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aloof
avant-gardener

Joined: Sun Dec 14, 2008 1:18 pm
Posts: 3174
Location: never neverland, palm trees by the sea
PostPosted: Mon May 27, 2019 3:07 am 
 

I spend a lot of time in transport these days (again), and I have taken my (cheap versions of) Lovecraft books with me. some stories do not "touch" as much as they did when I first read them, but he's still the master of written horror... it's amazing to me how he'd make stories out of anything, see an arcane, eldritch aspect to a farm he passed on the train and work from there... and it saddens me that he died so young. I can't begin to imagine what kind of stories he'd have written if he had stayed with us for another ~20 years or so...

Celephais is my all-time favourite, Zahn my favourite horror short, and it's a coin toss between Cthulhu and Innsmouth for the best cthulhu mythos one...

oh, and I hate fish as much as he did :D
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acid_bukkake
SAD!

Joined: Fri Jan 16, 2015 10:45 am
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Location: United States
PostPosted: Mon May 27, 2019 10:55 am 
 

Pickman's Model is my favorite. If you find yourself in Providence, RI on any of your travels? Take a walk around the older areas. Its not hard to see how he developed his sense of the macabre.
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BastardHead
Worse than Stalin

Joined: Thu Aug 18, 2005 7:53 pm
Posts: 10857
Location: Oswego, Illinois
PostPosted: Mon May 27, 2019 12:01 pm 
 

I've read most of his classic stories at this point, the only really big ones I haven't read are At the Mountains of Madness and The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, mostly because they're two of his longest and I just haven't had the time to dedicate to them at the moment. My one big issue with him is that he is borderline sociopathic when it comes to just endlessly describing shit long past the point of logical atmosphere building. Shadow over Innsmouth could easily be one of his best if the entire second chapter wasn't just like fifteen fucking pages of him describing every single building he passes on the way to his hotel. The Shadow out of Time has great world building and suffocating atmosphere but like 70% of it is description of the day to day lives of the inhabitants of Yith and it just goes on and on and on and on and holy shit Howard we get it.

I think my favorite tends to flip flop between The Dunwich Horror and The Haunter in the Dark, with The Color out of Space pretty much always landing a solid co-second place with whichever of the aforementioned two loses out. Haunter is mad underrated I think, I rarely see it mentioned as much as anything else I've mentioned, but I think the entire extended sequence of the protagonist exploring the chapel is some of the most unbelievably tense stuff he's ever put to paper.
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KomaOvTrollz
Mallcore Kid

Joined: Sun Feb 03, 2019 9:04 am
Posts: 20
Location: Serbia
PostPosted: Mon May 27, 2019 12:50 pm 
 

Overrated racist.

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Dragunov
Metalhead

Joined: Wed Dec 29, 2004 6:34 pm
Posts: 2260
Location: United States of America
PostPosted: Mon May 27, 2019 12:57 pm 
 

KomaOvTrollz wrote:
Overrated racist.


Username checks out.

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LordStenhammar
Veteran

Joined: Sun Oct 21, 2012 10:46 am
Posts: 3062
Location: Not in Sweden
PostPosted: Mon May 27, 2019 1:45 pm 
 

It's about 13 years since I read most of his work in English. Easy to remember, because shortly afterwards I ended in a madhouse. Very fitting, hah. My favourites are probably At the Mountains... and that Innsmouth story, though I remember the writer himself not being very fond of it. Deep Ones are such lovable creatures! Many good (but sadly distant) memories of late night reading, smoking and drinking coffee in latent terror.

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Oxenkiller
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Joined: Sat Feb 09, 2008 3:42 am
Posts: 3613
Location: United States
PostPosted: Mon May 27, 2019 1:55 pm 
 

The one of his that really got me, well there were two of them actually. "The Thing on the Doorstep" and "The Outsider." I dunno, that last one especially, was really really good, with it's surprise ending.

And yeah, I also really dug "the Shadow over Innsmouth" and "The Nameless City." Those were two more of his more memorable ones. When we were in college, we rented a house that had a whole milk carton of books the previous renters had behind, and there were three volumes, 1960's vintage editions, of Lovecraft story compilations that I ended up hanging onto after we all moved out when the lease on the place was up. I still got em.

