H.P. Lovecraft: Worth my time?

[Hamish]

My favourite Lovecraft:

Call of Cthulu
Shadow Over Innsmouth
The Case of Charles Dexter ard
Pickman’s Model

And I think his two most overlooked works are:

The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath
Through the Gates of the Silver Key

I have both of these in an anthology entitled The Dream Cycle of H.P. Lovecraft. They second one was written in collaboration (pre-humous, this one) with E. Hoffman Price.

Unknown Kadath is intensely poetic. Gates is more of a science-fiction than a horror, reflecting on the nature of reality.

[Hamish]

@DocCathode

I hadn’t heard of that one. I recommend Alone In The Dark (NOT the New Nightmare which was awful). The first one. It may be difficult to find a copy. And you’ll need a utility to make it run. It will be worth it.

Prisoner Of The Ice. This game is a few years old, and much too easy. It’s a lot of fun though.

I liked the first Alone in the Dark – it was wonderful. I started a later one, with very good graphics, but I couldn’t get very far. The dialogue was really cheeseball and the system for saving games too weird.

My favourite Lovecraft-inspired game: Final Fantasy VII. Nobody believes me when I bring it up, but try reading The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, then playing FFVII. If you haven’t noticed all the allusions to that story by the time you reach the Shinra Mansion, you’ll notice it there.

[Scumpup]

try reading The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, then playing FFVII. If you haven’t noticed all the allusions to that story by the time you reach the Shinra Mansion, you’ll notice it there.

Read it several times. Played through the game twice. I didn’t see much in the way of allusions. There are a couple superficial resemblances, but they are (I suspect) coincidental.

[DocCathode]

@Hamish

I liked the first Alone in the Dark – it was wonderful. I started a later one, with very good graphics, but I couldn’t get very far. The dialogue was really cheeseball and the system for saving games too weird.

My favourite Lovecraft-inspired game: Final Fantasy VII. Nobody believes me when I bring it up, but try reading The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, then playing FFVII. If you haven’t noticed all the allusions to that story by the time you reach the Shinra Mansion, you’ll notice it there.

Attempting not to derail the thread-

AITD 1- Owner of mysterious mansion commits suicide. There are notes and diaries hinting of ancient deals with forces from outside the terrestrial sphere. The library contains a copy of the Necronomicon. There are deep ones. There’s an amulet based on the Elder Sign.

AITD 2- I have never found a copy that worked right. Bugs make the game unplayable once I walk up to the second floor of the house. I can’t really evaluate the game.

AITD 3-Some HPL but this one focuses on other pulp staples- hardboiled detectives, the wild west, and mad scientists.

AITD New Nightmare- Instead of Cthulu Mythos horrors there’s Shadows from the Darkworld. Carnby has been changed from a hardboiled gumshoe who keeps ending up fighting the supernatural although he’d much rather stick to normal cases has been changed to a twenty something guy who crusades against the supernatural. There are less choices and much more railroading (in 1, 2, and 3 you could punch, kick, or throw any item at opponents. In this one, you have to have a gun). And instead of being able to save whenever you want, like in the first 3- they have save medalions. There are only four save slots. I’ve ranted about this game in other threads.

[Master_Wang-Ka]

@Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor

I’ve got Trails In Darkness ; it’s fun.

But Nameless Cults is much, much better. Get it.

Hokay.

It’ll have to stretch a bit, though; *Trails In Darkness * wasn’t bad at all. Wish I could remember: was that the one that had *Pigeons From Hell * in it?

[DocCathode]

@Master Wang-Ka

Hokay.

It’ll have to stretch a bit, though; *Trails In Darkness * wasn’t bad at all. Wish I could remember: was that the one that had *Pigeons From Hell * in it?

Nope. Pigeons is in Cthulu-The Mythos And Kindred Horrors. It contains the scariest scenes I have ever read.

[jsc1953]

“Pigeons from Hell”? You’re kidding, right? What next – “Canaries of the Damned”? “Racoons from Beyond Time”?

[HPL]

@DocCathode

Attempting not to derail the thread-

AITD 1- Owner of mysterious mansion commits suicide. There are notes and diaries hinting of ancient deals with forces from outside the terrestrial sphere. The library contains a copy of the Necronomicon. There are deep ones. There’s an amulet based on the Elder Sign.

