• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

The Necronomicon

Driving Us Mad

Note that the Necronomicon would drive people mad, and it echoed The King in Yellow in which The Yellow Sign was a book that drove people mad.

Now we have RINGU and its Yank translation, THE RING, a movie about a videotape that kills you if you watch it all the way through.

Same basic curse.

For Thomas Hardy, it would have to be the Literary Review That Drives Men Mad, eh? lol Or perhaps the Insipid Public Response?
 
Re: Why Not?

FraterLibre said:
I may actually write one, we shall see. lol Why not?

OK, I'll start you off;


As evening shaped I found me on a moor...
 
Collaboration

Uh, no thanks, collaborating just means having to split the advance and royalty checks. lol

Although I may channel some spirit that doesn't have a literary lawyer.
 
there must be some kind of mind thing going on here!!!

Inverurie Jones Who's greenest?


Ioethe So, in a fight - Cthulhu or Godzilla?

I was asking my self the same thing ---I think since he is a giant octopus--they should write a story of him trying to take over monster Island ..and godzilla --comes to the rescue..It would make more money and sell more action figures and toys (coming from my experience of selling this stuff for years)..and also take out all the .. stuff thats in all the books that most kids and young aldults (at least in the US) don't have time to read.. ..Does chuthlu "spue" anything from its mouth??that would also be good --some kind of galactic spores that turn into nano demons or something..that way you could bring in the japenese defense force (and maybe "guest star" Ultraman)..this could be big..really big.!!..keep it simple ..and make alot of money!!
 
Lost Copy

Ah, yes. My lone, long-lost copy of The King in Yellow is shuffled amidst a major collapse in my book collection in the basement, where I'm not allowed to go for health reasons. lol Consequently, I've been unable to remind myself of this stuff. Thanks.

The yellow sign is a sigil of sorts, isn't it? A magical rune or symbold with terrifying and mysterious potency, right?

As for Hastur, anyone know of a good myth search program? I'm betting it's a real diety. Maybe it's in The Golden Bough by Frazer?
 
Hastur Cycle

from: http://www.bass.org/~cthulhu/hc.htm

Robert M. Price, ed. The Hastur Cycle. Oakland CA: Chaosium, 1993. (paper) $9.95.

Rating: 3 tentacles out of 5
Should interest: Someone who has already been introduced to the Mythos.
Overlap: Medium; several stories are printed in other popular collections.

Contents:

* "Haita the Shepherd," Ambrose Bierce
* "An Inhabitant of Carcosa," Ambrose Bierce
* "The Repairer of Reputations," Robert W. Chambers
* "The Yellow Sign," Robert W. Chambers
* "The River of Night's Dreaming," Karl Edward Wagner
* "More Light," James Blish
* "The Novel of the Black Seal," Arthur Machen
* "The Whisperer in Darkness," H.P. Lovecraft
* "Documents in the Case of Elizabeth Akeley," Richard A. Lupoff
* "The Mine on Yuggoth," Ramsey Campbell
* "Planetfall on Yuggoth," James Wade
* "The Return of Hastur," August Derleth
* "Tatters of the King," Lin Carter

The publication of this book marked something important in the field of publishing Cthulhiana. When Chaosium decided to publish their Cycle books, it meant the reappearance of some long-out-of-print stories; when Robert Price became the editor of the series, it meant a commitment to the highest-quality stories and the introduction to readers of some scholarly perspectives.

The series is novel because it ties Lovecraft into his models and his successors; Price sets Lovecraft's stories, the heart of the Mythos, into a wider cycle. What Lovecraft wrote was only one part of a broader story. This is precisely what Lovecraft wanted. He admitted, too, that parts of the cycle were contradictory. This made it even more myth-like, and it is from their mythic, primordial quality that Cthulhoid stories draw their power.

