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Post by elegos7 on Sept 29, 2017 2:17:27 GMT -5
Thanks! I've been keeping track of your incredible work online since the grand old REH Forum became inactive. Great to see a replacement up and running. (Much obliged, Jason.) I'll keep people posted. There are cameo appearances of a couple of characters from HPL's work in the novel. Like sinister artist Richard Pickman from "Pickman's Model" in the Boston scenes, and Inspector Legrasse from "Call of Cthulhu" when the hero and his friends chase the nasty villains down to New Orleans. (Yep, the legendary red-light district Storyville comes into it, though HPL might not have mentioned that if he'd been doing it.) And a bit of horror in the bayous and swamps. Sort of obligatory, that. There's this fellow named Zarono that I might try to con with false promises into doing an illo or two ... Hi Keith, I am looking forward to your novel. Will it be your first REH pastiche, after the Cormac Mac Art novels? Are there any plans when it will be published?
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Post by keith on Sept 29, 2017 7:53:54 GMT -5
Actually, yes, it will be my first Howard pastiche after the Cormac mac Art books. The main elements are from Howard's Cthulhu Mythos stories, particularly "The Thing on the Roof". My novel is called DAMNED FROM BIRTH and it begins directly after "TTotR" ends. Although the action of Howard's short took place in Sussex, I've made the narrator an Irish-American, from Boston, named Robert Brandon Quinn. His family is Boston upper crust, but not among the elite of the Brahmins, although his mother is a Winthrop, and he himself is an archaeologist by profession. "TTotR" makes that clear. He's done field work in Yucatan, for one thing, which resulted in a paper titled "Evidences of Nahua Culture in Yucatan" and a savage controversy with Tussmann -- the fellow who ends up appallingly killed by the god of the temple he profaned. Von Junzt's NAMELESS CULTS is one of the MacGuffins of the novel, and Professor James Clement of Richmond, Virginia, mentioned in "TTotR" as the scholar who locates a copy of the Black Book for the narrator, is an important character. In fact Quinn has become engaged to his elder daughter, Dorothy. There are scenes in Richmond as well as London, Boston and New Orleans. No publisher lined up yet. Hope to get one quickly once the final revision is complete.
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Post by zarono on Sept 29, 2017 10:02:35 GMT -5
There's this fellow named Zarono that I might try to con with false promises into doing an illo or two ... Smite the jade gong at midnight and I will appear---or just shoot me an email I'd be honored to contribute!
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Post by deuce on Oct 8, 2017 15:03:50 GMT -5
One of the better depictions of a "Child of the Night", courtesy of the awesome Greg Staples... Perhaps it's a portrait of "Ghoth the Burrower" as named in Lovecraft's geneaology below. HPL was a fan of Bran Mak Morn.
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Post by keith on Oct 13, 2017 7:28:42 GMT -5
Yes, that illustration is fantastic. Worthy of its inspiration, which of course wasn't just REH, but Arthur Machen as well, whose hideous "little people" gave Howard some of his ideas for the Worms of the Earth and the Children of the Night. But REH took the idea and ran with it for a touchdown, as he did with the toad-monster Tsathoggua and his spawn. (Deuce Richardson has some really perceptive and detailed insights on that.) "Worms of the Earth, ye have become in ghastly fact what my ancestors called ye in scorn!"
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Post by keith on Apr 13, 2018 8:48:31 GMT -5
The stuff that I said back at the end of September, 2017, about a novel I was completing, a sequel to REH's "The Thing on the Roof", turned out to be not quite correct -- as to its being the final revision, that is. It's become necessary, since then, to cut it down from 140,000 words to 100,000, which with some difficulty I did. Yes, it did improve the pace and remove some extraneous stuff, so the advice I got to that effect was good. Removing the numbered endnotes, for which I have a ridiculous fondness, was a wrench, but that too. And now I'm doing yet another revision to make sure it moves quickly enough and there are no inconsistencies.
It doesn't just give the (unnamed in REH's story) hero a name and background (Boston upper crust) a family and a fiancée, it brings in a couple of characters from Lovecraft's stories "Pickman's Model" and "The Call of Cthulhu". They are the sinister artist Richard Pickman himself, and Inspector John Legrasse of New Orleans. So, onward, let's hope to publication in the end.
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Post by robp on Apr 13, 2018 9:37:06 GMT -5
The stuff that I said back at the end of September, 2017, about a novel I was completing, a sequel to REH's "The Thing on the Roof", turned out to be not quite correct -- as to its being the final revision, that is. It's become necessary, since then, to cut it down from 140,000 words to 100,000, which with some difficulty I did. Yes, it did improve the pace and remove some extraneous stuff, so the advice I got to that effect was good. Removing the numbered endnotes, for which I have a ridiculous fondness, was a wrench, but that too. And now I'm doing yet another revision to make sure it moves quickly enough and there are no inconsistencies. It doesn't just give the (unnamed in REH's story) hero a name and background (Boston upper crust) a family and a fiancée, it brings in a couple of characters from Lovecraft's stories "Pickman's Model" and "The Call of Cthulhu". They are the sinister artist Richard Pickman himself, and Inspector John Legrasse of New Orleans. So, onward, let's hope to publication in the end. Nice one, look forward to that! Along similar lines I've been working on a prequel to Rats in the Walls....somewhat shorter though, around 6K words. Please let us know when it's published!
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Post by keith on Apr 13, 2018 10:46:34 GMT -5
I will do that!
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Post by zarono on Apr 15, 2018 7:11:05 GMT -5
The stuff that I said back at the end of September, 2017, about a novel I was completing, a sequel to REH's "The Thing on the Roof", turned out to be not quite correct -- as to its being the final revision, that is. It's become necessary, since then, to cut it down from 140,000 words to 100,000, which with some difficulty I did. Yes, it did improve the pace and remove some extraneous stuff, so the advice I got to that effect was good. Removing the numbered endnotes, for which I have a ridiculous fondness, was a wrench, but that too. And now I'm doing yet another revision to make sure it moves quickly enough and there are no inconsistencies. It doesn't just give the (unnamed in REH's story) hero a name and background (Boston upper crust) a family and a fiancée, it brings in a couple of characters from Lovecraft's stories "Pickman's Model" and "The Call of Cthulhu". They are the sinister artist Richard Pickman himself, and Inspector John Legrasse of New Orleans. So, onward, let's hope to publication in the end. Awesome Keith! Really looking forward to reading this
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Post by deuce on May 2, 2018 10:49:51 GMT -5
An Open Window
Behind the Veil what gulfs of Time and Space?
What blinking mowing Shapes to blast the sight?
I shrink before a vague colossal Face
Born in the mad immensities of Night.
~ REH ~
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Post by deuce on Aug 17, 2018 1:44:37 GMT -5
A great reading of this classic poem:
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