HP Lovecraft Questions

[FriarTed]

The Elder Gods vs. the Old Ones dichotomy has been thought to have been either developed or exaggerated by August Derleth to fit his, I think, Catholic worldview.
Lovecraft himself, being rather irreligious, did not need to reconcile his stories with any God vs. Devil idea.

[jayjay]

I think the problem with clarifying the “Cthulhu Mythos” is that Lovecraft himself didn’t really pay much attention to which particular eldritch horror was allied or ranked against which other particular EH, a matter which didn’t tend to consistency even within Lovecraft’s own body of work. He just banged out stories and sent them to pulps. It was the later Mythos writers (especially Derleth) who tried to organize things. Unfortunately, it sometimes seems like they rarely consulted with each other in order to not create MORE inconsistencies, because the non-Lovecraft Mythos stories TEEM with inconsistencies.

[C_K_Dexter_Haven]

Just as an aside, there’s the brilliantly written Straight Dope Staff Report: Was H.P. Lovecraft’s “Necromicon” for real?

[Miller]

@jayjay

I think the problem with clarifying the “Cthulhu Mythos” is that Lovecraft himself didn’t really pay much attention to which particular eldritch horror was allied or ranked against which other particular EH, a matter which didn’t tend to consistency even within Lovecraft’s own body of work. He just banged out stories and sent them to pulps. It was the later Mythos writers (especially Derleth) who tried to organize things. Unfortunately, it sometimes seems like they rarely consulted with each other in order to not create MORE inconsistencies, because the non-Lovecraft Mythos stories TEEM with inconsistencies.

It’s not inconsistent, it’s just beyond your puny mortal comprehension.

[BrainGlutton]

You can real all of HPL’s short stories online here, if you can put up with white text on a black screen.

And here you can read his sonnet cycle Fungi from Yuggoth.

[BrainGlutton]

@C K Dexter Haven

Just as an aside, there’s the brilliantly written Straight Dope Staff Report: Was H.P. Lovecraft’s “Necromicon” for real?

FYI, there’s a new version out, essentially a novel. And a sequel.

The Necoronomicon Files, by Daniel Harms and Don Gonce, tells you everything you could want to know about the Necronomicon’s conception by HPL, its place in fanculture since, and all Pseudocromicons published to date.

[BooBoo316]

And they’re soooo cuddly.

[BrainGlutton]

The Elder Things who created the Shoggoths, BTW, differed from the Old Ones such as Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth in being entirely material life-forms, and are described thusly:

The Elder Things were the first alien species to come to the Earth, colonizing the planet about one billion years ago.[2] They stood roughly six feet tall and had the appearance of a huge, oval-shaped barrel with starfish-like appendage at both ends. The top appendage was a head adorned with five eyes, five eating tubes, and a set of cilia for “seeing” without light. The bottom appendage was five-limbed and was used for walking and other forms of locomotion. The beings also had five leathery, retractable wings and five sets of tentacles that sprouted from their torsos. Both their tentacles and the slits housing their folded wings were spaced at regular intervals about their bodies.

The Elder Things were vegetable-like in shape, having radial symmetry instead of the bilateral symmetry of bipeds. They also differed in that they had a five-lobed brain. In terms of nutrition and reproduction, the Elder Things exhibited vegetal as well as animal characteristics. Though they could make use of both organic and inorganic substances, the Elder Things were preferably carnivorous. They were also amphibious.

The bodies of the Elder Things were incredibly tough, capable of withstanding the pressures of the deepest ocean. Few died except by accident or violence. The beings were also capable of hibernating for vast epochs of time. Nonetheless, unlike other beings of the mythos, the Elder Things were made of normal, terrestrial matter.

Another group of extraterrestrial sentients who settled on Earth long before humans emerged was the Great Race of Yith:

The Great Race are beings of enormous intellectual and psychic powers that once dwelt on the dying world of Yith. They escaped the destruction of their home planet by transferring their minds to the bodies of a species native to the Earth in the far distant past. They lived on this planet for 200 million years or so, in fierce competition with the flying polyps, until this enemy finally destroyed their civilization near the close of the Cretaceous era (about 65 million years ago).

In the bodies they inhabited on the Earth, they were tall and cone-shaped, rising to a point with four strange appendages – two terminating in claws, a third in a “trumpet”, and the fourth, a yellow globe which functioned as a sensory organ. The unique ability of this scientifically-advanced race was to travel through time by swapping minds with creatures of another era. This allowed them to satisfy their interest in human culture, science, and occult beliefs. Occupied beings, their minds transferred to Yithian bodies against their will, learned as much as possible about the societies in which they dwelt; meanwhile, the “captive minds” were simultaneously queried by skilled inquisitors.

