is appreciated is, generally speaking, strict "realism" in some form.

LNN: Which do think tend to me more successful for Lovecraft inspired authors: pastiche, emulation, or more subtle invocations of Lovecraft's style and themes? More specifically, what things do you look for when scouting out material for your collections?

HARKSEN: I am sure they can all be successful, one way or the other. It depends on your criterion for "success." Truth be told I look for them all when I look for material. I will readily admit to have a personal preferences for "emulative" and stories with "subtle invocations", since, in my opinion, they are more personal and more easily provide a genuine worldview & new approaches to the philosophical themes often found in HPL's work.

For Eldritch Horrors I looked for a wide spectrum, in an attempt to catch all of the variations you mention. I know there are readers for them all, and I figured it could be fun to introduce something for everybody, so to speak. In the past there has been an emphasis on the Cthulhu/Derleth Mythos formula, and I wanted something else. But some will prefer, say, Leigh Blackmore's "The Return of Zoth-Ommog" (entrenched in classic Mythos storytelling) and perhaps think Ron Shiflet's "Out of the Frying Pan" an odd-ball that doesn't follow the "rules." But they both clearly take inspiration from HPL and the Mythos--but in a very different way. In presenting this spectrum I hope to show how amazingly versatile and varied inspiration from HPL can be. It is really unlike anything else in literature.

I may follow different roads in the future, depending on the publication I have in mind. For instance, W. H. Pugmire has said it could be interesting to see stories taking place in, say, Copenhagen or Prague, or some other non-US location. It all depends on what you want in the book you're planning. There seems to be readers for most of it, anyway. Grandpa from Providence started something unique.

LNN: What advice do you have for aspiring Lovecraftian authors, and when do you plan to start accepting submissions for future collections? Will you host an open call for papers?

HARKSEN: I'd say to any aspiring writer that they should write what they want to write. But also not be blind to what the potential editor advices... Consider it carefully before, maybe, dismissing whatever is said. There could be something to it. I will not disparage any newcomers by saying it is a mistake to lean up close to HPL in writing style and thematics, since this really can be good exercise (not to mention great fun). But I will say that sooner or later they need to find something that is their take on it; their approach. I am not necessarily talking about "finding your voice"--whoever says you only have one voice anyway?--but merely pointing out that if you have yourself in the writing then it is more likely to be interesting. In doing this you also expand the whole Lovecraftian (and Cthulhu Mythos) universe, which is something I certainly appreciate.

My basic advice is really repeating HPL on the matter. So, in short: Read HPL's advices, take them to heart--and you're off to a good start;-)

As for future submissions... When I have laid out the basics of my new project, hplmythos.com Vol. 2, I will post an Open Call for Submissions on the website. I doubt it will be on this side of 2010, but stay tuned for early 2010;-)

And, please--dear Potential New Author--please read the guidelines carefully and only send in something that actually fit within that framework. (Note that I say "framework." That's on purpose. You see, the idea I have in mind, thematically, can be approached in many ways. So it's not that I am totally square--but that I want to see relevant material, okay?)

Oh well, so much said about that and yet I remain secretive about the specifics. Neat, eh?:-P

LNN: What does you wife think of your interest in Lovecraft, and will she let you buy a plush Cthulhu doll for your children to play with?

HARKSEN: Hehe. Yes, I am sure she will let our daughter play with one. (That reminds me that I want to buy one for her! Thanks!) She thinks I have an odd and strange interest. It is one she does not share at all. However, the issues pertaining my HPL & the horror genre that hold my interests have popped up in conversation again and again, and she now understands my fascination (which is, mainly, because of the philosophical elements raised in good horror & weird tale literature--especially in a writer like HPL, or, say, a writer like Thomas Ligotti), and understands why I want to delve into these dark matters.

In other words: She respects it.

LNN: What is the best Danish translation for cyclopean? (All I could come up with is "uhyggeligt," which seems far too banal)

HARKSEN: LOL. A good question... You're right. "Uhyggeligt" would be "scary." As far as I know there is not an exact Danish match to "cyclopean" but I would say a good substitute would be "enormt." (Which again can be translated back to "enormeous";-})

LNN: If Victor Borge had performed a skit entitled "The Music of Eric Zann," what would it have looked like?

HARKSEN: LOL!

The really scary thing is that a skit actually popped up in my head! Have you ever seen his classic act, "phonetic punctuation"?

Imagine him making saying "Cthulhu-like words" in between the singing (as in, "ïa!", "fthagn" etc.), add a viol playing in the background... And Dean Martin either dropping dead as the act closes or, more powerfully, him being sucked out of a window teethering with an abyss totally incomprehensible etc.

Not entirely true to "Zann," perhaps, but certainly with a Lovecraftian punch;-) I'd say something similar could be built around a lot of Borge's other, classic acts:-D

LNN: Anything else you want to put on the record?

HARKSEN: Well, I'd like to advertise the next English-written books from H. Harksen Productions, if you don't mind:

The Unspeakable and Others by Dan Clore (revised and expanded edition of his collection of macabre tales; with many illustrations by the amazing weird artist Allen K.) - coming this November!

August Derleth Redux: The Weird Tale 1930-1971, a non-fiction monograph by the Derleth scholar John D. Haefele. Look out for this brand-new look at Derleth and his importance for the weird tale genre. Also this November.

Hex Code and Others by John Mayer. My first hardcover publication, with a very exciting, original novella and some macabre short stories. Mayer was a friend of the late Karl Edward Wagner, and one of the stories has Wagner as a central character;-) Mayer is also a talented artist and has created beautiful artwork for this publication that sees the light of day early 2010.

Thanks for your time & your interest in H. Harksen Productions. Also thanks for your time, Reader:-)

LNN: It has been our pleasure

Learn more about H. Harksen Productions at their website:

http://hplmythos.com/

Order the latest anthology on Lulu:
http://www.lulu.com/content/5460936

Lovecraft and National Geographic

2011-07-08T00:39:00.000-07:00

Found via The Lovecraft News Network:

We received the following interesting tidbit from Will Hart, noted Providence photographer and Lovecraft enthusiast, and we are pleased to pass it along.

To All Lovecraftians,

Lovecraft and National Geographic; I think the old gentleman would have loved this!
If you head over to the National Geographic "Nat Geo Adventure" website, and look into the "Travel Guides" section, you find a guide to Lovecraft Country, under the title "The Call of Cthulhu." http://natgeoadventure.tv/uk/TravelGuide.aspx?id=68

This piece was written by Edoardo Molinelli, an editor for the PlacesOnline.com website; and includes three photographs from my "Lovecraft's Providence" collection on Flickr.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cthulhuwho1/collections/72157621860080185/

The article, its pictures, and more basic info are currently viewable online.