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aloof
avant-gardener

Joined: Sun Dec 14, 2008 1:18 pm
Posts: 3174
Location: never neverland, palm trees by the sea
PostPosted: Tue May 28, 2019 2:25 am 
 

are they Arkham House editions!?
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~Guest 334273
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Joined: Tue Apr 01, 2014 2:19 am
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PostPosted: Tue May 28, 2019 8:05 am 
 

I've read a massive collection of his works and i find his writing to be very unbalanced.

Some stories are stunning and will stay in my mind for long, long time: Innsmouth, Dunwich, Haunter, Colour, Dreams in the Witch house, Erich Zann, Pickman's model... But a long list of other stories didn't catch my imagination at all or left me in the Wtf zone (the dunsany ones in particular)

I compare him mentally to Poe: when he's on his works are outstanding and disturbing, but a lot of the time boredom creeps around the corner.

The concepts behind the mythos however is just brilliant, and the conception of the universe is way more disturbing than some of the written stories... The tought of beings like Azatoth & court and Nyarlathothep alone is chilling :)

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Anthony Pwl
Metal newbie

Joined: Wed Mar 29, 2017 10:12 am
Posts: 197
Location: Normandy, rebuilt.
PostPosted: Tue May 28, 2019 10:21 am 
 

Im a huge fan as well.
My faves are Innsmouth, Doorstep, Haunter, Shadow OOT and Color. Some of the stories can be considered boring though, or some parts at least, i can get it.
What makes his work so fascinating to me, is his obsession with the theme of a forbidden knowledge (btw the movie "The Ninth Gate" has succeeded imo to be close to this feeling, with secret societies trying to put their hands on highly rare and dangerous books - well some other parts were not so lovecraftian).

I plan to read them in english, a nice compendium is waiting for it on my shelves.
Meanwhile i will take the time to dive into his dream quest series.. again.

I do like Lovecraft-themed boardgames as well... a lot.
Arkham Horror (with all extensions) and the Call of Cthulhu deck-building card game mostly.
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Oxenkiller
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Joined: Sat Feb 09, 2008 3:42 am
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Location: United States
PostPosted: Tue May 28, 2019 7:43 pm 
 

aloof wrote:
are they Arkham House editions!?


Yes. 1963 edition (The Dunwitch Horror...) 1964 (At the Mountains of Madness) and 1965 ("Dagon and other Macabre tales."
I don't think they are worth anything special though. It looks like they were originally part of a four volume set but I have only the three volumes listed.

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aloof
avant-gardener

Joined: Sun Dec 14, 2008 1:18 pm
Posts: 3174
Location: never neverland, palm trees by the sea
PostPosted: Wed May 29, 2019 5:37 am 
 

they're still a good find :) best thing I got from old houses was a Bulgakov book and some pop LPs :/

acid_bukkake wrote:
If you find yourself in Providence, RI on any of your travels? Take a walk around the older areas. Its not hard to see how he developed his sense of the macabre.


doing a Lovecraft tour is one of my life's dreams... look for Innsmouth in Newburyport, the giant prawns in the Vermont hills... maybe not Yoggoth and antarctica tho :D

has anyone seen a Lovecraft movie that they'd recommend? I haven't :/ best ones are movies inspired by/ripped off from, like Carpenter's the thing and The Void, but most of the "adaptations" are abysmal :/
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Dungeon_Vic
Metalhead

Joined: Mon Dec 28, 2009 11:00 am
Posts: 1576
Location: Greece
PostPosted: Wed May 29, 2019 6:23 am 
 

Ιn the mouth of madness with Sam Neil was a movie that borrowed heavily on Lovecraft and I thought captured a bit of his atmosphere. Definitely not the whole movie but much better than certain adaptations that were just horrible.

I read Lovecraft first when I was 13 and it REALLY made an impression. The first true horror literature I read and it got me hooked (and feeling uneasy). My first book was a greek edition that featured 7 of his short stories, including Pickman's Model, the Outsider, The Lurking Horror and others but what really got me was the last story, which was Derleth's Shuttered Room, which was based on HP's notes, I fucking loved that one and it creeped me out completely.
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~Guest 21181
The Great Fearmonger

Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 3:44 am
Posts: 3987
PostPosted: Wed May 29, 2019 6:34 am 
 

I think it has been close to 10 years since my last foray into Lovecraft country, but his writings had a profound effect on me in high school. I loved the vocabulary and that keen sense of cosmic indifferentism especially. His prose could be overwrought and the plot arch of his stories tended towards the formulaic, but when he was on he was fucking on.


I recall that I most enjoyed "The Rats in the Walls," "At the Mountains of Madness," and "The Shadow Out of Time."

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