AITD 2- I have never found a copy that worked right. Bugs make the game unplayable once I walk up to the second floor of the house. I can’t really evaluate the game.

AITD 3-Some HPL but this one focuses on other pulp staples- hardboiled detectives, the wild west, and mad scientists.

AITD New Nightmare- Instead of Cthulu Mythos horrors there’s Shadows from the Darkworld. Carnby has been changed from a hardboiled gumshoe who keeps ending up fighting the supernatural although he’d much rather stick to normal cases has been changed to a twenty something guy who crusades against the supernatural. There are less choices and much more railroading (in 1, 2, and 3 you could punch, kick, or throw any item at opponents. In this one, you have to have a gun). And instead of being able to save whenever you want, like in the first 3- they have save medalions. There are only four save slots. I’ve ranted about this game in other threads.

Has anyone ever played the old game “Beneath a Steel Sky”? It doesn’t have much to do with lovecraft but I got the idea that at least one of people invovled was a lovecraft fan. Namely, in one of the subway tunnels near the end, there is crack in the wall out of which 2 eyes are staring out from. If you try to walk past it without protecting yourself, you are grabbed by whatever is behind that crack and dragged inside and killed. THe way it is done seems rather lovecraftian, with just vague glimpses of the thing behind the wall, enough to inspire a creepy feeling. That and there’s a locker in Police HQ with the name “Lovecraft” on it. Somehow I don’t think the two are unrelated.

[HPL]

@jsc1953

“Pigeons from Hell”? You’re kidding, right? What next – “Canaries of the Damned”? “Racoons from Beyond Time”?

I haven’t read it, but I’ve gotten the impression that it’s a scary story with a really crappy name.

[Evil_Captor]

One of Howard’s Conan stories, “Red Nails” is basically a mildly Lovecraftian horror story. It’s also one of his best-written stories. Check it out.

[Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor]

@jsc1953

“Pigeons from Hell”? You’re kidding, right? What next – “Canaries of the Damned”? “Racoons from Beyond Time”?

Howard wrote for the Pulps. As such, the editor probably changed the name to somnething “spookier”. In his own opinion, of course. :rolleyes: :smack:

Great story, though. Try reading it.

[Master_Wang-Ka]

@Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor

Howard wrote for the Pulps. As such, the editor probably changed the name to somnething “spookier”. In his own opinion, of course. :rolleyes: :smack:

Great story, though. Try reading it.

Yeah, I’ve read better titles. On the other hand, the story is a remarkably creepy ghost story/murder mystery in the best Southern tradition.

[slortar]

Yep. Silly title, great story. That first night in the haunted house easily qualifies as one of the most frightening things I’ve read in a long time. I’m glad I didn’t have access to that story as a kid–it would have transformed me into a screaming bundle of therapy.

My big-ass bundle of Amazon purchases came in a couple of days ago. I’m definitely enjoying the annotated versions of HPL’s stories. One of the most amusing tidbits was mentioned in Dagon, about Lovecraft’s total abhorrence of seafood. I wonder what the Cthulhu Mythos would have been like if he’d hated Mexican food? Ia! Yog-taco!
[sub]Okay, I’m going to hell for that one…[/sub]

[Master_Wang-Ka]

Lovecraft sampled Mexican cooking when he visited… Louisiana, I think. He apparently was extremely fond of chili.

According to Stephen King, an episode of *Boris Karloff’s Thriller * was based on Pigeons From Hell. Been wanting to see THAT one for years… King says it’s fairly close to the source material, including the scene where the guy’s chum comes stumbling down the stairs with an axe in his head…

[devilsknew]

I went directly home to Toledo from Boston, and later spent a month at Maumee recuperating from my ordeal. In September I entered Oberlin for my final year, and from then till the next June was busy with studies and other wholesome activities - reminded of the bygone terror only by occasional official visits from government men in connexion with the campaign which my pleas and evidence had started. Around the middle of July - just a year after the Innsmouth experience - I spent a week with my late mother’s family in Cleveland; checking some of my new genealogical data with the various notes, traditions, and bits of heirloom material in existence there, and seeing what kind of a connected chart I could construct.