* * * * * *

THE CALL OF CTHULHU

Download Pdf Guide

Overview

The title of one of the best known stories by the master of the fantastic, Howard Phillips Lovecraft, is The Call of Cthulhu, in which he perfectly describes eerie places the fascination of which, in his stories, have always had an effect on us. Lovecraft set almost all of his works in his beloved New England, uniting existing locations with others invented to create a dream-like, but believable, region which overlaps that existent and lays the foundation for one of the key themes of the writer: the terror that hides in the unexpected of everyday. So we decide to leave for New England to visit the real places (towns, public buildings, houses) by which the "solitary Providence" was inspired in sketching scenarios in his nightmarish stories.

Step 1: The Shadow over Innsmouth

Our journey begins at the airport in Boston, where we rented a car and then set off on the I-95 N in the direction of Newburyport. This town, on the coast of Massachusetts, inspired in Lovecraft the spectral Innsmouth, the stage for one of his best novels, The Shadow Over Innsmouth. In its day Newburyport was in full decline, while today it is a pretty coastal town where you can visit some of the places connected to his work. The first is the Cushing House Museum, at 98 High Street, which houses many items bearing witness to the seafaring past of Newburyport; among these we can include Landlock Lady, a figurehead that was never used, the rich decorations of which are very similar to jewelry described by Lovecraft in his story. We move on to the Masonic Hall at 31 Green Street, which according to Shreffler would inspire the writer for the site of the Esoteric Order of Dagon, and before we leave, we pause in front of the Newburyport Public Library, on State Street, where the hero of the Shadow goes to seek news Innsmouth.
We take the MA133 from Newburyport to Gloucester, where the Legion Memorial Building in Washington Square is another candidate to be the model for the site of the Order of Dagon: although not experts, we also find it more like how we had imagined the Lovecraftian building. The Sargent House Museum, a 1760 colonial building, corresponds to the Gilman House Hotel of Innsmouth according to Murray.
Following the MA 128, we finally arrive in Marblehead, a town which to Lovecraft becomes the Kingsport of the famous The Festival. The places in the story that have been identified by scholars are the Old Burial Hill, St. Michael's Episcopal Church and the Bowen House at 1 Mugford Street, a vaguely sinister-looking house, where HPL imagined the mysterious family protagonist of his story lived.

Step 2: Miskatonic University, Arkham

The most famous Lovecraft alternative city in New England is without any doubt Arkham, the scene of many of the major stories of the writer. It is no secret, that to create it, Lovecraft was inspired by Salem, famous for the witch hunts of 1692, and, like the town in Massachusetts, Arkham is also surrounded by a set of obscure legends which speak of arcane rituals and forbidden knowledge stored in the halls of Miskatonic University (http://www.miskatonic-university.org/). From Marblehead we take the M114 and in 10 minutes we are in Salem, where we immediately see the Derby House, identified by the experts as the house of Edward Derby in The Thing on the Doorstep. After a quick visit to the Salem Witch Museum, we stop off at the Charter Street Burial Ground, an old cemetery where we find the tombstone of a certain Caleb Pickman, which immediately brings to mind Pickman's Model. Nearby is the Witch House, home of the judge of the 1692 process, Jonathan Corwin, that inspired Lovecraft's The Dreams in the Witch-house, while the neighboring Crowninshield-Bentley House is the dwelling of Asenath Waite, one of the few female characters created by the writer, introduced in The Thing on the Doorstep.
The next day we headed to Boston, but first we stop in Danvers, almost five miles north of Salem. Here, at the top of Hathorne Hill, rises the Danvers Asylum for the Criminally Insane, a psychiatric hospital that inspired in Lovecraft the famous Arkham Sanitarium. Unfortunately for us, the building was demolished in 2005 and all that remains is the austere facade.
We pass the rest of the day in the North End of Boston, where the red brick houses, narrow passageway and old courtyards remind us of the unknown and grim neighborhoods of Pickman’s Model. We finish our walk at the Copp's Hill cemetery, one of the favorite subjects of the diabolical painter, the evil protagonist of the story, then we head towards the town of Cambridge, just outside of Boston; here, with the last half of the day remaining, we visit the Harry Elkins Memorial Library of Harvard University, quoted in the outstanding The Dunwich Horror as the custodian of a copy of the Necronomicon.

Step 3: Appointment in Providence

Our trip to Providence, Lovecraft's birthplace and the only place to which he has ever felt he belonged, begins with Benefit Street, at number 251 where we find the Athenaeum Library: in addition to being cited in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward ( as "the Providence novel" for his close connection to the city), the library is located near what was the last residence of HPL. Nearby, at 135, the Stephen Harris House stands out, abandoned at the time of Lovecraft; it inspired the story, The Shunned House. Passing 598 Angell Street, where the house stands that the writer lived in from 1904 to 1924, we arrive at Prospect Street. In the John Hay Library at number 20, many of Lovecraft's original manuscripts are to be found in addition to a commemorative plaque in his honour, carrying the poetry from the collection Fungi from Yugghot. At number 65 the Samuel B. Mumford House stands, the scene of The Haunter of the Dark and last residence of Lovecraft: the study of the protagonist of the story is none other than the writer’s own. Just ahead, at 140, is the Halsey House, the home of Charles Dexter Ward in the novel, also reputed as being haunted in the early 1900's.

We continue up to 10 Barnes Street, where we find the one that was home to Lovecraft from 1926 to 1933 (and home of Dr. Willett in the Case); we then skirt Prospect Terrace, one of the city views most beloved by the writer, to arrive finally on Thomas Street. The buildings at number 7, the "Fleur-de-Lys” House, and number 11, the Providence Art Club, are mentioned several times in the famous The Call of Cthulhu.
All that remains is to reach a place for the ending of our trip: Lovecraft's grave in Swan Point Cemetery, this is also cited in the The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. When the writer died in 1937, he was buried in the family tomb, and not until forty years later was a memorial tombstone dedicated to him, with his name, date of birth and death and a simple inscription: "I am Providence". It is here, surrounded by a peaceful silence, we understand the true nature of Lovecraft's New England: a picturesque region and not at all threatening, rendered hallucinatory and sinister by the pen of the greatest fantasy writer of the twentieth century.

By Edoardo Molinelli

* Basic Info:

Documents and currency:

A passport with at least six months remaining validity is the minimum requirement, while health insurance is not mandatory it is strongly recommended. All information for travel to the USA can be found at http://www.usa.gov/visitors/travel.shtml.

Duration:

Ten days are ideal to allow you to immerse yourself in the atmosphere of the trip.

When to go:

New England is a rather cold zone, even in the spring there may be sudden drops in temperature; therefore, we recommend that you visit it in the summer.

How to get there:

Boston’s Logan International Airport is one of the 20 busiest U.S. airports and is connected to many major American and European cities.

Photographs and videos:

Try to photograph when the light is softer, therefore in the morning or evening, and avoid panoramas lacking character. Focusing on a detail and enhancing it with good composition of the shot achieves the best in photographs of building.

