Other speculative fiction writers from the Golden Era who I've always enjoyed include Frederick Brown and Avram Davidson.

Brown is just too funny for words, and Davidson's stuff is definitely a diamond in the rough.

jasonw1239 wrote:
The best of his mythos based stories is the Arkham House book Horror at Oakdeen, but I believe that has been out of print for a number of years now.

I've seen it once or twice at a bookstore in Birmingham that specializes in OOP books.

Here's a link to an online shop that has it for sale for $125:
http://www.biblio.com/books/24119150.html

Keith the Thief wrote:
My advice regarding Lovecraft is to read his stuff slowly.  His prose is dense.  It's not "beach reading".  

Character development was not Lovecraft's strong suit, but his mythology, for me, greatly outweighs any drawbacks in characterization.

Those stories are a great place to start.  Do you happen to know which "best of" anthology it is (i.e., who's the editor?).

If you like those, I strongly encourage you get the Arkham House anthologies edited by S.T. Joshi and read those.  It's a four volume set, and, IMHO, contain the stories in the order in which they should be read.

Enjoy.

Keith

I first read Lovecraft slowly, over a number of years, starting when I was (maybe) in the 6th grade.

The first story I read was The Dunwich Horror.  It impressed me both with the frightening proposition of an invisible behemoth, but also with the sense that there are things close-but-not-visible that our feeble human minds would rather not know about...enormous presences, looming over our shoulders, that we have always sensed, but do not want to see.

I became a Lovecraft fan when I was in college and I read Lin Carter's biography, Lovecraft; A Look Behind the Cthulhu Mythos.

I accordingly set out to collect every publication on Lin Carter's list of Cthulhu mythos stories in the appendixes of that book.  (It was still possible in those days...when 1950's-70's editions of the classic paperbacks were still on used bookstore shelves...as opposed to the current glut of fantasy re-hash novels apparently written by, for and about lesbian tree-huggers).  I had nearly entirely succeeded when the game Call of Cthulhu appeared and made Cthulhu a pop star.

Lovecraft's genius was not in his writing skills or in his brilliant story-telling.  Most of his stories run a fairly typical route:

1)  Find book/learn secret
2)  Discover the awful truth
3)  Write about it in a journal...preferably one that starts by warning everyone not to read it.
4)  Go mad/run screaming/die/disappear - or all of them at once.

Where Lovecraft was brilliant was in achieving his major goal...to invoke in the reader a sense of cosmic horror (an over-used phrase today, but new when Lovecraft started)...a sense that creation and everything in it is not really the way we think it is...and that mankind does not know everything and by God doesn't want to know everything.

His writings are a wonderful relic of the first half of the 20th century...when science had begun to make lives better and less bearable at the same time.  Science had begun to create monsters as well as miracles...which was the theme of almost every horror and science fiction movie of the century.  Essentially, every sci-fi/horror genre film of the era owes something to Lovecraft...which is why virtually every writer in the twin genres has written some sort of Lovecraft homage story.  Very few writers can claim to have had so much influence...possibly only Tolkien and Howard.

(Judging by the commercials I see on TV, we are no longer so much afraid of science.  We apparently have gone back to being afraid of witches and the restless dead.  Also, we have the wierd new theme that vampires are sexy and everyone needs an erotic experience with a blood-bloated walking corpse.  It strikes me that we have more to fear from science...and possibly from whatever makes sex with the leering dead attractive to so many people.)

Most recently, I have been interested in reading the works of the author who most influenced Lovecraft.  One could argue that the entire inspiration for all of Lovecraft's work can be found in two poems by Edgar Alan Poe:  Dream-Land and The City in the Sea.  Toss in Robert Chambers and Ambrose Bierce and you pretty well have the soil where Lovecraft's ideas took root.

Mark  

Lovecraft was not any more or less racist than a lot of people in his era.

Ever read a Tarzan story?

Mark  

Keith the Thief wrote:Have you read Shadows Bend by David Barbour and Richard Raleigh?

According to the cover, the main characters are Lovecraft and R.E. Howard on cross-country quest.  It sounds pretty good, but I haven't gotten around to reading it yet.

Another good collection is Shadows over Baker Street by Michael Reaves and John Pelan.  It's a series of Holmes/Watson stories where they encounter Lovecraft's mythos.  I found it quite good, especially the story by Neil Gaiman.

