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Post by deuce on Feb 16, 2018 13:05:14 GMT -5
"I have done what I could toward elucidating the genealogy of Tsathoggua, and am sending Ar-Éch-Bei the result of my delvings into the Parchments of Pnom, the chief Hyperborean authority on such matters. Pnom has much more to say about Tsathoggua than about Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth and Azathoth; but no doubt you have access to other records, mainly concerning these entities; and I’d be glad of more specific information about them. As I am pointing out to Ar-E’ch-Bei [Mythos fan/scholar, RH Barlow], Pnom’s account of Tsathoggua. can be reconciled with the legendry told to Zamacona in [HPL's story] The Mound. The myth, through aeons, was varied in the usual mythopoeic fashion by the cavern-dwellers, who came at last to believe that merely the images of Tsathoggua, and not the god himself, had emerged in former cycles from the inner gulf. Ts[athoggua], travelling fourthdimensionally from Saturn, first entered the Earth through the lightless abyss of N’kai; and, not unnaturally, the Yothians regarded N’kai as his place of origin. Undoubtedly the god now resides in N’kai, to which he returned when the ice overwhelmed Hyperborea."
-- Clark Ashton Smith to H. P. Lovecraft, 16 June 1934CAS harmonizing/retconning. An excellent early example of the Cthulhu Mythos in action.
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Post by deuce on Feb 27, 2018 1:25:03 GMT -5
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Post by deuce on Feb 28, 2018 1:16:05 GMT -5
Scott Connors is one of the foremost Clark Ashton Smith scholars and an all-round fan of Lovecraftian/Mythos fiction. Here's what he had to say about the new movie, Annihilation: "Saw Annihilation today. I didn't read Jeff Vandermeer's novel upon which this was based, because I do not find him or his work all that appealing, but the movie (which I understand deviates considerably from the book) is one of the best cinematic treatments of cosmic horror that I have had the pleasure of watching. Here we see a literal incursion of cosmic outsideness erupting into our world that supplants the natural laws of this world, and does so with great sensitivity. Acting was uniformly excellent, pacing good.
This is a beautiful film, a banquet for sight and sound, as well as a frightening, and moving, one. Mr Vandermeer would undoubtedly hate this description, but this is one of the most Lovecraftian films that I have ever seen (he probably needs a prescription for Zoloft to help him deal with the "anxiety of influence" 😉 ), although it also reminds me strongly of John Carpenter's "The Thing" as well as the novels of John Wyndham, not to mention such Clark Ashton Smith stories as "The Metamorphosis of the World" (although the movie is much better than Smith's story). The film is not getting the distribution it deserves, so by all means seek it out--you will be amply rewarded for your efforts."
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Post by Char-Vell on Feb 28, 2018 7:52:11 GMT -5
That review make Annihilation sound like it's right in my wheelhouse!
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Post by stubbs on Feb 28, 2018 8:17:31 GMT -5
A thought that spun out of a discussion over whether Marvel or Universal Pictures had the first 'shared universe'. With a shared universe being defined as a "set of creative works where more than one writer (or other artist) independently contributes a work that can stand alone but fits into the joint development of the storyline, characters, or world of the overall project" (on Wikipedia at least), is the Cthulhu Mythos the first example? And could Lovecraft, Howard and others be credited with being the inventors of the shared universe? What do you think?
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Post by zarono on Feb 28, 2018 8:40:51 GMT -5
Scott Connors is one of the foremost Clark Ashton Smith scholars and an all-round fan of Lovecraftian/Mythos fiction. Here's what he had to say about the new movie, Annihilation: "Saw Annihilation today. I didn't read Jeff Vandermeer's novel upon which this was based, because I do not find him or his work all that appealing, but the movie (which I understand deviates considerably from the book) is one of the best cinematic treatments of cosmic horror that I have had the pleasure of watching. Here we see a literal incursion of cosmic outsideness erupting into our world that supplants the natural laws of this world, and does so with great sensitivity. Acting was uniformly excellent, pacing good.