Price sets the stage very well in his introduction and in notes before each story. The book is organized along two streams of Hastur stories, streams which started with Chambers and Bierce on one side and Machen on the other. These streams converged in Lovecraft's "The Whisperer in Darkness." This thematic organization, instead of a chronological one, gives the stories more power, more life. An evolution can be seen, but other links are established just as strongly between stories.

This anthology reprints some hard-to-find stories, including Chambers'. Despite the jewels of the book, however, the reader is left feeling somehow unsatisfied. Some of the stories simply aren't compelling. Despite this, the book is worth reading, because it brings to light a facet of the Mythos that does not get seen anywhere else in print.
 
Not an Octopussy

Cthulhu is not an octopus. This is but a jest in that he is said to have a mass of tentacles. Earthquakes would be his Titanic sign.

He was imprisoned under an ocean in a dreaming death state to keep him contained with water, both the pressure and the element.\

Here's a Lovecraft Besiary:

http://www.hplovecraft.com/creation/bestiary.htm
 
Hastur Entry from Bestiary

Hastur

“I found myself faced by names and terms that I had heard elsewhere in the most hideous of connexions_– Yuggoth, Great Cthulhu, Tsathoggua, Yog-Sothoth, R’lyeh, Nyarlathotep, Azathoth, Hastur, Yian, Leng, the Lake of Hali, Bethmoora, the Yellow Sign, L’mur-Kathulos, Bran, and the Magnum Innominandum_– and was drawn back through nameless aeons and inconceivable dimensions to worlds of elder, outer entity at which the crazed author ofthe Necronomicon had only guessed in the vaguest way.... There is a whole secret cult of evil men (a man of your mystical erudition will understand me when I link them with Hastur and the Yellow Sign) devoted to the purpose of tracking them down and injuring them on behalf of the monstrous powers from other dimensions.” (“The Whisperer in Darkness”)

These are the only places in Lovecraft’s fiction where he mentions Hastur. Lovecraft borrowed the term “Hastur” from Robert W. Chambers, who had, in turn, borrowed it from Ambrose Bierce. In Bierce’s “Haïta the Shepherd,” Hastur is “the god of shepherds.” Chambers borrowed the term and used it as the home city of Cassilda and Camilla, but also used it as the name for a groundskeeper in “The Demoiselle d’ Ys.”


from: http://www.hplovecraft.com/creation/bestiary.htm

itself a page of the superb: http://www.hplovecraft.com/

and for those seeking the works: http://www.gizmology.net/lovecraft/index.htm
 
I'd seen that!

Yes, excellent search engine for all things Lovecraftian. lol Got to love the wit involved.

Do check those sites I cited, too, for some details and excellent links.
 
Hard Copy

Oh, I still have a fondness for books one can hold in one's hand and read without a power source, etc.
 
Sanity? We Scoff at Such Peurile Terms

I checked that link on influences, and they do a pretty decent job. I'm reminded too that the folks who tended to keep HPL's writing and memory alive were science fiction fans, oddly enough. Of course, there were no organized horror fans then.

A. Merritt, Seabury Quinn, Robert E. Howard, and so on! The pulp folks, wonderful stuff.

Ghost-dog - By all means, make the film. Sounds good. Is the chap who looks like Howard Phillips Screwdriver still available?
 
Go For It

Seriously, go for it, I'd enjoy seeing that film, as you so briefly outlined it. It's a good idea, and would be interesting to a fairly wide range of at least the literati, eh?

As for Howard, yes indeed. Despite it's silly title, "Pigeons from Hell" is one of the best horror stories every written. (Not a Cthulhu Mythos tale, but very good nonetheless.)
 
Re: Driving Us Mad

FraterLibre said:
Note that the Necronomicon would drive people mad, and it echoed The King in Yellow in which The Yellow Sign was a book that drove people mad.

Now we have RINGU and its Yank translation, THE RING, a movie about a videotape that kills you if you watch it all the way through.

