|
Post by deuce on Feb 23, 2018 14:58:52 GMT -5
"A novel would probably be a fair thing financially if it landed with a publisher, but otherwise would be rather a waste of time & energy unless it really represented artistic self-expression on its author’s part. I shall get around to such a thing sooner or later, but not—as I can plainly see—this year. I certainly hope you can do likewise—& I am sure you will not find it difficult, since your fluency in short stories attests an unlimited compositional ability & flow of invention. Young [August] Derleth has shewn me his thesis on the weird tale from 1890 to 1930, & I am glad to see that he gives you praise therein. I hope he can get this thing printed somewhere, if only in [Paul] Cook’s Recluse."
-- H. P. Lovecraft to Clark Ashton Smith, 6 August 1930HPL had already written two short novels at this point, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. The "Recluse" he refers to is this: www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1475546
|
|
|
Post by deuce on Feb 27, 2018 13:29:47 GMT -5
"Probably we shall soon see Banshee Tales, Zombi Stories, Transylvanian Vampire Tales, & similarly specialised magazines. I give it up!"
-- H. P. Lovecraft to Clark Ashton Smith, 16 January 1932
|
|
|
Post by KiramidHead on Mar 1, 2018 23:11:20 GMT -5
Thought I'd share this.
|
|
|
Post by keith on Mar 2, 2018 4:39:19 GMT -5
Thanks, Revenant Gladiator! I appreciate it! Always like listening to readings of Lovecraft, Howard and Smith.
|
|
|
Post by zarono on Mar 2, 2018 19:42:36 GMT -5
I like listening to those too, here's a pretty good reading of "Out of the Aeons" on youtube. HPL brought up Nameless Cults a fair bit in this story so it's got a little extra sauce for Howard fans
|
|
|
Post by deuce on Mar 4, 2018 15:35:07 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by ChrisLAdams on Mar 15, 2018 7:28:43 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by deuce on Apr 8, 2018 1:22:17 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by deuce on May 10, 2018 12:00:00 GMT -5
HPL on ghost stories and MR James:
This type of fear-literature must not be confounded with a type externally similar but psychologically widely different; the literature of mere physical fear and the mundanely gruesome. Such writing, to be sure, has its place, as has the conventional or even whimsical or humorous ghost story where formalism or the author’s knowing wink removes the true sense of the morbidly unnatural; but these things are not the literature of cosmic fear in its purest sense. The true weird tale has something more than secret murder, bloody bones, or a sheeted form clanking chains according to rule. A certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces must be present; and there must be a hint, expressed with a seriousness and portentousness becoming its subject, of that most terrible conception of the human brain—a malign and particular suspension or defeat of those fixed laws of Nature which are our only safeguard against the assaults of chaos and the daemons of unplumbed space....
The art of Dr. James is by no means haphazard, and in the preface to one of his collections he has formulated three very sound rules for macabre composition. A ghost story, he believes, should have a familiar setting in the modern period, in order to approach closely the reader’s sphere of experience. Its spectral phenomena, moreover, should be malevolent rather than beneficent; since fear is the emotion primarily to be excited. And finally, the technical patois of “occultism” or pseudo-science ought carefully to be avoided; lest the charm of casual verisimilitude be smothered in unconvincing pedantry....
In inventing a new type of ghost, he has departed considerably from the conventional Gothic tradition; for where the older stock ghosts were pale and stately, and apprehended chiefly through the sense of sight, the average James ghost is lean, dwarfish, and hairy — a sluggish, hellish night-abomination midway betwixt beast and man — and usually touched before it is seen. Sometimes the spectre is of still more eccentric composition; a roll of flannel with spidery eyes, or an invisible entity which moulds itself in bedding and shews a face of crumpled linen....
-- HPL "Supernatural Horror in Literature"
|
|
|
Post by zarono on May 17, 2018 6:53:40 GMT -5
Morgan Scorpion reads Lovecraft's "The Very Old Folk".
|
|
|
Post by Char-Vell on May 17, 2018 8:06:27 GMT -5
Morgan Scorpion reads Lovecraft's "The Very Old Folk". Cool Name Level: Expert
|
|
|
Post by deuce on May 22, 2018 13:42:05 GMT -5
"And it is a sound principle of law that a rape is a rape, be the victim a 'lewd wench' or not."
-- H.P. Lovecraft to J. Vernon Shea, 30 July, 1933
|
|
|
Post by deuce on Jun 2, 2018 13:48:51 GMT -5
A humorous summary and analysis of At the Mountains of Madness:
|
|
|
Post by ChrisLAdams on Jun 18, 2018 8:44:05 GMT -5
This illustrated adaptation of The Cats of Ulthar by Abigail Larson has been out for a couple of years, but I just came across it recently and ordered it from Amazon. HPL's dreamland stuff is my favorite of his cycles, so I'm looking forward to checking this out.
|
|
|
Post by ChrisLAdams on Jul 11, 2018 19:07:22 GMT -5
A newly remastered Blu-Ray/DVD edition of The Unnamable will be released October 9, 2018. This is now available for pre-order. www.amazon.com/Unnamable-Blu-ray-Mark-Kinsey-Stephenson/dp/B07DPFFT67"College students from Miskatonic University who retreat to an early 18th-century mansion for a weekend of lust are stalked by a fatalistic female in this horror film taken from a story by H.P. Lovecraft. The demon delights in tearing the limbs off her human victims to carry out a centuries-old family curse." Bonus features include:
- Audio Commentary with Charles Klausmeyer, Mark Stephenson, Laura Albert, Eben Ham, Camille Calvet, R. Christopher Biggs
- Video Interviews with R. Christopher Biggs special makeup effects artist & make up artist Camille Calvet
- Video Interview with Mark Parra,
- Video Interview with actors Charles Klausmeyer & Mark Kinsey Stephenson
- Video Interview with actor Eben Ham
- Video Interview with actress Laura Albert
- Stereo, 5.1 and DTS Surround Sound
|
|