Literature, films and volunteerism:

The complete works of Lovecraft have been several times and is easily found. Lovecraft's Providence and Adjacent Parts by Henry Beckwith is very useful for the purpose of travel. In our opinion, the most beautiful biography of the Providence writer, is HP Lovecraft. Against the world, against life by Michel Houellebecq.
There are numerous films based on the works of HPL, but very few have any real merit; we cite The Haunted Palace (1963) with Vincent Price and Dagon (2001) by Stuart Gordon.
For volunteering opportunities in the area of Providence, visit www.vcri.org.

Debunking the Lovecraftian Occult

2011-07-08T00:28:00.000-07:00

Found via The Lovecraft News Network:

"Debunking the Lovecraftian Occult"

by Thomas Jude Barclay Morrison

“I am, indeed, an absolute materialist so far as actual belief goes; with not a shred of credence in any form of supernaturalism—religion, spiritualism, transcendentalism, metempsychosis, or immortality.” (H. P. Lovecraft, Selected Letters, Vol. II, p. 27)

The both delightfully and horrifyingly bizarre spectacle that we laughably refer to as “the modern world” is graced by the presence of a perhaps surprisingly large number of Lovecraftian occult 'orders', and an ever-growing body of writings concerning the practice of Lovecraftian occultism. This literalising of Lovecraft's tales of crazed and diabolical cultists enslaved by monstrous, ancient god-like entities has to qualify as one of the most curious cultural phenomena, even by the standards of the already highly curious subculture of contemporary Lovecraftiana. I would therefore like to take a few moments of your time, dear reader, in which to survey this singular scene, and to challenge, perhaps, some of the presumptions and misconceptions that underlie it—please do not be alarmed, the process will be almost entirely painless, and I can assure you that you will feel much better in the morning.

Besides the great many Lovecraftian occultists who belong to no formal organisation, and who practice their magic in a solitary way, occult orders claiming to work Lovecraftian magic include the Typhonian Order, the Order of the Trapezoid, the Bate Cabal, the Lovecraftian Coven, the Starry Wisdom group, the Miskatonic Alchemical Expedition, a veritable plethora of Esoteric Orders of Dagon, and of course, the Cult of Cthulhu, already very much known and loved by Adepts and Grand Wizards of the Lovecraft News Network. Lovecraftian occult groups and practitioners like to think that they are highly unique and individualistic—and indeed, there are minor differences between them—but broadly speaking, they are united in the following ways: their fondness for hierarchical organisation, which manifests in a variety of deliciously pompous titles like “High Priest” and “Grand Master”; their fondness for Lovecraft; their fondness for the postmodern occultism known as Chaos Magic; their fondness for Satanism. They are also united in that they continue to exist—a fact which might in itself be viewed as an argument against the reality of the magic they practice, given the fate of those who actually succeed in 'invoking' the 'Old Ones', in Lovecraft's stories.

In written form, the most (in)famous manifestations of Lovecraftian occultism are almost certainly the various competing versions (including those by Donald Tyson and Robert Turner) of Lovecraft's pseudo-grimoire, the Necronomicon—the most renowned of which is that which “Simon” (a nom de plume) penned. These Necronomicons are exactly what you'd expect them to be—collections of spells and rituals designed to invoke and summon Lovecraft's “Old Ones”, written in the style of medieval and renaissance grimoires, and in the case of Simon, also that of Sumerian mythology. The number of people who believe these texts to be genuinely archaic is surprisingly high, given the widespread availability of information concerning their spurious nature—although perhaps it should not be surprising, since credulity and wilful myopia have never been in short supply.

Let's take a closer look at the Simon Necronomicon. It's one of the most magnificently unoriginal texts you could hope to encounter. A quarter of it is stolen from Lovecraft, a quarter of it from Aleister Crowley, a quarter from Sumerian mythology, and a quarter from the Key of Solomon and the Lesser Key of Solomon (famous medieval/renaissance grimoires, whose beautiful 'seals' Simon poorly imitates, in the extensive sections of his book taken up with sigils, such as his 'Book of Fifty Names'). Of course, few books are truly original—but Simon fails even to combine his sources in an imaginative, interesting or surprising way. Frankly, if you like books with grimoire-y atmosphere, which is above all what Simon attempts to create, then you're far better off with real grimoires, like the Key of Solomon—and the same is true if you're looking for an authentic book of magic (if there is such a thing). Should you be reckless enough to wish to follow Crowley's Ignis Fatuus, then you'll find his own writings far more interesting than Simon's sycophantic idolisation of him. As for Lovecraft—Simon's Necronomicon completely misrepresents his stories, and in so doing renders him a great disservice.

In the Introduction to Simon's Necronomicon, in the section entitled 'The Mythos and the Magick', Simon states that:

“Lovecraft depicted a kind of Christian Myth of the struggle between opposing forces of Light and Darkness, between God and Satan, in the Cthulhu Mythos.”

This is by no means what Lovecraft depicted. The struggle between the “Elder Gods” and the “Ancient Ones”, to which Simon refers, is to be found in the pages of August Derleth's work, not Lovecraft's. Unlike 'Cthulhu Mythos' authors such as Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, Robert Bloch and Frank Belknap Long, Derleth wrote his stories after Lovecraft's death, with no guidance from or collaboration with Lovecraft. His work is widely acknowledged—by everyone, it seems, but Simon—to be cliched, simplistic, and in general inferior to the work of both Lovecraft and many of the other Mythos writers. It is only in Derleth's stories that you will find Lovecraftian entities engaged in a war of good versus evil. In Lovecraft's own writings, the situation is far more complex and ambiguous than a childish “goodies vs. baddies” scenario, and in claiming that Lovecraft himself wrote of such a struggle, Simon distorts and diminishes Lovecraft and his work.

