Robert E. Howard and the Cthulhu Mythos

[deuce]

Morgan "Docpod" Holmes looks at Baen's Cthulhu: The Mythos and Kindred Horrors...

www.castaliahouse.com/cthulhu-the-mythos-and-kindred-horrors/

Some very cool behind-the-scenes stuff on somebody trying to sell a fake "REH novel" to Jim Baen and David Drake basically donating his name (which was quite prominent at that point) and time to the "Cthulhu" project. This is the book that got real Robert E. Howard back out there (as opposed to pastiches).

[johnnypt]

Back in the 90s, it was the one place you could somewhat easily get Valley of the Worm. For some reason, it was the one big non-Conan story that wasn't included in the Baen Howard collection, so it acted as a supplement to it...even though it came first.

[finarvyn]

That book has one of my all-time favorite Cthulhu cover pictures. Simple but well done.

[deuce]

A look at the influence of Lovecraft upon REH's horror fiction:



www.robert-e-howard.org/IronHarp2.html

[deuce]

Babel

Now in the gloom the pulsing drums repeat,

And all the night is filled with evil sound;

I hear the throbbing on inhuman feet

On marble stairs that silence locks around.


I see black temples loom against the night,

With tentacles like serpents writhed afar,

And waving in a dusky dragon light

Great moths whose wings unholy tapers char.

Red memory on memory, tier on tier,

Builds up a tower, time and space to span;

Through world on world I rise, and sphere on sphere,

To star-shot gulfs of lunacy and fear—

Black screaming ages never dreamed by man.


Was this your plan, foul spawn of cosmic mire,

To freeze my soul to stone and icy fire,

To carve me in the moon that all mankind

May know its race is futile, weak and blind—

A horror-blasted statue in the sky,

That does not live and nevermore can die?

~ REH ~

[elegos7]

A new e-book has just appeared on Howard's Lovecraftian fiction by Fred Blosser. I highly recommend it, it has a lot of valuable insight.

www.amazon.com/AR-I-ECH-SPELL-CTHULHU-INFORMAL-LOVECRAFTIAN-ebook/dp/B06VTDRT1R

[deuce]

An excellent look at REH's horror tales, which are -- when you come down to it -- all in the Mythos universe, whether they mention Cthulhu/Necronomicon/whatever or not:

medleyana.com/2015/10/26/the-short-horrors-of-robert-e-howard/?wref=tp

[deuce]

Mar 9, 2017 15:39:10 GMT -5 Von K said:

REH was consciously pastiching HPL with The Black Stone and as he wrote (to August Derleth no less, as I later found) 'it's not my usual style.'

Was it you who said on the old board that with Pigeons from Hell REH had found a balance between his own style and HPL's?

Well, at one point, REH also thought The Thing on the Roof -- which I definitely like -- was the best thing he'd ever written.  We could be seeing Howard, as he oftimes was, just being self-deprecating or down on himself. I'm not saying that's the case, just that it's a possibility.

Whatever the case, he did horror tales more in his "usual style" starting from the beginning with stuff like Wolfshead, which -- if you look at the background he lays out -- is actually a tale of cosmic horror and proto-Mythos.  But, yeah, on the Old Forum I said several times that Griswold was HPL and Buckner was REH. 

To me, Howard really nailed down his "usual style" with The Valley of the Lost, which is excellent and came before PfH. Its got Texan feuds, "deep time", subterranean serpent-folk etc -- the whole nine yards. "Pigeons" is better, though.

[deuce]

Arkham

Drowsy and dull with age the houses blink

On aimless streets the rat-gnawed years forget-

But what inhuman figures leer and slink

Down the old alleys when the moon has set?


~ REH ~

[Von K]

Mar 10, 2017 2:24:16 GMT -5 deuce said:

To me, Howard really nailed down his "usual style" with The Valley of the Lost, which is excellent and came before PfH. Its got Texan feuds, "deep time", subterranean serpent-folk etc -- the whole nine yards. "Pigeons" is better, though.

I encountered Valley of the Lost relatively recently, and agree with your assessment. Fire of Asshurbanipal is cool too, as is Pigeons. Hope I didn't give the wrong impression about The Black Stone - I think REH does a great job with that one. Like you say, he was probably undercutting himself and downplaying it a little to Derleth.

[deuce]

As far as I know, this is the first artwork depicting (an idol of) REH's Great Old One, Gol-Goroth, also known as "Golgor":

[deuce]

While I don't agree with all of their conclusions -- and they left a couple out, IMO -- this is still a good little post regarding REH's "Scions of Tsathoggua":


dice-and-doubloons.blogspot.com/2016/03/cthuesday-scions-of-tsathoggua.html

[keith]

Deuce is very much to be heeded with regard to Tsathoggua and the scions thereof. My printout copy of his YAGKOOLAN! #11 is a zine I treasure, not least for his article, "Tsathoggua! REH Was First!" which explodes like a geyser with insights and detailed info.  And I've been guided by it to a big extent in the novel I've been writing, a direct sequel to REH's "The Thing on the Roof", which of course features a scion of the big toad. The narrator (I give him a name, a background, a family, and a fiancée) has serious problems, which only begin with having to answer sharp questions from the police after Tussmann's death. After all, he was on bad terms with the man, and he was right there in Tussmann's Sussex house at the time of his gruesome demise, and there is a bit of "Hmm, doesn't look well for you, y'know, sir."

I've made an effort to blend the weird fantasy with real events of the year 1911, like the London coronation of King George V and the controversial Boston premiere of Synge's "Playboy of the Western World." Doing the final revision now.

[zarono]

Sept 28, 2017 4:54:17 GMT -5 keith said:

Deuce is very much to be heeded with regard to Tsathoggua and the scions thereof. My printout copy of his YAGKOOLAN! #11 is a zine I treasure, not least for his article, "Tsathoggua! REH Was First!" which explodes like a geyser with insights and detailed info.  And I've been guided by it to a big extent in the novel I've been writing, a direct sequel to REH's "The Thing on the Roof", which of course features a scion of the big toad. The narrator (I give him a name, a background, a family, and a fiancée) has serious problems, which only begin with having to answer sharp questions from the police after Tussmann's death. After all, he was on bad terms with the man, and he was right there in Tussmann's Sussex house at the time of his gruesome demise, and there is a bit of "Hmm, doesn't look well for you, y'know, sir."

I've made an effort to blend the weird fantasy with real events of the year 1911, like the London coronation of King George V and the controversial Boston premiere of Synge's "Playboy of the Western World." Doing the final revision now.

Looking forward to reading it Keith!

[keith]

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 ...