I did not exactly relish this task, for the atmosphere of the Williamson home had always depressed me. There was a strain of morbidity there, and my mother had never encouraged my visiting her parents as a child, although she always welcomed her father when he came to Toledo. My Arkham-born grandmother had seemed strange and almost terrifying to me, and I do not think I grieved when she disappeared. I was eight years old then, and it was said that she had wandered off in grief after the suicide of my Uncle Douglas, her eldest son. He had shot himself after a trip to New England - the same trip, no doubt, which had caused him to be recalled at the Arkham Historical Society.

This is from The Shadow Over Innsmouth.
Considering, I live minutes away from Toledo and Maumee this was quite frightening and added an extra dimension of personal “eldritch terror” and believability when I first read it. Not to mention I am a “Williams’-son”

[Rucksinator]

@scotandrsn

If you get into Lovecraft beyond the collection, be wary. Lovecraft himself never cared much whether the mythos he created in his stories was consistent. Some of his followers, however, such as August Derleth, busied themselves after his death trying to tie his stories together into some sort of mythological continuum, with disappointing results. To make matters worse, they sometimes published such stories as “new” Lovecraft works or “posthumous collaborations”. I warn you away from “Lurker at the Threshold” and “Watchers Out of Time” for this reason.

I’ve been sort of interested in H.P.L. since I read Stephen King mention that he was a major influence. I read a story (actually a book, but a pretty short one) called (I think) “The Thief of (?)Always(?)”, which I thought was OK [I think that this was an H. P. Lovecraft book, correct me if I’m wrong).

I happen to have in my hands another “H. P. Lovecraft” book called “The Lurker at the Threshold”, but I haven’t read it yet. Your post made me pull it out and check the legal info. It says “Copyright 1945 by August Derleth”

It has “H. P. Lovecraft” in big letters on the front and on the spine. On the back it says “H. P. Lovecraft with August Derleth”.

Are you saying that this book that I paid a dollar for at a used book store, just because Stephen King said he’s good, is actually no good?

Maybe one day I’ll read it and find out.

[Captain_Amazing]

I’ve always been fond of “The Tree”, which isn’t really a horror story at all, as well as “The Doom that Came to Sarnath”.

[Kamino_Neko]

@Rucksinator

II read a story (actually a book, but a pretty short one) called (I think) “The Thief of (?)Always(?)”, which I thought was OK [I think that this was an H. P. Lovecraft book, correct me if I’m wrong).

The Thief of Always is Clive Barker, not Lovecraft.

Since youre not sure on the last word of the title, you might be referring to a different story, but I can’t think of any that would match.

[Hamish]

@Scumpup

Read it several times. Played through the game twice. I didn’t see much in the way of allusions. There are a couple superficial resemblances, but they are (I suspect) coincidental.

I disagree.

The thing that made it click was the word “materia.” In both The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and Final Fantasy VII, it has a very specific meaning:

It refers to a crystal or crystals that could be used to call forth the knowledge of the ancients.

That’s quite a coincidence if it is one. I’ve never seen the word materia used to refer to that in any other place. Granted I’m not familiar with the ins and outs of ancient occultism, but I’d venture to say that The Case of Charles Dexter Ward is a more likely inspiration for it than some obscure Roman or Medieval text.

Then there’s the Shinra mansion, and Ward’s bungalow:

[spoiler]A nice home, with a secret passage to the basement. There’s a library and cages/vats for human experimentation. The whole thing feels very similar

And Sephiroth’s talent for taking over his “clones” is a little like the possession used by Curwen[/spoiler]

I don’t think it’s the only influence, obviously. But I think it definitely is one.

And just so this post isn’t a total hijack, that’s another reason to read Lovecraft – the constant echoes in pop culture make it useful to trace the source.

[Hunter_Hawk]

@Rucksinator

I happen to have in my hands another “H. P. Lovecraft” book called “The Lurker at the Threshold”, but I haven’t read it yet. Your post made me pull it out and check the legal info. It says “Copyright 1945 by August Derleth”

It has “H. P. Lovecraft” in big letters on the front and on the spine. On the back it says “H. P. Lovecraft with August Derleth”.

Are you saying that this book that I paid a dollar for at a used book store, just because Stephen King said he’s good, is actually no good?

Yep, that’s right. Derleth deserves a lot of thanks for getting HPL back in print, but he was a distinctly mediocre writer himself. What he’d do is take some of HPL’s notes, flesh them out into a story, and then bill it as a Lovecraft and Derleth work, when the overwhelming majority of the text is from Derleth.

You should just get a collection of stories the Lovecraft did himself.