Same basic curse.
In Britain, there's a soap opera that works on the same premise. It's called, `Eastenders.'
:eek!!!!:
 
Same Stateside

Andro - rofl!

yes, I know what you mean, seems we're determined stateside to match even England in production of such shows, among them the Anna Nicole Smith monotony hour, (or is it only half?), and of course, The Bachelor....lol
 
Revisionist

While shopping in vain for horror fiction worth bothering with in this Hallowe'en season, I came across a new collection amidst the Lovecraft books. It contained, I believe, ten revisions of his. In other words, stories by others he had to rewrite in order to make them publishable. That they're not being republished, instead of being forgotten as they deserve to be, owes entirely to the fact that Lovecraft had his hands on them.

I find this ineffably sad.

By the way, have you seen the clichéd regurgitative market-slop publishers are calling horror these days? It makes Hollywood horror movies seem fresh and original by contrast. What deeply rooted cynicism is sucking the life out of horror? And please, no vampire jokes -- it almost seems as if one can get a book published these days simply by calling one of his characters a vampire. It's pathetic, and overall proves how empty we are as a culture.

No, I'll amend that blanket condemnation: It proves that the creative, original, and off-beat is suppressed as bad writing forces out the good. Yes, Gresham's Law applied to popular fiction, demonstrated by the multinational corporate approach to publishing.

Rebel! Support your local upstart!
 
Not Much Lovecraft Here

The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions: godawful crap other would-be pulpists sent in to Weird Tales, who paid HPL a stipend per story to revise the things up to even marginal publication standards.

In short, no excuse whatsoever exists to reprint these stories other than their tenuous connection to Lovecraft's name. Worse, most ought not have been published in the first place, it seems. Check amazon.com for the reader's responses, they're amusingly negative.
 
And Machen, and..

Yes, Clark Ashton Smith's stuff is wonderful, and Robert E. Howard's fiction often packs a wallop. I also like the stories of William Hope Hodgeson, Arthur Machen, Oliver Onions, and, well, too many to mention. Lovecraft is best discovered and absorbed around age 12 - 14, after which one seeks more. Or ought to. lol
 
Might I recommend some of the Severn Valley and Goatswood modern english Cthulhu Mythos fiction found in Ramsey Campbell's short stories, absorbed them, loved them and found them credibly frihgtening. The very definition of "Wierd Fiction" when the setting is one that you recognise. Brings Cthulhu and other horrors so much closer to home whilst working on the psychological resonances that made Lovecrafts work great but was absent from so many of his imitators.

Ramsey Campbell's website

His novels are a more acquired taste, but his short stories are quite stunningly crafted in my opinion.
 
Campbell

I'd forgotten that Ramsey Campbell started his career corresponding with August Derleth about HPL, and writing Lovecraftian pastiches for fan magazines, before developing his own voice. He definitely belongs on any Cthulhu Mythos writers list. Excellent stuff.

An off-beat but good writer of similar ilk is mutual acquaintance T.E.D. Klein. He wrote a handful of excellent Lovecraft-influenced novellas, collected in a single volume I believe, and also the novel The Ceremonies, which was outright Cthulhu Mythos stuff.
 
Yeah, possibly one of the best, but most underated horror authors existing at present. Certainly better than most popular british horror trash being served up in woodpulp form at the present day. Dig out any and all of his short stories, it is well worth it.
 
Early Novels

Campbell's early novels are something, too, especially The Doll Who Ate His Mother. Amazing stuff. As he gained more success, his novels became more conventional, but he still manages to pull a quirk out here and there. His short fiction is probably his best work, though, overall, I'd agree.

He's well worth seeking out.
 
Mmm, wasn't too keen on Doll Who Ate his Mother. His first novel I read was Hungry Moon, which is of a more supernatural bent. His novels are a tad too mainstream and whilst they have great build up and atmosphere as well as spot on characterisation, they tend towards the mundane and the climax is not of a scale that the initial premise deserves. Ancient Images is a prime example of this. The Nameless (which I believe has been made into a spanish film) is the closest he gets.

