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Captain Brandsson
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« Reply #25 on: January 02, 2009, 11:51:04 pm » |
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And although one of his lesser known pieces and arguably not one of his best "The Rats In the Walls" always seems to leave me unnerved. Agreed. When read with a critic's eye, I find it lacking, but it never fails (even after a few reads) to leave me "creeped out". |
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- Maximilian
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H. MacHinery
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« Reply #26 on: January 03, 2009, 12:07:48 am » |
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I'm still trying to combine the concepts of "a duvet" and "Lovecraft" in a way that doesn't hurt my brain.
The stitching gave the duvet a rugose look, accentuating the non-Euclidean geometries woven in the patterns by the withered crones huddled in cthonic covens..... Write more of this extradimensional duvet. I demand it of you. I opened the hideously ancient tome, turning to the chapter on quilting. The scrabbled writing seemed to writhe maniacally in the flickering candlelight, and I thought I heard a balsphemous tittering at my window. I turned to look and Ia! Ia! Ryleh, ftagn! |
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Clockwerk Wolf
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« Reply #27 on: January 03, 2009, 12:19:18 am » |
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The Womens' Quilting Society of Innsmouth, meetings every Wednesday at 6:30 pm. Bring your friends!  |
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Dax
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« Reply #28 on: January 03, 2009, 02:28:12 am » |
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"As I lay in the shadowed room, attempting to settle my ravaged nerves, I drew the duvet over my trembling shoulders and vainly attempted to assure myself that the unspeakable images in my dreams were simply the product of exhaustion and my overwrought nerves - I should mention at this point that I have always been considered to have a sensitive nature - my fingers brushed the stitching that was long ago fashioned by the Mad Old Arab rugmaker, Abdul Alhazred. At once, as my fingers passed over them, they seamed to flare into a dark flame, outlining a mad sequence of obscene characters that writhed in an eldritch dance, spelling out the unpronouncable names of long forgotten gods..."
Don't you hate it when that happens?
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Blackadder: A man may fight for many things. His country, his friends, his principles, the glistening tear on the cheek of a golden child. But personally, I'd mud-wrestle my own mother for a ton of cash, an amusing clock and a sack of French porn.
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kiskolou
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« Reply #29 on: January 03, 2009, 08:55:48 am » |
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The rats in the walls is my favorite tale of his, aside from it's constant reminder of his racism through the name of a certain cat. It should be noted he was an extreme racist, and this will be apparent sometimes within his fiction, and while that can leave a sour taste in your mouth it should not bar you from the wondrous horrors he weaves, nor the mythos created by others in his universe. Indeed, the best part about lovecraftian fiction is how it exists within such a meticulously crafted world that others have become inspired by it and write their tales as a part of it. It grows and lives on it's own now, in games, books, movies, every which thing. Almost like another dimension.
Pray it never finds it's way into ours.
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"There will always be a lost world for you here..." - Atterton  Your reality sir, is lies and balderdash and i am delighted to say i have no grasp of it whatsoever! |
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Clockwerk Wolf
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« Reply #30 on: January 03, 2009, 09:21:32 am » |
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Well you must remember, Lovecraft's rascist attitudes were not out of place in his time. It was the norm. He wasn't a complete rascist though, his own wife was Jewish and it's said he loved her very much even after they seperated.
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kiskolou
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« Reply #31 on: January 03, 2009, 09:40:47 am » |
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Though they were outspoken, even in his time. Not doubting his genius, i just believe it to be a mistake to discount his racism if you are to truly appreciate his stories.
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theMadTinker
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« Reply #32 on: January 03, 2009, 06:23:10 pm » |
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Personally, the two stories that have unsettled me the most are "In the Vault," and "The Shadow Out of Time." While it can be said that the real kicker always comes at the end in horror, this is especially true of these two stories. Weird things happen before the ends of both stories, but it is the last few lines in each case that make you sleep with one eye open, gripping your pillow tight. (Exit light, enter night, etc.)
Another good one, while I'm at it, is "The Whisperer in Darkness," which plays off the same basic formula as above. Anything more that I might say about it would spoil it, so I'll just shut up now.
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It's not a skirt, it's a kilt; and ye ken why it's called a kilt? Because I kilt everyone who called it a skirt. You won't get far trying to argue semantics with an English major. The Urban Phantasy Blog |
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Pnakotus
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« Reply #33 on: January 03, 2009, 06:29:55 pm » |
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After hearing about this fellow just about everywhere on these forums, he seems like a good author, and I was wondering if I wanted to start reading one of his books, which one is the most steampunk.
The most steampunk of them is probably The Shadow Out Of Time, and is one of my personal favorites. none as such are 'steampunk' as we'd think of them.. if your expecting steam engines, cogs etc, you won't find them in his works. his is a cycle of ancient horrors unleashed on the world of the 1920's.
Hmmm, Yithians swap their minds with other beings, crossing time and space in the process, and have to construct new machines to send their minds back in time to their original bodies when they're done. Time travel machinery being made in Arkham in the 1920's? Sounds kind of steampunk to me.  Probably one of the few examples of this in his works though. |
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« Last Edit: January 03, 2009, 06:33:51 pm by Pnakotus »
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"Tie two birds together,
and although they have four wings,
they cannot fly."