Such distortions are typical of Lovecraftian occult texts. Other than the various Necronomicons, the most widely-known and influential text of Lovecraftian occultism is probably Satanic Rituals, by Anton LaVey (the founder of the Order of the Trapezoid)—the earliest text in which Lovecraftian occult rituals were published. Whilst LaVey's portrayal of Lovecraft and his work is slightly more sophisticated than that of Simon, Satanic Rituals is crammed with misconception after delightful misconception. LaVey's ideological stance continually impares his ability to read the text for what it is—like all ideologues, he views everything through the distorting prism of his fundamentalist beliefs. For example:

“The concept of worship per se is strikingly absent from the Cthulhu mythos. Nyarlathotep, Shub-Niggurath, Yog-Sothoth and Cthulhu are all honored through bizarre festivals, but their relationship to their followers is invariably that of teacher to students. Compare the description of a Lovecraftian ceremony to that of a Christian mass or a Voodoo rite, and it is clear that the element of servility is definitely lacking in the first. ”

Let us instead compare the description of a Lovecraftian ceremony with LaVey's description, above, of what happens in such a ceremony:

“In a natural glade of the swamp stood a grassy island of perhaps an acre's extent, clear of trees and tolerably dry. On this now leaped and twisted a more indescribable horde of human abnormality than any but a Sime or an Angarola could paint. Void of clothing, this hybrid spawn were braying, bellowing, and writhing about a monstrous ring-shaped bonfire; in the centre of which, revealed by occasional rifts in the curtain of flame, stood a great granite monolith some eight feet in height; on top of which, incongruous in its diminutiveness, rested the noxious carven statuette. From a wide circle of ten scaffolds set up at regular intervals with the flame-girt monolith as a centre hung, head downward, the oddly marred bodies of the helpless squatters who had disappeared. It was inside this circle that the ring of worshippers jumped and roared, the general direction of the mass motion being from left to right in endless Bacchanal between the ring of bodies and the ring of fire.” (H. P. Lovecraft, Call of Cthulhu)

This is no teacher, handing on wisdom to his pupils, as LaVey states the relationship between Mythos entities and their followers “invariably” is—Lovecraft describes these 'pupils' as “mentally aberrant” and “degraded and ignorant”, within a couple of paragraphs of the above quotation, which is hardly a description of those capable of receiving a teaching. And contrary to what LaVey argues about “the concept of worship” being “strikingly absent” from Lovecraft's ceremonies, this is very much an act of worship, in which Lovecraft's portrayal of the cultists' bestiality (amongst other details, such as the human sacrifices, or the idol that 'lords it over' the cultists, from its throne high on the monolith) is intended to convey a sense of abject, mindless servility to Cthulhu, in which the cultists are diminished, and become less than human. Lovecraft even states that this act of worship is tinged with “a colouring of voodooism”―which LaVey specifically singles out as being unlike Lovecraft's fictional ceremonies. LaVey, with his cult of “the flesh”, celebrates and is a propagandist for Dionysian animalism, and so assumes that Lovecraft also must be, simply because he writes about Bacchanalian ceremonies—even though the text itself veritably screams his contempt (fascist and racist, at root) for the cultists.

Exactly the same misconception is evident in the following passage from Satanic Rituals:

“There is evidence that he [Lovecraft] was acutely aware of civilization's effects upon mankind—both educational and repressive. His tales constantly remind the reader that humanity is but a short step from the most depraved and vicious forms of bestiality. He sensed man's drive toward knowledge, even at the risk of sanity. Intellectual excellence, he seemed to say, is achieved in concert with cataclysmic terror—not in avoidance of it. ”

It's true that Lovecraft's tales constantly warn against the bestiality that lurks in the human heart. But he intends this warning in precisely the opposite way to LaVey's reading of it—Lovecraft is clinging to civilisation, not condemning it. LaVey seems entirely ignorant of one of the most persistent subtexts in Lovecraft's work: his almost Hardyesque lament for the passing away of eighteenth century culture, which he saw as being more civilised than that of the times which followed it.

Consider, for example, The Horror at Red Hook. Lovecraft describes Red Hook as a place in which the veneer of civilisation has fallen away. This is not a place that civilisation has corrupted, as LaVey's argument would lead you to believe, but rather a place which could only benefit from the presence of civilisation. Lovecraft's protagonist is:

“...conscious, as one who united imagination with scientific knowledge, that modern people under lawless conditions tend uncannily to repeat the darkest instinctive patterns of primitive half-ape savagery in their daily life and ritual observances...”

Lovecraft clearly states, here, the exact opposite to LaVey's distortion of his views—he argues that “modern people” are degraded as a consequence of civilisation's lack (ie. “lawless conditions”), not as a consequence of civilisation itself, as LaVey suggests, and also that “primitive” people are less than human precisely because they are not civilised.

Of course, Lovecraft being Lovecraft, there is no optimism in this view. Although he regards lack of civilisation as the least desirable option, neither is he very hopeful about civilisation's prognosis:

“...the wishes, hopes, and values of humanity are matters of total indifference to the blind cosmic mechanism.” (H. P. Lovecraft, A Confession of Unfaith (1922), in H. P. Lovecraft, Miscellaneous Writings

Moreover, his pessimism is by no means limited to the ultimate fate of civilisation. What admiration he had for civilisation was largely rooted in his almost paranoiac fear of its collapse—he fervently believed that what civilisation he saw around him was very much under threat, menaced by exactly the sort of 'barbarian' immigrants (this is definitely not to overstate his xenophobic views, although it should be remembered that such views were typical of his time) that he depicted with such contempt in The Horror at Red Hook, in which he is careful to banish “American and Scandinavian” (ie. Aryan) people from Red Hook, which he populates with “Syrian, Spanish, Italian, and Negro elements impinging upon one another”. His cultists are usually foreigners.

Although Lovecraft's views on civilisation were tainted with fascism, they were also complex, nuanced, and not a little ambiguous. This is a stark contrast to LaVey's straightforward contempt of civilisation, which is a black-and-white, fundamentalist ideology that does no justice to the complexity of the subject at hand—it is not simply in his outright hostility to civilisation (in contrast to Lovecraft's clinging to it), but also in the simplistic nature of his views, that he is utterly at odds with Lovecraft. He reads his own obsessions into Lovecraft's work, simply because Lovecraft happens to be talking about the same general subject matter (ie. civilisation)—it's a bit like arguing that the authors of the Malleus Maleficarum were advocates of witchcraft, on the basis that their book is about witchcraft. LaVey is either wilfully or delusively blind to anything in Lovecraft's writing which doesn't neatly fit into his rigid ideology, and 'cherry-picks' Lovecraft for superficial similarities to his own world view.

Kenneth Grant—the founder of the Typhonian order—is another influential figure in the field of Lovecraftian occultism, where his The Magical Revival casts a long shadow (Simon's Necronomicon, for example, is heavily influenced by it). Grant approaches Lovecraft from a background rooted in Chaos Magic, rather than Satanism. In Chaos Magic, archetypes found in fiction or popular culture are regarded as being as magically potent as those found in the pantheons of the ancient world—Superman, Elvis and Marilyn Monroe are as fitting symbols with which to make magic as Mars, Orpheus or Venus. Grant, in The Magical Revival, treats Lovecraft's 'Old Ones' in this way, arguing that “fiction, as a vehicle, has often been used by occultists”, and that “writers such as Arthur Machen, Brodie Innes, Algernon Blackwood and H.P. Lovecraft are in this category ”.

