No Love for Lovecraft ?

Call of Cthulu and Shadow Over Innsmouth are 2 of my favourite horror stories ever. By IMHO the best writer of the genre.

I'ts kinda sad to see that very few people these days actually remember his stories, as the current state of the horror genre is filled with absolute tripe.

Any other Cthulu/Dagon/H.P. Lovecraft fans out there ?

P.S. The Lurking Fear is also a great and underrated story.

Oh sh*t I thought his name was minecraft

Never read any Lovecraft, then again I'm not really a big horror literature fan.

@decoy_elite:

Well if you can overlook the racism that pops up from time to time ( blame the era, not the man ), then you're gonna have a blast reading his stuff.

Even if you dont like Horror, but like something more interesting than Charles Dickens etc. I'm sure you're gonna find at least one of HPL's MANY stories interesting.

@avenger85: Actually from what I've read Lovecraft was really racist even for his time period. Not saying it made him a bad writer, but I don't think the era he grew up in was the only problem.

I don't read many classic authors actually. Mostly because you basically have to translate a lot of the language, although it is usually worth it if the story is good enough (Shakespeare's works come to mind.)
Still I really do need to check out some Lovecraft at some point as his stuff is at least interesting enough to warrant a try.

Story about a village of Enderman/civilian crossbreeds.

@decoy_elite: and also a little kids game too :)

Rats in the walls. Lovecraft is awesome but is hardly forgotten. he has inspired many.

I'm a huge Lovecraft fan.

Ia!

Big Lovecraft fan here, too. I managed to get all of his stories in the Del Rey collected format, the painted covers look great.

Anyone here read his Dreamlands stuff? Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath was one of the longest, most extended and yet most epic novellas I have ever read. When I finished that story, I actually felt physically exhausted.

Love Lovecraft

I am a big Lovecraft fan. So many great stories. Some of my favorites are arthur jermyn, the outsider, re-animator, and The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.

His work is alright. Not exactly mind-blowing stuff, even for its genre.

I love Lovecraft :)

Azhathoth is the best idiot god out there

Lovecraft is amazing, I have a big Necronomicon hardcover, Dagon is one of my favorites

I have not really read any of his works. I should probably try to change that at some point :)

?

Well compared to the turd we have these days ( sparkly vampires & all that), yeah his work really is mind-blowing lol.

that current "genre" was immensively influenced by lovecraft.

He wasn't that great, really. Some nice ideas, but his writing gets kinda stale. You reading Fatale?

Clive Barker, Thomas Ligotti, H.R. Giger, Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, John Carpenter, Robert Bloch, Ramsey Campbell, et cetera....

Dude was mad influential. Came up with concepts and ideas that would remain with the genre for years to come. Words like 'cyclopean' or 'eldritch' are always associated with him. His writing style's extremely unique, focusing heavily on prose and exposition, with archaic words and a usage of subtle, existential horror. I'll admit that his earlier stories were kinda crappy, but the man really did get better as he progressed.

@veshark:

The best thing about the dude's writing is that he builds it up slowly, and with subtelty. Later on when it all goes south, wether you could predict what would happen or not ( like the dogs being aggressive towards the unearthed specimens in Mountains of Madness), the buildup and pace is constant.

No let-ups or dull moments. No pointless converstations and things which feel out-of topic from the story. And his ability to describe terrain ( if you are able to form a clear picture of a terrain described in literature in your head, then you know the author hit the bullseye) and attention to detail is vastly underrated.

Mm agreed, At the Mountains of Madness was the apex of Lovecraft's ability to describe scenery. The way he conveyed the Arctic landscape and the city of the Elder Things - only word I can think of for that story is 'evocative'.

The general populace doesn't know him, but neither do they know Heinlien, Ellison or Pratchett. Generally people who don't read very much don't know about authors unless those authors have big huge movies or TV shows made about their work (JK Rowling, George RR Martin, Stephen King) I'm sure people who read, horror particularly, are aware of and probably have read Lovecraft.

I wasn't disputing that, so what are you on about?

No doubt.

?

: - )

he is good but he has nothing on king or Hitchcock

@farkam: What do you mean by "even for its genre" ?

Because horror isn't known for being mind-blowing in the first place.

I disagree.

I disagree with your disagreement.

: - )

Why do you disagree?

Because horror, for the most part, isn't mind-blowing.

@farkam: How so though?

How do you define mind blowing?

Because most horror is rather generic, not something that really stands out on it's own two feet. That's not really that hard to understand.

Admittedly currently it maybe. But I assure the genre has being very influential over the years. Horror itself is a very unique genre since it manages to provoke those "uglier" emotions. It has its fair share of icons everyone knows who Dracula, Frankenstein are, zombies,ghouls ghosts. It is a very,very influential genre. You really cannot deny that.

I am not disputing it's influential nature or uniqueness.

So I ask again what do you mean by "mind blowing". Since it has stood out. I am not sure what you mean. Maybe you could explain in a little more detail.

"I am not disputing it's influential nature or uniqueness."

I was talking about the genre itself, not Lovecrafts work.

And I was talking about the horror genre in general not Lovecrafts work. You said you its not "mind blowing" so I am asking why you think so.

The defenition of mind blowing is as follows.

mind-blow·ing(mndblng)

With that said I haven't disputed the influential nature of Lovecrafts work either. I just don't find it all to unique, despite the hype, and in my opinion horror isn't all that unique or "mind-blowing" in general. : - )

Really? Eh okay.