Although captive minds were prisoners, they were nonetheless granted some freedoms in exchange for their cooperation. Those captive minds who cooperated with the Great Race were allowed to wander the Yithian cities at will and to browse the Yithians’ gigantic library, which contained metallic tubes with scrolls that recorded the histories of uncounted alien races, including humanity. Creatures inside a Yithian body could also communicate with other captive minds from across the universe (and beyond). Once the Great Race had learned all they could from a captive mind, the occupied being’s intellect was swapped back, with the additional precaution of erasing all knowledge of the Great Race.

No plushies on the market for either, AFAIK.

[devilsknew]

I once made my case for the vorpal blade and Jabberwocky as subconcious inspiration for Steve King’s “From a Buick 8”. I believe, now, that this story also borrowed from Lovecraft, and the particularly vicious and hard hitting, teleported, plant thing from Roland’s world was Elder Thing and Yithian in all ways. I thought that hearkened to unspeakble, eldritch, vegetation.

[Der_Trihs]

@Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor

Yes, yes…all power to the Proleitarian Uprising of the Unholy Amoeboid Working Masses.

Huzzah.

And now, solidarity!
You shall become one with the Shoggoth Masses, Comrade Der Trihs.

Internally.

<BURP!>

Well, we all know that the best option is to be Eaten First.

[BrainGlutton]

@Der Trihs

Well, we all know that the best option is to be Eaten First.

Indeed.

[Miller]

@BrainGlutton

The Elder Things who created the Shoggoths, BTW, differed from the Old Ones such as Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth in being entirely material life-forms, and are described thusly:

Another group of extraterrestrial sentients who settled on Earth long before humans emerged was the Great Race of Yith:

No plushies on the market for either, AFAIK.

I could have sworn I saw a plush Yith once, but I don’t see it listed on this page, so maybe I imagined it.

@devilsknew

I once made my case for the vorpal blade and Jabberwocky as subconcious inspiration for Steve King’s “From a Buick 8”. I believe, now, that this story also borrowed from Lovecraft, and the particularly vicious and hard hitting, teleported, plant thing from Roland’s world was Elder Thing and Yithian in all ways. I thought that hearkened to unspeakble, eldritch, vegetation.

I wouldn’t be surprised if that were true. King has name-dropped the Old Ones several times in his books, and IIRC, insinuates at one point that Randall Flagg is another avatar of Nyarlathotep.

[BooBoo316]

@Miller

I could have sworn I saw a plush Yith once, but I don’t see it listed on this page, so maybe I imagined it.

I must have had the same hallucination, Miller, I would have bet money I saw a Yith somewhere. May not have been made by Toy Vault like the rest of them. If I get some extra time, I’ll try to dig around and look for it.

[Steve_Wright]

A whole bunch of Stephen King stories show some Lovecraft influence … “Crouch End” even appears in one of those successors-to-Lovecraft anthologies (can’t remember the bloody title offhand, but the Grafton paperback edition used the King story as the basis for its cover illustration … yeah, that’ll help people track it down … )

Another thing I can’t remember is the King story that references another Lovecraftian tome - Prinn’s De Vermis Mysteriis - and has a particularly dim character think that it’s a harmless book about gardening …

… Basically, I’m useless this evening, ignore me.

[BrainGlutton]

@Steve Wright

A whole bunch of Stephen King stories show some Lovecraft influence … “Crouch End” even appears in one of those successors-to-Lovecraft anthologies (can’t remember the bloody title offhand, but the Grafton paperback edition used the King story as the basis for its cover illustration … yeah, that’ll help people track it down … )

Another thing I can’t remember is the King story that references another Lovecraftian tome - Prinn’s De Vermis Mysteriis - and has a particularly dim character think that it’s a harmless book about gardening …

… Basically, I’m useless this evening, ignore me.

Here’s a complete list of King’s short stories, with links to descriptions. Have at it.

According to this site, “Crouch End” has been published in the King collection Nightmares and Dreamscapes, and in the anthology New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos.

[jayjay]

@Steve Wright

Another thing I can’t remember is the King story that references another Lovecraftian tome - Prinn’s De Vermis Mysteriis - and has a particularly dim character think that it’s a harmless book about gardening …

Jerusalem’s Lot, though your synopsis is a bit off…

[Steve_Wright]

@BrainGlutton

… and in the anthology New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos.

That would be the one I’m thinking of, if what I’m doing can be reasonably described as “thinking” - thanks.

[DocCathode]

Gaze into the Unspeakable Vault Of Doom!