Keith

Shadows Bend is absolutely abominable. Throwing aside the fact that nothing happens, and nothing makes sense, and more time is spent on a completely silly and useless secondary character that seems to be a Mary-Sue for the author, the characterization of REH and HP seems forced and silly.  Now, the idea is quite interesting and I would love to read a story like this that made sense, but skip this one.....

Mike B.

Badmike wrote:
Shadows Bend is absolutely abominable. Throwing aside the fact that nothing happens, and nothing makes sense, and more time is spent on a completely silly and useless secondary character that seems to be a Mary-Sue for the author, the characterization of REH and HP seems forced and silly.  Now, the idea is quite interesting and I would love to read a story like this that made sense, but skip this one.....

Mike B.

Bummer.  I was hoping it would be a good account of HPL's and REH's personalities, but that is quite obviously not the case.  Thanks for the tip.

It would be accurate to call Howard's stories "Lovecraftian."  First, he wrote a number of stories in that genre.  Second, he continually incorporated Lovecraft's ideas in his other stories.  They corresponded...and HPL was clearly a large influence on REH.

I have a paperback of REH's mythos tales.  I don't recall the title, but it is not all that uncommon.

There was also a collection printed originally by Arkham House called (I believe) The Dark Man and Others.  It is sometimes available in paperback.  (Don't try to buy the Arkham House original...$$$$$)

Or, maybe it was just The Dark Man.

The stories are relatively easy to collect as part of other anthologies as well.

If you locate and acquire Lin Carter's, Lovecraft: A Look Behind the Cthulhu Mythos you will find an index of all the mythos stories that existed at the time of that book's publication (the book is not a bad read either).  Carter lists all of the REH stories that he considers a part of the mythos.

Since Carter's book, Lovecraft has come back into prominence...particularly among our own sub-culture.  When I first read the book I was the only one I knew who had even read a mythos story or knew what it was...outside of the section in the  Gods and Demi-Gods hardback.  There have been many, many more additions to the mythos since then.

I would not describe REH's Lovecraftian stories as his best writing.  They are interesting...and they do give perspective on the influences that shaped his Conan stories.  A couple of them are just plain bad.  REH was deliberately imitating Lovecraft...and he reads more like an imitation of Robert Jordan imitating L. Sprague DeCamp imitating August Derleth imitating Lovecraft.  Still, a couple of the stories have merit.

Part of the charm of REH is that he sometimes does Lovecraft with sort of an Indiana Jones vibe...cosmic horror and shooting crafty Arabs with six guns.

For those who wish to really learn Lovecraftian lore, check out Powell Books in Portland, Oregon (reachable online as well...one of the first local bookstores to go online, in fact).  Powell's has a pretty good Lovecraft collection on its shelves...including volumes of Lovecraft's letters.   Lovecraftian lore is pricey, but you could check it out online to see if there is anything that interests you.

If you happen to be in Portland, Oregon, you should not miss a visit to Powell's...on Burnside, downtown.  It is a new/used bookstore of the gods...a multi-story city block of literary goodness....they actually give you a map to help you find your way around the place!  (You realy can get lost there!)  My best friend and I travel to Portland once a year to go there together.

Powell's also has pretty good sections for REH and Michael Moorcock.  

(Now, if I could just go back in time and snap up that ratty Powell's copy of Midnight Sun , by Karl Edward Wagner, for $10 I could sleep better at night!)

Mark

Keith the Thief wrote:
That's part of the Del Rey series of Lovecraft books, and works well as a starting point.

Of all the non-Arkham House publishers, I prefer the newer Penguin series, but it's not like the stories are any different among the various editions, just the order and supplementary material from the editors.

I'm a little envious.  I would love to be just now starting on Lovecraft.

Going back to this earlier post: I've heard rumours of a 4th Joshi-edited Penguin compilation of HPL's work that's in the pipeline.  Anyone heard anything about it?

(I've personally been replacing my previous collections with the Penguin ones.  For starters, they don't duplicate stories between volumes -- I have three Del Rey HPL collections, and all of them have at least one story found in one of the other volumes.)

And, switching topics: anyone had a chance to check out the new Night Shade Books collections of Clark Ashton Smith?  (I think the second volume is out now, but I may be wrong.)  I'd like to expand beyond my old Ballantine Adult Fantasy paperbacks, but not certain if these volumes are worth the money.