In stating that Lovecraft's writing 'falls into the category' of fiction used “as a vehicle... by occultists”, Grant is arguing that Lovecraft was an occultist. Yet his argument is less straightforward and more deceptive than that, because he sees Lovecraft as a mage who lived in denial of his status as mage, who failed to pass—as he rather pompously puts it—“the final pylons of Initiation”. This thoroughly condescending view of Lovecraft's achievement is no doubt rooted in Lovecraft's passionate atheism and disbelief in magic—that is, his total rejection of Grant's world-view—and yet this implicit acknowledgement of Lovecraft's disbelief does not stop Grant from arguing that Lovecraft was a subconscious propagandist for magic, writing stories that advocate the occult, without realising that he was doing so.

He contends that Lovecraft's lifelong “night terrors”, which inspired so much of his writing, were in fact occult visions—which is very presumptuous of him, it has to be said, given that Lovecraft himself, who did not believe in occult visions, would have objected in the strongest possible terms to his nightmares being represented as such. Grant 'substantiates' his argument by detailing ways in which he believes Lovecraft's Mythos parallels the ideas and mythology of Aleister Crowley. These largely consist of alleged similarities between names used in Lovecraft's stories and names significant in Crowley's work—Yog Sothoth, for instance, he claims to be related to “Sut-Thoth”, an Egyptian deity important to Crowley, whilst Azathoth he connects with both Azoth, “the alchemical solvent”, and again Thoth, the Egyptian god of writing and scribes, beloved by Crowley. He accepts that Lovecraft and Crowley never met, and that Lovecraft never read Crowley's work, but argues that both took their inspiration from the same occult source.

Linguistic and etymological sophistries of the sort outlined by Grant are a common tool of occult mountebanks, and the fact that phonetic resemblances are undeniably present between certain words has surprising potency, when it comes to blinding intelligent people to the true causes of such similarities. And yet the fact remains that the human tongue can only utter a limited number of sounds, which means that there are bound to be phonetic parallels between any two groups of otherwise entirely unconnected words. To put it bluntly—the alleged linguistic connections between Lovecraft's writing and Crowley's ideas, which Grant outlines, are the result of blind chance, anatomical necessity, and Grant's obsession with the occult, and are flimsy foundations indeed on which to base an argument that Crowley and Lovecraft were inspired by the same occult vision. Grant's writings on the subject of Lovecraft are (like LaVey's) an abundantly excellent example of the following truth: if you are obsessed with something in a big enough way, then you will interpret everything you encounter as being connected with the object of your obsession. If you go looking for them, then you will find names from Lovecraft, Crowley, Solomonic Magic, Ancient Babylon, and Disney® (or any other flavour of pantheon that takes your fancy) everywhere, including in the registration plates of passing cars.

None of this is to deny that there are occult elements in Lovecraft's work. It's well known that he was aware of various occult texts, and that he drew on these texts in his writing:

“Lovecraft was at least somewhat familiar with the literature of occultism, especially in his later years. At the time of his death, his library contained such works as Lewis Spence’s Encyclopæia of Occultism, Sir Walter Scott's Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft, Camille Flammarion's Haunted Houses, and a variety of works on ghosts, folklore, and mythology. This was not the end of the matter, as Lovecraft also borrowed a number of occult works—as well as Charles Fort's Book of the Damned and New Lands—from libraries and his friends, most notably Herman C. Koenig of New York City... Lovecraft, then, was hardly an authority on matters esoteric and uncanny, but he had some basic knowledge that he incorporated into his tales.” (Daniel Harms, H.P. Lovecraft, in Fortean Times, June 2004)

Yet pointing out the existence of such influences is not enough, if one intends to argue that Lovecraft held occult beliefs, that he would have approved of his stories being used as the basis of a practice of magic, or that his writings should be read as occult texts. These arguments are largely refuted in his letters, which reveal him as a passionate and outspoken opponent of superstition who regarded magic in all its forms as nothing but superstition. If his works are to be read as occult texts, then one might as well read the telephone directory in search of occult wisdom, because he wrote them with the same lack of intent to create an occult text as the authors of the telephone directory. To argue that he wrote occult texts without realising it is to both ignore the sense of disgust with which he writes his cultists, and which give his stories a significant undercurrent of anti-occult propaganda, and to patronise him, by implying that the poor dear wasn't self-aware enough to understand the true significance of his work (which of course can only be glimpsed by occultists—so much of the occult is about elitism). Lovecraft's writings draw on occult texts, yes—but that by no means makes them occult texts in themselves.

I'd like to round off our stroll through the murky underworld of Lovecraftian occultism, dear reader, by stating—for the record, and so it's out in the open—my views on Satanism and Chaos Magic, since these belief systems are so significant to the theory and practice of Lovecraftian occultism. In a nutshell, and as you've probably already guessed, I believe both Satanism and Chaos Magic to be deeply flawed. In the case of Satanism, I simply can't get away from the fact that the Christians invented the Devil. Satanism, therefore, is forever chained to the very ideology it has made its enemy. By defining itself solely in relation to Christianity, it remains fundamentally Christian in perspective—Satanists completely fail to escape the Christian metaphor. A Satanist is just a Christian standing on their head. I'm reminded of LaVey's observation that:

“Lovecraft recorded his aversion to conventional religious dogma in The Silver Key, and he regarded with a similar scorn those who, rejecting religion, succumbed to a controversial substitute, i.e. the popular notion of witchcraft.” (from Satanic Rituals)

LaVey, for once, is exactly right—although he doesn't realise that Satanism is precisely the sort of deliberately controversial and populist substitute for the dogmas of religion that Lovecraft despised.

In the case of Chaos Magic, although I have more respect for it than I do for Satanism, I find its defining characteristic of 'paradigm shifts' to be shallow and self-defeating. Chaos Magic advocates taking up and discarding world views and belief systems as they serve the magician's purpose—a Chaos magician works with Lovecraft's deities one week, the pantheon of ancient Egypt the week after that, and the cast of Star Trek the week after that, and regards all such belief systems as fundamentally untrue (“nothing is true, everything is permitted”, the Chaos magicians cry, seemingly unaware of the rather ambiguous context in which Nietzsche first framed their one-liner). This attempt to manipulate the power of belief must ultimately fail because anyone who can throw away a belief system and adopt a different one overnight, and without a second thought, simply because it's useful to do so, and who moreover overtly states that they hold no belief system to be true, doesn't really believe in the first place. Chaos magicians are the antithesis of medieval and renaissance mages, to whom belief was not a clever game, but the literal and unchangeable truth—and yet Chaos magicians argue that it is in precisely that kind of rock-solid, unshakable belief that magical power lies. There is no illuminating paradox here—just a straightforward contradiction, born of flawed logic.