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groomporter
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« Reply #34 on: January 03, 2009, 10:18:51 pm » |
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For those who want to listen to Lovecraft while in the laboratory, or workshop checkout this podcast http://cthulhupodcast.blogspot.com/ |
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If a person who indulges in gluttony is a glutton, and a person who commits a felony is a felon, then God is an iron.
-Spider Robinson
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HettyB
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« Reply #35 on: January 04, 2009, 04:29:00 am » |
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Because listening to Lovecraft while alone in a semi-light room is conducive to relaxation.
Maybe it's just me but that would be a bit too much immersion for me.
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Goby
Officer
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My story gears are finally turning again!
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« Reply #36 on: January 04, 2009, 09:33:09 am » |
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Just read 'The Silver Key' it spoke to me. It is also my first Lovecraft story, I will certainly read more, soon.
--Goby--
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Dr Fidelius
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« Reply #37 on: January 04, 2009, 02:15:42 pm » |
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Just as a caveat, 'The Silver Key" is one of HP's Dreamlands stories, and if far more deliberately poetical than most of his output.
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The opinions expressed here are my own, and do not represent any other persons, organizations, spirits, thinking machines, hive minds or other sentient beings on this world or any adjacent dimensions in the multiverse.
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Albrecht
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« Reply #38 on: January 04, 2009, 02:36:02 pm » |
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Just as a caveat, 'The Silver Key" is one of HP's Dreamlands stories, and if far more deliberately poetical than most of his output.
Ah yes, I love the whole Dreamlands cycle. |
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Dr Fidelius
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« Reply #39 on: January 04, 2009, 03:11:55 pm » |
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'The Dream-Quest of unknown Kadath' is my personal favourite piece, especially as it does show HP had a sense of humor. I dare anyone to read the ghoul sequence without smiling.
The cameos by characters from his other works makes it a difficult starting point, though. For beginners who want to learn what we all enjoy and parody as "Lovecraftian" I recommend 'At the Mountains of Madness' or "The Dunwich Horror.'
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MhicWombat
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« Reply #40 on: January 05, 2009, 06:55:34 pm » |
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For me Colour Out of Space was always the creepiest, partially for the sheer unfairness of it all. I mean, what the heck did that poor family ever do? Did they read eldritch, blasphemous tomes? Did they go on expeditions to strange lands? Did they paint squamous landscapes?
Nope, they were just trying to scratch out a living in rough New England soil.
They were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time and were punished for existing.
*shudder*
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Jack, you've debauched my sloth!
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AetherVoid
Deck Hand
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« Reply #41 on: January 05, 2009, 08:23:26 pm » |
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If I might add my two cents. The two stories that could be done on stage in a very steampunkish manner of Victorian costume and settings in my opinion would be "The Music Of Eric Zahn" and "The Picture In The House". Both creepy and somewhat less mythological than the majority of his work.
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The distant baying of a hound, calling to faraway, friendly, and familiar places, provides the most beautiful proof of the immortality of the soul.
Søren Kierkegaard
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T.Taylor the Third
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« Reply #42 on: January 05, 2009, 08:27:48 pm » |
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the reanmiater is very steampunk
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-“I warn you, if you bore me, I shall take my revenge.”
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Dax
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« Reply #43 on: January 06, 2009, 01:47:19 am » |
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I just located my old copy of "The Shadow Over Innsmouth and Other Stories of Horror". Copyright 1971 by Scholastic Magazines, Inc., published by Scholastic Book Services. (I paid $.75 for it back then).
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Propnomicon
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« Reply #44 on: January 07, 2009, 01:52:23 am » |
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After hearing about this fellow just about everywhere on these forums, he seems like a good author, and I was wondering if I wanted to start reading one of his books, which one is the most steampunk.
I'd suggest "At the Mountains of Madness" because it's both a great story and a definitive example of the "cosmic horror" genre. I think the juxtaposition of the narrator's borderline admiration for the Elder Things with the brutality of the massacre at Lake's camp is sheer genius. The wonderful cognitive dissonance of the situation more than makes up for the one glaring flaw I think the story has- Dyer's amazing ability to interpret the Elder Thing carvings. |
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Goby
Officer
United States
My story gears are finally turning again!
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« Reply #45 on: January 07, 2009, 06:07:54 am » |
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I will certainly read "At the Mountains of Madness" it sounds like a good read. Kind of strange g=hoe the first Lovecraft story I ever read felt almost... tailored to me, and the way I think. I just picked a random story. I loved the discription of the narrator's dreamland, his, at least I interpreted them as, childhood fantasies, and the description of how society washed them away until they were no more. This looks to me like the modern way of thought in America, match our views or your immature, childish. My signature at the moment is a quote form early in the story. --Goby-- |
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groomporter
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« Reply #46 on: January 07, 2009, 02:38:40 pm » |
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"We love kitties, gawd bless their little whiskers, and we don't give a damn whether they or we are superior or inferior! They're confounded pretty, and that's all we know and all we need to know!"
H.P. Lovecraft In a letter to James F. Morton, December 1926
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Paul 8v
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« Reply #47 on: January 07, 2009, 03:03:37 pm » |
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I've just read "the call of the cthulhu" for the first time as it's in the front of the RPG book, I will definitey be reading some more :-)
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