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.

FormCritic wrote:Which HPL mythos story is it in which the protagonist dies writing, "The three-lobed gleaming eye!" ?

The church that HPL based his story on is gone, but the church tower remained...at least as recently as two years ago.  I saw it online.

The Haunter of the Dark, though I think the eye is "burning" instead of "gleaming".  It also has a connection to Robert Bloch -- it's a quasi-sequel to one of his stories and followed by another Bloch story, or something like that. I don't remember either of the other story names though.

The house from the story about the vampiric mold (The Shunned House, perhaps?) still exists as well.  I recall seeing photos of it a year or two ago.

Who dies writing, "The three-lobed burning eye?"  


It's like dying while carving "Auuuugh!" on a stone. ("Perhaps he was dictating!")

I think that The Haunter of the Dark and The Whisperer in Darkness are both pretty good stories.  They seem like they could happen to real people.  And, the old church building and the remote house are places we can all identify with.

The same website that had pictures of the remains of Lovecraft's church tower also had pictures of the boarding house where he was staying at the time he wrote The Haunter of the Dark.  (I believe it was in Providence.)  The character who dies in that story was clearly based on Lovecraft himself.  His character lived in the same room as HPL.  Lovecraft made references to, and killed off, fantasy versions of Clark Ashton Smith and Robert Bloch in his stories (for instance, the wizard "Klarkash Ton").  They returned the favor.

I wonder what Lovecraft, who was interested in astronomy, would have said about Yuggoth/Pluto getting kicked out of the planet club.  Surely, some of the recent discoveries about space, planets, super-giant black holes, etc would have inspired him.  You can imagine what a term like "dark matter" would have done for Lovecraft!

HPL's influence is all over pop culture.  Some of the most interesting and ominous Star Trek episodes, for instance, were heavily Lovecraftian.   That's no surprise, seeing as some of the episodes were written by people like Robert Bloch.

It is interesting how far ahead of his time Lovecraft really was.  His work anticipates the atomic bomb, innumberable scientific advances and the distopic world of the second half of the 20th century (...although those of you born in the 1980's will have missed much of all that...it's hard to explain to those who missed it that the Cold War really happened).

In other ways, Lovecraft was such a part of his own era.  The terrorist threats and religous madmen of the early 21st century would have fit nicely with Lovecraft's racial ideas.  Osama Bin Laden and his compatriots exactly fit HPL's stereotypes of mongrel races infected with madness seeping up from R'lyeh.  World War II was the direct result of the racial theories embraced by so many people like Lovecraft.  I wonder what he would have thought or written about the Holocaust.  

(Again, it is hard to explain to someone born at the end of the 20th century that many people...perhaps even a majority...once held racial and evolutionary views that would be considered repugnant today.  We think we know better now.)

FormCritic wrote:Who dies writing, "The three-lobed burning eye?"  


It's like dying while carving "Auuuugh!" on a stone. ("Perhaps he was dictating!")

The funniest of all is the dying WRITTEN message of the poor guy that gets it at the end of Frank Belknap Long's "Hounds of Tindalos".  I don't have the story handy, but inside the guy's study is found a piece of paper with his last words, written as the Hounds appear to kill him, and it's something like "They are coming! The smoke clears!  I see ther horrible tongues! They are going to kill me!  Ahhhhhh..."  I don't know about you, but instead of writing the "ahhhh", I might have given RUNNING LIKE A MADMAN a try instead....

Mike B.

FormCritic wrote:It is interesting how far ahead of his time Lovecraft really was.  His work anticipates the atomic bomb, innumberable scientific advances and the distopic world of the second half of the 20th century (...although those of you born in the 1980's will have missed much of all that...it's hard to explain to those who missed it that the Cold War really happened).

In other ways, Lovecraft was such a part of his own era.  The terrorist threats and religous madmen of the early 21st century would have fit nicely with Lovecraft's racial ideas.  Osama Bin Laden and his compatriots exactly fit HPL's stereotypes of mongrel races infected with madness seeping up from R'lyeh.  World War II was the direct result of the racial theories embraced by so many people like Lovecraft.  I wonder what he would have thought or written about the Holocaust.  

He had a keen understanding of relativity theory and was obviously up-to-speed on the emerging field of quantum mechanics up until his death.  I always found this astonishing, given the fact that it wasn't exactly the information age.  But then again, Providence was (and is) a major university city, so I guess it's not surprising that he'd been exposed to these topics.

He was part of his era, but I also seem to remember a bio (either by Lovecraft himself, but more likely by someone like Joshi) that described HPL changing his political and societal beliefs late in his life.  

Am I correct in remembering that his positions on certain issues (like racial issues, big government, etc) changed considerably in the mid-1930s?

Keith

Badmike wrote:
The protagonist in Haunter of the Dark, Robert Blake, is based on Bloch.  Likewise, Bloch kills of a Lovecraft-like character in The Shambler From the Stars (by a Star Vampire, no less).  

The REH collection referenced above is Cthulhu: The Mythos and Kindred Horrors.  I have a copy in my Ebay bookstore if anyone is interested! Plus a lot of Lovecraft I haven't yet listed; let me know if you are interested and I can sell you a collection or two.

Badmike3Books (ebay name)

Mike B.

That's the one called Blake?  It's been a long time...maybe 20+ years.

FormCritic wrote:
Well, Keith.  I'm impressed that you own the volumes of letters.  Those are always out of my price range!

I always fantasize about finding a copy of The Dark Man and Others on a shelf at Goodwill or St. Vincent De Paul.  But...the rise of the internet and Ebay means that fewer and fewer sellers are unaware of the value of what they're selling.

The copies of Selected Letters that I own I  found at a used/rare bookstore in Birmingham (AL) back in the early 90s.  At the time, the owner had a good feel for the going rates for classics, modernism and the like, but he didn't seem to bother with any kind of genre literature (he was a nice guy but a literary snob).  

So, what I do own came about as sheer luck that this guy had a lot of HPL for sale for what amounted to peanuts.

Keith