As for occult tradition in general—it's true to say that I have a lot more respect for the occultism of renaissance and medieval times than I do for postmodern forms of magic. Yes, pre-modern occultism is steeped in dogma and superstition, but there's a depth to it that I find lacking in postmodern occultism—and even a humility in the face of mystery that feels like a breath of fresh air, after reading the writings of know-it-alls like LaVey or Crowley. It also has an atmosphere, an aesthetic, and a poetry that is all of its own, and which I find far more unique, imaginative and downright bizarre than that of, say, Satanism or Chaos Magic. On the wider matter of magic itself—above all, I recognise that “there is more in heaven and earth than is dreamed of in your philosophy”. For this reason, I'm not going to expound my views on magic here, because that would be to either deny that there is mystery or imply that I could confidently explain the mysterious, and fall into precisely the kind of arrogance that I abhor in the writings of Crowley and LaVey. Suffice it to say that my views are ambiguous, evolving, and sceptical—but that although I am dismissive of postmodern occultism, I am by no means entirely dismissive of either occultism or magic itself.

Last of all, now that I have completed my attempt to tear the Lovecraftian occult to shreds before your very eyes, let me take a moment to celebrate it—for make no mistake, I have genuine affection for it. I wholeheartedly believe that we would all be impoverished, if delusions like those of the Lovecraftian occultist were to ever go out of fashion. Life can only be enriched by the existence of harmless and entertaining insanities like the literalising of works of fiction, or the adopting of splendidly pompous titles like “Intergalactic Grand Potentate of the Thirteen Sacred Dishes of Ishra”, or “Seven Hundred and Thirty Fourth Heresiarch of the Thrice Reviled Ixplatagm”, or whatever. In short, it's hokum, but it's dashed good hokum, and for this reason, Lovecraftian occultists—I salute you! May your grandiloquent delusions remain unconquerable, and bring you nothing but satisfaction and joy! May drab and mediocre reality never sully you!

State of the Union...

2011-07-08T00:11:00.000-07:00

Found via Re-Animated States of America:

Always mutating, the world of the Re-Animated States of America is leaving the blogosphere and will return in the form of a print magazine, to be published in the winter of 2011! Expanded storylines, including adventures focusing on characters other than West and Jehovah, even more dynamic artwork, including amazing acrylic paintings, and glimpses into the massive world changing story arc that has barely been hinted at here, will all be part of Re-Animated States of America the Magazine! Check out the teaser trailer and several test pages below, and watch this space for more…

Special thanks to Mars Homeworld, of Dead House Music, for providing the amazing soundscape and narration for the trailer...

Cthulhu Fhtagn! Bakutis Edition

2011-07-07T17:45:00.000-07:00

Found via Propnomicon:

Artist Jason Bakutis brings us this bas relief of dread Cthulhu. It's an interesting interpetation that blends the traditional depiction of the great Old One with the look of a western demon.

Cthulhu Fhtagn! da Geb Edition

2011-07-07T17:40:00.000-07:00

found via Propnomicon:

Solon da Geb brings us this dynamic Cthulhu maquette. It's a beautiful sculpt, but a bit too anthropomorphic for my tastes. That's a matter of personal opinion and shouldn't detract from the obvious skill that went into the piece. I just find myself enjoying more alien-looking depictions of Cthulhu as I get older.

The Innsmouth Taint

2011-07-07T17:36:00.000-07:00

Found via Propnomicon:

The talented Joe Broers brings us this faux-bronze resident of Innsmouth.

Dead But Dreaming 2 by Miskatonic River Press

2011-07-07T15:59:00.000-07:00

found via Grim Reviews:

Miskatonic River Press has finally published its long awaited follow up to one of the best Lovecraftian anthologies in recent memory. Dead But Dreaming 2 picks up where the first book left off, plunging readers into territory where the traditional Cthulhu Mythos rarely tread. Like its predecessor, editor Kevin Ross has managed to line up some of Lovecraftiana's best writers. Readers can look forward to stories by Scott David Aniolowski, David Annandale, Donald R. Burleson, John Goodrich, Cody Goodfellow, T.E. Grau, Rick Hautala, Walt Jarvis, Erik T. Johnson, William Meikle, Will Murray, Daniel W. Powell, Wilum Pugmire, Joseph S. Pulver Sr, Pete Rawlik, Kevin Ross, Brian Sammons, Darrell Schweitzer, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Michael Tice, and Don Webb.

In many ways, Dead But Dreaming 2 promises to match or outshine the first Dead But Dreaming, which I previously reviewed. The book serves as an excellent reminder of the literary work Miskatonic River Press continues to do, aside from its extensive publications in Lovecraftian gaming. Next year, books featuring new stories devoted to Thomas Ligotti and Robert W. Chambers' King in Yellow are set to appear.

Weird fiction has always been a narrow field, but the big players in publishing are identified by their quality. Consider Miskatonic River Press one of the foremost purveyors carrying on a richly Lovecraftian and strange tradition in these times. The ongoing horror manifest in volumes like Dead But Dreaming 2 is proof of that.

-Grim Blogger

Review: The Great Lover by Michael Cisco

2011-07-07T15:57:00.000-07:00

found via Grim Reviews:

When you step inside Michael Cisco’s world, don’t just expect the unexpected. Rather, brace yourself. Cisco’s themes, ideas, and imagery are so thoroughly exotic that they verge on posing an existential danger. Nowhere is this clearer than in his most recent release, The Great Lover, a lengthy novel published by the enterprising Chomu Press. Wedged between an atmosphere of rich dereliction and an uncanny style is a treatise on the modern, the vampiric, death, and the élan vital. Uncovering these nuggets of pure thought requires effort, but the psychic mining is worthwhile.

In previous novels like The Tyrant, Michael Cisco’s ideological and stylistic ancestry reflects Franz Kafka, as well as masters of strangeness such as Thomas Ligotti, H.P. Lovecraft, and David Lynch. This aesthetic heritage is even more evident in his short story collection, Secret Hours. However, the new work is a different organism altogether. It seems that Cisco’s Great Lover is more than a deranged anti-hero. He is a representation of the author’s own progression, breaking free from the orbit of the greats, and soaring off into truly original territory.

Prosthetic Libido, Prosthetic Characters, and Prosthetic Styles

Whatever criticism or praise may be leveled about The Great Lover, everyone must recognize its abundant originality. Cisco’s diverse characters strike a fantastic chord from the beginning. We are introduced to the Great Lover, the novel’s titular character, who is a strange entity never before seen in any horror fiction or outside of it. He is one part sewer dwelling tramp, and the other part intellectual invader. The Great Lover dwells in the mind, in the coffin, and in the other people’s dreams. Does he breach boundaries between worlds, or serve as proof that disparate realities are actually the same? Cisco doesn’t provide a definitive answer, but the awesome mystery posed by the Great Lover’s existence is just one of the book’s mighty offerings.

Curiously, Michael Cisco takes a turn toward Frankenstein and science fiction with the Prosthetic Libido. This strange and lustful being is an android designed to quarantine a work obsessed scientist’s lust, on the surface. However, throughout the narrative, the Prosthetic Libido seems like so much more. After human lust is introduced into a dead, blank human facsimile, Cisco presents the ultimate dichotomy. The Prosthetic Libido is an effective walking philosophical quandary, eradicating the boundaries between inanimate deadness and the chief driving force behind most organic beings.