In his short fiction though he excells beyond these limitations, he is not constrained by the rational, and the work descends into the inescapable surreal logic and anxiety madness of nightmares. One of the best, and indeed a unique voice. The urban presence of his horrors is up with the best of Clive Barker's Books of Blood (again the raw urban terror and viscera distorting our comfortable reality).
 
Market Realities

I've noticed his novels seem to hold back, and while some of it may be the influence of an editor, I'm wondering if it's not just the constraints of the form. To make a living, a writer is forced these days to write long form. If they don't they won't make a living, let alone succeed.

And yet, some writers are inarguably born short story writers, to whom novels come hard.

Ray Bradbury comes to mind as both the exception proving the rule, and one who has released novels that were either patchwork story cycles, or spavined things not really worthy of the title.

Campbell perhaps reigns in his imagination when he's got so much more to lose in his novels. This is too bad.
 
ghost dog said:
Inventing horrible books is quite a pastime among devotees of the weird, & . . . . .
I should coco! I still fondly remember my own invention, the Liber Nominus Exper...
 
Thought it was about time to add my 2 pennith. Mostly this is knowledge is unchecked as they don't let me slog through reams of eldritch fiction in work. :)

The Necronomicon- Definitely fictional, although a number of 'versions' have been made, none were written by mad arabs or cause insanity. Of course what makes all of it even more confusing is that they (the mythos writers in general) did reference books that do exist in exactly the same way.

Adbul Alhazred- Also fictional (its not even a real sounding name Abd Al Ibn Azred would be more like it though...).

Cthulhu- Usually the squid headed one is described as a characature of humanoid, with batlike wings and a head which has, in place of a mouth, great, slime coated tentacles. As to who'd win Cthulhu or Godzilla, my money's on the Great Old One, superior intellect, mental powers, armies of followers and the ability to fly between worlds. Also Cthulhu can change size and proportions, handy, but sort of goes with the hyper-geometric territory.

Elemental Mythos - I think this was pretty much all Derleth, he even invented me (Ithaqua) because of it (although based off earlier stories notably Algernon Blackwoods rather excellent 'The Wendigo' and of course Native American Folklore). Lovecraft was just terrified of sea food if I recall correctly and hence the reason that so many things are piscine and squamous (or scaled) in his horror - oh no wait he was also fascinated by mental illness- some member of his family was in an asylum -but I can't remember who. . I believe Lovecraft wrote in a letter to either Derleth or Bloch that when inventing creatures for the genre he would often try to use folklore and even recommended reading Lo! and other Fortean works for inspiration. Then he would come up with a suitable name, trying to make it as unpronouncable as possible -unless it was a pun.

Cthulhu Mythos - Derleth and/or Bloch came up with this nomenclature. Lovecraft talked about cycles ( Arkham, Yog-sothoth, Azathoth etc) - although I can't quite remember what the cycle the stories set in England (rather than New England) were part of. I remember reading something about Lovecraft saying that he avoided using Judeo-Christian symbology and looked further afield for strange emphasis of his forgotten cults, and was always fond of borrowing other peoples themes if they interested him- especially things he'd ghost written or edited for Weird Tales.

Call of Cthulhu - the roleplaying game. There have been a lot of versions of this great game. All of these books are great as they have huge amounts of reference material for a budding investigator. The 5th Edition published by Chaosium (written by Sandy Peterson amongst others) had some great articles on the differing views of the Mythos and the Necronomicon. Plus the wonderful fortean timeline... And I believe they have just published a new version- dunno what's in it though.
 
Re: Bravo

FraterLibre said:
Ithaqua - very nice overview.

seconded

if that was off of the top of your head they should let you surf wherever the hell you want at work.
 
Stunning

Inhabitant - Very impressive essay, wonderful take on things. Many thanks for directing our attention to it. Is this a part of any printed collection of academic or esoteric studies of Lovecraft's influence, by any chance?
 
Hadn't Realized

Guess I'll explore that site more widely, then. Thanks.
 
Back
Top