This is a beautiful film, a banquet for sight and sound, as well as a frightening, and moving, one. Mr Vandermeer would undoubtedly hate this description, but this is one of the most Lovecraftian films that I have ever seen (he probably needs a prescription for Zoloft to help him deal with the "anxiety of influence" 😉 ), although it also reminds me strongly of John Carpenter's "The Thing" as well as the novels of John Wyndham, not to mention such Clark Ashton Smith stories as "The Metamorphosis of the World" (although the movie is much better than Smith's story). The film is not getting the distribution it deserves, so by all means seek it out--you will be amply rewarded for your efforts."I'll be looking for this one!
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Post by zarono on Feb 28, 2018 9:04:41 GMT -5
A thought that spun out of a discussion over whether Marvel or Universal Pictures had the first 'shared universe'. With a shared universe being defined as a "set of creative works where more than one writer (or other artist) independently contributes a work that can stand alone but fits into the joint development of the storyline, characters, or world of the overall project" (on Wikipedia at least), is the Cthulhu Mythos the first example? And could Lovecraft, Howard and others be credited with being the inventors of the shared universe? What do you think? Probably a strong case for it, the Lovecraft Circle referenced each other purposely and also the work of earlier writers like Robert W. Chambers and Arthur Machen by extension. An earlier example is Chambers using Carcosa in the King in Yellow and Ambrose Bierce having written "An Inhabitant of Carcosa" years before but I don't know if Chambers was purposely referencing Bierce or had picked up the name somewhere else.
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Post by buxom9sorceress on Mar 3, 2018 9:52:31 GMT -5
- - [ titled: the bonecrusher ]
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Post by deuce on Mar 9, 2018 12:12:53 GMT -5
Once again, HPL encouraging the growth of the Mythos: "Glad to hear that “The Warder of Knowledge” is coming along. Certainly—Klarkash-Ton [Clark Ashton Smith] & Two-Gun [REH] & I are delighted to have our imaginary horror-volumes mentioned."
-- H. P. Lovecraft to Richard F. Searight, 31 May 1935
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Post by deuce on Mar 13, 2018 13:08:14 GMT -5
"Interested in writing a tale for my anthology Tales of the Revision Mythos? Such a story would employ (only or most significantly) items from HPL's ghost-written Revision tales, stuff he made up for them and generally did not use in his acknowledged work. F'rinstance: Nug & Yeb, Ghatanothoa, Rhan-Tegoth, Gnoph-keh, Yig, the Ghorl-Nigraal, the Cabot Museum, etc."
-- Robert M. Price
This sounds damned cool. Lots of untapped potential in those tales. They tended to be pulpier than HPL's acknowledged work. As I'm sure many know, RMP is one of the greatest of all Mythos anthologists. You can contact Mr. Price here:criticus [at] mindvendor.com
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Post by buxom9sorceress on Mar 30, 2018 16:38:37 GMT -5
- - We were searching for the vanished Battleship 'Miskatonic Maw'...when this happened!
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Post by thedarkman on Mar 31, 2018 8:07:07 GMT -5
Scott Connors is one of the foremost Clark Ashton Smith scholars and an all-round fan of Lovecraftian/Mythos fiction. Here's what he had to say about the new movie, Annihilation: "Saw Annihilation today. I didn't read Jeff Vandermeer's novel upon which this was based, because I do not find him or his work all that appealing, but the movie (which I understand deviates considerably from the book) is one of the best cinematic treatments of cosmic horror that I have had the pleasure of watching. Here we see a literal incursion of cosmic outsideness erupting into our world that supplants the natural laws of this world, and does so with great sensitivity. Acting was uniformly excellent, pacing good.