Staying caged within stylistic traditions doesn’t appeal to Michael Cisco very much either. The Great Lover is his literary escape pod. He disregards traditional narrative structures with courage and recklessness, and the results are mixed. At times, Cisco’s weaving between tenses, points of view, and first and third person is disorienting. Yet, many readers will adjust due to the novel’s length, as Cisco temporarily rewires our brains to perceive his story as he does. It’s as though we are all prosthetic puppets artfully crafted to adapt to Cisco’s experimental style, serving as vessels for his alien scripture. Like all little puppets, some will cooperate happily, while others will resist the author’s extra-literary influence.

Cisco’s Horrors of the Mind

Somewhere, deep in a landscape dotted with art museums and literary laboratories, the real purpose of The Great Lover takes shape. Cisco’s book explores bizarre, often opposed themes fearlessly. Like a barely charted jungle, well defined paths and crumbling shrines within the novel are too numerous and hidden to define with precision. Instead, Cisco’s novel leaves a distinct aftertaste of lush contrasts.

Defying life and death, epitomized by the Great Lover, the Prosthetic Libido, and a host of other offbeat characters, stands out most clearly. Perhaps, in a tradition coursing through weird fiction and found in academic philosophy’s gutters, Michael Cisco wishes to tear off our neat glasses and shatter them on the ground. By wrecking the distinctions between living and dead beings, macabre vermin ridden sewers and subway cults, the Prosthetic and the natural, we see the nature of reality as it actually is, however blurry. Though this novel could fit neatly in a course on Modernism and Post-Modernism as required reading, walking away with bland numbness rather than existential, uncanny chills isn’t possible.

Book by book, tale by tale, Michael Cisco is quickly becoming an intellectual godfather of weird fiction. He isn’t H.P. Lovecraft, Thomas Ligotti, or Franz Kafka. Just like the supernatural cloud cover and heady ideas overflowing from The Great Lover, it’s impossible to neatly describe Cisco’s literary career. However, he shows no sign of slowing as he advances toward his unknown destination, and by gaining Cyclopean mass, his wake may pull all of us into the ether with him.

-Grim Blogger

Grim Reviews: Virginia Terminates Miskatonic Institute

2011-06-23T16:07:00.000-07:00

found via Grim Reviews:

John J. Miller kindly shared this recent document, where the state of Virginia terminated an earlier corporation of his that was re-named the Miskatonic Institute for Advanced Cthulhu Studies. But was it just a name change, or one more episode in the infamous university's history, chronicled by Lovecraft and his successors in anthologies like Robert Weinberg's Miskatonic University? Decide for yourself. The full details are as follows:

Last year, I incorporated a small non-profit organization in Virginia. Shortly after setting it up, I learned that I had made a small mistake in the paperwork. The easiest course was to start over. Yet I wanted to keep the organization's name, so the first step was to change the name of the original organization--i.e., to give it a dummy name and than incorporate again with the name I wanted. So changed the first group's name to "Miskatonic Institute for Advanced Cthulhu Studies." The state of Virginia now informs me that the Miskatonic Institute is being terminated for failing to pay its annual registration fees.

It seems the state of Virginia is not as lenient as New England for institutes devoted to unraveling Lovecraftian mysteries. Not unless Cthulhu cultists pay promptly, that is. Visit John Miller's website here.

Grim Reviews SIN AND ASHES by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.

2011-06-07T16:00:00.000-07:00

Via Grim Reviews:

There are few weird horror collections that can vacillate between subtle terrors and visceral apocalypses without becoming wildly unbalanced. Now, though, the horror community is joined by Joseph S. Pulver's latest collection, Sin & Ashes, a sizable nightmare gallery published by Hippocampus Press that accomplishes this rare feat. By some indeterminate black magic, Pulver successfully dishes out the grotesque, the chilling, and intellectual dreads by short story and poetry, without losing his foothold on readers' unsettled reptile brains.

The book's real power lays in its ability to stitch seemingly disconnected horrors together, resulting in a Frankenstein collection capable of getting off the table and roaring like the legendary monster. But Jospeh S. Pulver's creation attacks all the unguarded senses, unlike Mary Shelley's fiend. Tales like “Love Her Madly” depict grisly crimes orchestrated by violent psychotics. Others, such as “Last Year in Carcosa” and “Long-Stemmed Ghost Words” carry the same tinge of ultra-violence, but introduce otherworldly incursions by Robert W. Chambers' infamous King in Yellow. Amid stories that read like murder cases and the more familiar weird yarns are unimagined hybrids, linking grim earthly happenings to the oddly supernatural.

Although Pulver's stylistic powers contribute much to the musty, haunted flavor of Sin & Ashes, it also owes a debt to atmosphere. The author's chosen scenery and settings for many tales provide a thoroughly hellish backdrop to demonic happenings. Run down hotels, blinding deserts, fallen cities, and re-imagined weird outposts from Carcosa and Lovecraft's Arkham are all displayed. As a result, a shadow land somewhere between the gritty and the ethereal prevails, animated by the music of the Doors. Pulver's haunts are dark, broken places that almost seem like they are waiting to be fed on blood, and this lends a mighty uniqueness to the collection.

This banquet of blood, ash, and ghostly shards is overshadowed by Joseph Pulver's style, which mostly spurns traditional narrative structures. Instead, he opts for idea rich prose that hits the mind like fiery bullets. Unconventional punctuation and sentence structure are paired with rich imagery and visionary moments that seem like incantations rather than prose. The effect isn't a universal hit in each of the dozens of pieces within Sin & Ashes. However, this experimental approach frequently yields a lyrical harvest that's applause inducing in its strangeness and literary strength.

Just as Pulver's bad dreams come flailing out of the pages in imaginative forms that are gore covered and elegant, he flicks his staff and contorts his monstrous beings and concepts again as the collection progresses from short story to poetry. His experimental scripts, which are reminiscent of William S. Burroughs and other masters, appear in force in both poems and stories. When digesting the collection as a whole, this makes for a pleasing mental texture. Just when it seems certain poetry pieces are mere desserts to soul blackening stories, they turn out to be gateway drugs to new echelons of Pulver's special hell instead.

Overall, Sin & Ashes is a black collection sure to appeal to sensibilities that reach deeper than many readers initially think. Pulver's enchantments are murderous and strange, calling to a literate love of the macabre many readers are familiar with, but also reaching down to the psyche's less acknowledged, primal basement. Although old symbols from the likes of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert W. Chambers appear, they serve as phantasmal introductions to Joseph Pulver's original voice. And it's a shrieking sound likely to resonate with many in the coming years.

-Grim Blogger

Chômu Press introduces THE ORPHAN PALACE by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.

