I’m reading Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, a collection of stories by and inspired by H. P. Lovecraft. So far, I’m up to The Dweller in Darkness and I’m seriously loving it. However, all the different names are confusing at times, so I wondered if there was an internet Cthulhu encyclopedia-esque site, similiar to The Encyclopedia of Arda, or The Harry Potter Lexicon.
Thanks!
Cthulhu fhtagn!
There was one, but it drove the webmaster mad…
http://www.cthulhu.org/ is a good place to start. Be sure to check out the alt.sex.cthulhu archives.
Thanks!
That’s Volume 1, right? EXCELLENT book! The unfortunate part (as I recall from 1973 or 4) is that those guys, to be frank and speaking as a Lovecraft fan, could, almost to a man, write rings around ol’ Howie.
I think wikipedia.org has some pretty good articles about Cthulhu.
There’s an excellent Cthulhu Mythos FAQ here that should be helpful. Part 2 has a lot of good info about The Great Old Ones and other arcane horrors.
Here’s the link at wikipedia… sorry, I couldn’t get it last night:
It has a link for an “official FAQ” but it doesn’t work. Plenty of other resources to play with though 
Lovecraft let his friend, Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan The Barbarian, write in the Mythos, too. His writings are considered canon.
His best are gathered here
Yes, you are interested.
Well, so far my favorite story is The Black Stone by Howard. I’m up to Notebook Found in a Deserted House, by Robert Bloch.
BTW, do the other books have stories that tell about Innsmouth and Arkham? These stories kick serious ass.
Speaking of Arkham, how is it that the authorities of Gotham City think that a site so steeped in the psychic vibrations of Elder Gods, Nameless Ones, and various and sundry eldritch horrors is likely to have a therapeutic effect on the criminally insane?
Kaylasdad99 The asylum is named after its founder. Following the family tradition, the current scion of the Arkham line has become a psychiatrist. To really follow family tradition, he’ll have to become insane and be locked up in the asylum.
BTW
I loaned one of my favorite mythos books to a friend who seems to have skipped town. Does anybody know where I can get another copy of The King In Yellow?
All sorts of authors wrote in the Mythos and it was a running in-joke that they’d kill each other off in the stories.
Some authors not so far named are August Derleth, Henry Kuttner, Robert Bloch, Lin Carter, Robert Price, Ramsey Campbell, and many more.
Iä!
Well, if the psychic vibrations of various eldritch horrors can drive a sane man mad, then obviously those same forces can drive an insane man back to sanity.
I would just add that in the “Night Gallery” vignette, “Professor Peabody’s Last Lecture,” Professor Peabody (played by Carl Reiner) gives a rather good rundown of the major players, despite some interruptions by students H.P. Lovecraft and August Derleth.
I would also recommend going to cthulhulives.org where you can pick up a CD of a musical pastiche of Lovecraft and a certain Broadway classic, A Shoggoth on the Roof. I got mine and have not been able to stop listening to it. So far, I’m no madder than usual, but I’m sure the eldritch dreams of dead R’lyeh will ensue in no time.
There used to be a Lovecraft search engine called Cthuugle, but it seems to have been taken down.
Is that the one where they’re in class and he’s mentioning all the different players (Cthulhu, Shub-Niggurath, Hastur, Azathoth), and then all of a sudden a giant storm kicks up and finally it ends when his face becomes a horrid mess of tentacles and eyes?
Now I’m reading Rising With Surtsey by Brian Lumley. (One neat thing about discovering different fandoms like Lovecraft and Tolkien and others is that you start recognizing various Doper member names!!!)
Yep. Professor Peabody made the mistake of mentioning the ineffable name of Hastur not once, but twice!