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Post by alx on Jul 15, 2009 5:48:20 GMT
Lemex, great to see you again! It's been a while... Regarding the Black Stone; you are aware that REH and HPL were friends, right? So if anyone was gonna have license to use the mythos, it would be Robert E Howard. But that doesn't make it a mythos story, even though it was greatly HPL inspired
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lemex
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Post by lemex on Jul 15, 2009 9:16:26 GMT
It's good to be back. I just find it strange how the book is called 'Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos' and there are some tales in here that just arn't in the Cthulhu Mythos; such as that and The Salem Horror. I mean, that can be called false advertising in some, less liberal curcles.
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Post by alx on Jul 15, 2009 14:21:30 GMT
The trouble with Lovecraft anthologies is that the man has been dead for almost a century and it's damn tough to publish posthumously (unless you are L Ron Hubbard) so to fluff the book the editors tend to shove just about anything in there. Personally, I blame the readers. If they would stop buying crap then obviously that kinda crap would stop being published
My point was that Black Stone was a solid tale and that REH was a colleague of HPL; therefore you were taken advantage of less then when Bloch or Derleth try to imitate the master. And far less disturbing than when some clown in a cape and tights tries to gain cred by ripping off the Arkham Asylum
And he did plenty of collaborative works which are largely ignored. I'm not talking about the Houdini one, but have you ever read the Mound?
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lemex
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Post by lemex on Jul 15, 2009 15:41:04 GMT
Yeah - and The Crawling Chaos which was just weird. I don't know if I liked it or not.
I just wished he allowed himself some of the success he deserved and worked on more tales instead of working on stories by others like Sonia Greene's.
I'm willing to bet that sans the Derleth rubbish and the odd Clark Ashton Smith story that is terrible (OK, I rather liked Ubbo-Sathla) I'm sure there are some good Mythos stuff out there. And yes, Stephen King's 'mythos' stories should not even make the editors bin area, they are awful. Just full of dropping in names for the sake of it really.
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lemex
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Post by lemex on Jan 30, 2010 22:33:40 GMT
Just thought I'd give this thread an old kick start.
What is everyone's favourite Lovecraft stories? They might have changed during the interregnum.
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Post by Toadkiller Dog on Feb 1, 2010 1:47:39 GMT
The Colour Out of Space. That's my favorite.
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lemex
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Post by lemex on Feb 1, 2010 3:31:40 GMT
That's a great one, I love The Whisperer in Darkness or The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. I love them both.
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Post by alx on Feb 1, 2010 23:23:47 GMT
Lemex picked two of my faves! In fact, I love The Whisperer in Darkness so much I raytraced a Mi-go canister a while back I think that Rats in the Walls is a seriously underrated story and that Pickman's Model is totally overrated but those are my picks IMHO other than The Evil Clergyman, they're all good
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Post by Toadkiller Dog on Feb 2, 2010 11:32:29 GMT
From Beyond is another favorite of mine, and one that actually creeped me out a bit whilst reading for the first time.
Yeah, I liked Rats In the Walls pretty well. I always thought it was cool that parts of the Gamecube game, Eternal Darkness were inspired by that story.
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lemex
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Post by lemex on Feb 2, 2010 13:53:11 GMT
"IMHO other than The Evil Clergyman, they're all good"
You can't blaime him for that though, it was part of a letter, and he never wanted it published.
I never really liked From Beyond, it just seemed too short for such a good idea. I don't know; the story itself isn't bad, it's just too short for my tastes.
Rats in the Walls is a favourite of mine, I also like The Nameless City, The Loved Dead, (This one isn't well known, but it's the way you wished Hurbert West was) and Dream Quest, but this last one seems to be rather unpopular.
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Post by alx on Feb 3, 2010 11:44:21 GMT
I didn't know that about Evil Clergyman, but that makes sense. BTW, I actually met him once Totally agree with Bella that From Beyond was a great concept but agree even more strongly with Lemex that it should've been much longer, like CDW or Mountains of Madness. But then we can't necessarily fault HPL on that either, he may have had a cap on the length placed by the publisher... Hell, I'll say his writing was fantastic, and he has been my single biggest inspiration as a horror writer myself If you fancy yourself an author, why not swing by this site www.fantastichorror.com/? Some of the work is surprisingly good considering it is always amateur hour
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Post by SHSP on Apr 27, 2011 20:23:30 GMT
I have heard Lovecraft was huge for inspiring horror stories. If I were to start reading him (and I'm interested), where should I start? I heard not all of his stories are as accessible to others.
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Post by alx on Apr 28, 2011 13:33:42 GMT
What are you into? Do you prefer short stories or novellas? Do you like happy endings? (if so, then take it someplace else) Do you like it when the narrator goes insane? Do you like it when the narrator dies? Or do you prefer it when he does one and then the other?
His most famous works are Call of Cthulhu, Shadow over Innsmouth and the Dunwich Horror but that doesn't mean you need to start there...
He has plenty of short stories under a dozen pages like Dreams of the Witch House which can get you familiar with his style, let you see if you like what he does (get it- familiar?!?)
Why not check out an anthology from your local library, post the TOC and let us call out our favorites?
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Post by SHSP on Apr 28, 2011 19:45:27 GMT
Can I say amost all of the above questions I like, lol! Except the happy endings one, lol! Not every story needs to have a happy ending.
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Post by alx on Apr 29, 2011 1:51:16 GMT
Aside from the Randolph Carter tales, no HPL story has a happy ending. Really just the three flavors I mentioned. Okay, there is a fourth but...
Anyway, are you gonna throw us a bone or not? Short or long? Were you going to pick up a collection and post the table of contents? You are aware that his work is available to read online, aren't you?
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