2011-06-07T15:34:00.000-07:00

Chômu Press :

* Coming October 2011 *

The Orphan Palace

by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cardigan is heading east through the night-bleak cities of America and back to confront the past he has never escaped, as a resident of Zimms, an orphanage-cum-asylum and a true palace of dementia, presided over by the ‘Chaos Lord’, Dr. Archer. His odyssey is one of haunting flashbacks and disorientating encounters on the road as he leaves a trail of fire and destruction behind him. In the circles and dead-ends that make the maze of his madness, Cardigan meets bounty hunters, ghosts, ghouls, a talking rat, even a merman, and struggles to decide which will lead him to damnation and which to salvation.

With The Orphan Palace, Joseph S. Pulver takes the ‘weird fiction’ mythologies of Robert Chambers, Frank Belknap Long and H.P. Lovecraft, melts them in the crucible of his own unique noir poetry and cooks up a hallucinatory road-trip that is utterly unexpected.

About The Author

Joseph S. Pulver, Sr., was born in New York and currently lives in Germany. Increasingly recognised as a key figure in the renaissance of weird fiction and horror, he is the author of the Lovecraftian novel Nightmare’s Disciple, and has written many short stories included in magazines and anthologies such as Ellen Datlow’s Year’s Best Horror, and S. T. Joshi’s Black Wings. His highly–acclaimed short story collections, Blood Will Have Its Season and SIN & ashes were published by Hippocampus Press in 2009 and 2010. He is currently editing two anthologies for Miskatonic River Press: A Season in Carcosa and The Grimscribe’s Puppets will be released in 2012.

What People Say

“The prose of Joe Pulver can take its place with that of the masters of our genre – E.A. Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Ramsey Campbell, Thomas Ligotti – while his imaginative reach is something uniquely his own.” - S.T. Joshi

“Joseph S Pulver, Sr. is a thunderous scribe of dark fiction. His poetry slams into you, cracking through flesh and bone to the real meat beneath.” - Simon Strantzas
“While everybody else in horror is still aping the shallow visual palette of cinema, Joe Pulver calls down a storm of psychotronic nightmares charged with the evocative depth and relentless pulse of the Devil’s music.” - Cody Goodfellow

“Joe Pulver is a dark star in the merciless cosmos of weird fiction. His work is as brutal as it is beautiful.” - Wilum Hopfrog Pugmire

Dead But Dreaming 2

2011-06-07T14:48:00.000-07:00

Nowhere to Hide...
No one is safe. You aren't safe. Ancient and inimical, the alien influences of the Cthulhu Mythos are all around us. In our cities, our nightclubs, our backyards, and heading for our front porches right now. From the dreaming city of Kingsport, Massachusetts, to the lonely northern woods and the barren western deserts. The urban sprawl and the distant lake. The depths of the Pacific and the freezing ruin of a starless Earth. They are here, destroying us, devouring us, shattering our minds with the one truth we cannot bear to admit: that no matter what we do we cannot escape the fact that, deep down, we are very much like them.
Dead But Dreaming 2 is the second volume of the critically-acclaimed anthology series from Miskatonic River Press. Herein are 22 tales of Lovecraftian horror from the modern masters of Cthulhu Mythos fiction: Scott David Aniolowski, David Annandale, Donald R. Burleson, Cody Goodfellow, John Goodrich, T.E. Grau, Rick Hautala, Walt Jarvis, Erik T. Johnson, William Meikle, Will Murray, Daniel W. Powell, Wilum Pugmire, Joseph S. Pulver Sr, Pete Rawlik, Kevin Ross, Brian Sammons, Darrell Schweitzer, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Michael Tice, and Don Webb.

An Award for SIN & ashes

2011-05-05T02:10:00.000-07:00

via This Yellow Madness:

Sarah at SheNeverSlept.com has informed me that my new collection from Hippocampus Press, SIN & ashes has won one of the 2010 Nightmare Awards for best collection of short tales and/or poetry.

I am pleased.

My thanks to Alnna Quinn for her very kind review of SIN & ashes on the SNS site! !!

CONGRATS to all the other winners as well! !!

H.P. Lovecraft's Arkham Sanitarium

2011-04-30T01:53:00.000-07:00

About the film:

Arkham Sanitarium is an anthology of three short stories faithfully adapted from the works of H.P. Lovecraft – each of the three stories is set in 1930’s New England (specifically Providence, Rhode Island and the fictional town of Arkham, Massachusetts). The stories are connected by an original ‘wraparound’ story. In this story – set in the 1950’s – Alice Crow investigates the strange stories surrounding the infamous Arkham Sanitarium.

The Haunter of the Dark

Robert Blake, author and artist returns to Providence to research a shadowy cult for his new book – against the warnings of his friend Ambrose Dexter he tracks down the old church where the cult performed their dark rituals – in the dusty, decrepit ruins he finds an ancient device that summons a monstrous creature intent on destroying him.

The Shunned House

Phillip Whipple, a Miskatonic University medical student returns to Providence to help his uncle Elihu move house. Phillip finds his uncle’s notes on ‘The Shunned House’ – an old, crumbling place with a bad reputation. Phillip was trapped there once as a child and saw something he couldn’t explain so with his uncle’s assistance, the pair seek to uncover why an alarming number of people have died there.

The Thing on the Doorstep

Edward Derby, a poet and fantasist, falls for Asenath, a cold but hypnotically beautiful student at Miskatonic University – the pair wed shortly after despite Edward’s close friend, Daniel Upton having concerns about the marriage. Daniel’s worries are well-founded - Asenath is the daughter of Ephraim Waite – an old man rumoured to be a practitioner of black magic before his recent death.

Please find more information HERE

New "Shadow Over Innsmouth" story told using Second Life characters

2011-04-29T18:39:00.000-07:00

via The Lovecraftsman:

"Return to Innsmouth" is a new Lovecraftian story created by Catherine over at the Some Strangeness in the Proportion blog which combines text with illustrative screenshots from Second Life. She got the idea after visiting a detailed sim of Innsmouth in Second Life, which prompted her to read H.P. Lovecraft's original story.

After visiting the sim I decided to read Lovecraft's "The Shadow Over Innsmouth." More than anything, the mention--right at the beginning of the story--of the "raids of the winter of '27-'28" caught my attention. Who were these agents that went on the raid to rid Innsmouth of its monsters? What's their story? What happened to the town after that? What happens when a good man follows orders that are immoral, unethical, corrupt? Enter Fred Mathis, who I grew quite fond of while writing this story. Poor bastard.

It's a clever idea and almost makes me want to join Second Life so I can visit Innsmouth. Below is another (semi NSFW) image from the story.

A dapper depiction of H.P. Lovecraft's Deep One

2011-04-29T18:34:00.000-07:00

via The Lovecraftsman:

A Deep One ready for a night out on the town.

(via Asian and his eyebrows)