This is a beautiful film, a banquet for sight and sound, as well as a frightening, and moving, one. Mr Vandermeer would undoubtedly hate this description, but this is one of the most Lovecraftian films that I have ever seen (he probably needs a prescription for Zoloft to help him deal with the "anxiety of influence" 😉 ), although it also reminds me strongly of John Carpenter's "The Thing" as well as the novels of John Wyndham, not to mention such Clark Ashton Smith stories as "The Metamorphosis of the World" (although the movie is much better than Smith's story). The film is not getting the distribution it deserves, so by all means seek it out--you will be amply rewarded for your efforts."I'll be looking for this one! I very much enjoyed this film until the final 10-15 min where I felt it fizzled and failed, for me at least. Still worth checking out.
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Post by finarvyn on Mar 31, 2018 8:41:49 GMT -5
Casefile: Arkham sounds like an interesting--if not very faithful--takeoff of The Thing On the Doorstep: Love the cover, but finally got around to clicking on the link. Was happy to discover that this is #2 in a series, but then bummed to discover that this is a graphic novel and not a regular novel. I would love a novel that blended Chandler with Lovecraft well. Some have tried, not much success IMO.
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Post by deuce on Apr 3, 2018 10:36:47 GMT -5
This is the exact moment when REH officially dealt himself into the Cthulhu Mythos, though as he admitted to HPL, he'd been working toward more Lovecraftian themes for awhile. This just made it official and the Dark Trinity came into being... "I got a letter from Lovecraft wherein he tells me, much to my chagrin, that Cthulhu, R’lyeh, Yuggoth, YogSothoth, and so on are figments of his own imagination. He says: 'The reason for its echoes in Dr. de Castro’s work is that the latter gentleman is a revision-client of mine — into whose tales I have stuck these glancing references for sheer fun. If any other clients of mine get work placed in W.T., you will perhaps find a still wider spread of the cult of Azathoth, Cthulhu, and the Great Old Ones. The Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred is likewise something which must yet be written in order to possess objective reality. Abdul is a favorite dream-character of mine — indeed, that is what I used to call myself when I was five years old and a transported devotee of Andrew Lang’s version of the Arabian Nights. A few years ago I prepared a mock-erudite synopsis of Abdul’s life, and of the posthumous vicissitudes and translations of his hideous and unmentionable work Al Azif (called — some blighting Greek word — by the Byzantine (something) Theodoras Philetas, who translated it into late Greek in A.D. 900!) — a synopsis which I shall follow in future references to the dark and accursed thing. Long has alluded to the Necronomicon in some things of his — in fact, I think it is rather good fun to have this artificial mythology given an air of versimilitude (?) by aside citation.
Clark Ashton Smith is (something) another mock anthology, revolving around the black, furry toad-god Tsathoggua, whose name had variant forms amongst the Atlanteans, Lemurians, and Hyperboreans who worshipped him after he emerged from inner Earth (whither he came from Outer Space, with Saturn as a stepping stone). I am using Tsathoggua in several tales of my own and of revision-clients’ — although Wright rejected the Smith tale in which he originally appeared. It would be amusing to identify your Kathulos with my Cthulhu — indeed, I may so adopt him in some future black allusion. Incidentally, Long and I often debate about the real folklore basis of Machen’s nightmare witch cults (referring here, I guess to “The Red Hand” and so on). I think they are Machen’s own inventions, for I never heard of them elsewhere; but Long cannot get over the idea that they have an actual source in European myth. Can you give us any light on this? We haven’t the temerity to ask Machen himself.'Naturally I know nothing about it, but I’m going to tell Lovecraft if he’ll give me Machen’s address, I’ll write and ask him about it. I’d like to know myself. And I’m going to ask Lovecraft if I can use his mythology in my own junk, — allusions, you understand."
-- Robert E. Howard to Tevis Clyde Smith, September 1930This letter would culminate in Howard name-checking Tsathoggua in The Children of the Night, which would be the Great Old One's debut in print. ST Joshi has said--and keeps saying--on multiple occasions that Lovecraft was the one who debuted Tsathoggua. He's wrong, as he is wont to be at times, especially when it comes to Robert E. Howard. REH loved the whole idea of Tsathoggua. We see him use Tsa thoggua-spawn like Thog and Thaug in later tales.
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Post by deuce on Apr 6, 2018 12:03:37 GMT -5
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