Lots of Lovecraft Society (LOLS)

[Subotan]

Love Lovecraft? Then join LOLS, where likeminded Orgahs can gather and discuss everything from how to pronounce Cthulu, to what colour the Color Out of Space is, through to how much Lovecraft's non-horror fantasy sucks.

[Fragony]

Tie between 'The Thing on the Doorstep' and 'And the color out of Space'

gulp gulp

[Cute Wolf]

What? only me and You Subotan?

[Reverend Joe]

what colour the Color Out of Space is

Green.

[Lemur]

But will this group be squamous and rugose?

[delablake]

The Dunwich Horror
Rats in the Walls
The Colour Out of Space

[Fragony]

Green.

I remember it was purple, anyway what a sick story, nobody can freak you out in the way Lovecraft does.

[Justiciar]

I only just got the "NECRONOMICON: Best Wierd Tales of H. P. Lovecraft" t'other day. I aim to read it once I'm done with Pratchett. Not sure how many of his works are in there, though.

[Mikeus Caesar]

Mountains of Madness. Brilliant book.

Surprised it hasn't been adapted for a big budget film. It has a suitable storyline, all the better if you keep it in the 1930's.

[Subotan]

A lot of his short stories would make excellent one episode BBC adaptions

[Cyclops]

Tie between 'The Thing on the Doorstep' and 'And the color out of Space'

gulp gulp

Mountains of madness/Haunter of the Dark mash-up:

tekeli-lobed burning eye.

But will this group be squamous and rugose?

And have a stench as of a cloven sunfish? Please say it does.

I'm getting emotional boys. I feel like I found...home...

[Fragony]

A lot of his short stories would make excellent one episode BBC adaptions

Kinda surprised it hasn't been done to death. Lovecraft is America's best known writer after all. As far as I know only 'The lurking fear' had a (very lose) movie adaptation. Especially The color from outer space would be great movie-material.

[Cyclops]

Kinda surprised it hasn't been done to death. Lovecraft is America's best known writer after all.

Surely you jest? Poe, Twain, Fitzgerald, Salinger, even Stephen King would be better known. The first and last are more famous horror writers.

...As far as I know only 'The lurking fear' had a (very lose) movie adaptation. Especially The color from outer space would be great movie-material.

I never saw the 1970's "Dunwich Horror" (featuring a tattooed Wilbur) but apparently it stank.There were a handful of (1980s?) films including "Reanimator" (as in Herbert West) and one or two others which I did see and they stank big time. I think some guy got his hands on the film rights and churned out a little line of films with some of the same actors, I think they went straight to video.

The "overdose!" intestinal strangulation and decapitated cunnilingus scenes in Reanimator were memorably bad.

[Meneldil]

There was a movie lately: Shadow over Innsmouth

Too bad it isn't set in the 1920's

[Cyclops]

Didn't see that. Any good? It seems to be the Shadow over Innsmouth.

I hope they include the immortal line "Hey boy, ever hear tell of a Shaggoth (sic)?". Thats a scary scene with the drunk on the foreshore.

[Justiciar]

Read the Herbert West tales last night. Pretty good stuff, even if he did go a little over the top in his description of the black fellow. Right. He's a despicable ape-thing. Got it. And I'm already getting slightly sick of things being indescribable. That aside, 's good reads. Mental images are coming with ease.

Rats in the Walls next.

[Fragony]

Surely you jest? Poe, Twain, Fitzgerald, Salinger, even Stephen King would be better known. The first and last are more famous horror writers.

Ok to Stephen King, but the others aren't that well known really, they ought to be, but they aren't. Everybody has read it, but it's what everybody hates to read in English class.

I still have no idea what the Catcher in the Rye is supposed to be about.

[Cyclops]

....

Rats in the Walls next.

One of the absolute best.

"Sblood thou stinkard, I'll larn ye how to gust! Wouldst thou swinke me thilke this? Magna Mater, Magna Mater Atys!" I sometimes quote little bits to my brother, its a sort of code.

However he uses the N word again, albeit in the name of his cat.

Ok to Stephen King, but the others aren't that well known really, they ought to be, but they aren't...

? AFAIK Lovecraft is pretty unknown here in Oz, people know about Arkham from Miller's Batman etc. Maybe he's better known in the USA and Europe. Definitely less known than the others I mentioned, people look at me blankly if I mention Cthulhu (except this one Lascar sailor...)

... Everybody has read it, but it's what everybody hates to read in English class.

I still have no idea what the Catcher in the Rye is supposed to be about.

I think it was a fashionable bit of pop from the '50s that somehow was made an icon-they must've been light on for geniuses after the war. I think Lovecraft is more in touch with genuine human experience. I mean, who hasn't grown up in an inbred Catskill community where insane wizards breed their daughters to alien gods, producing prodigious and violently dangerous offspring fed on cows blood (if not whole cows) who must be tracked down with powder of Ibn Ghazi and the Voorish sign? F-f-f-father! Yog Sothoth!

[Peasant Phill]

Some time ago I've read 'Call of Cthulu'. I liked it but I doubt it was Lovecraft masterwork. What would you guys recommend I read?

[Cyclops]

Some time ago I've read 'Call of Cthulu'. I liked it but I doubt it was Lovecraft masterwork. What would you guys recommend I read?

Shorter stories: Rats in the Walls and Dreams in the Witch House. To me these are his best horror stories, pretty tight and with nasty punchlines. Plenty more decent ones this length.

Longer Stories (if you didn't like CoCthen these may not suit either) At the mountains of Madness is the big daddy, sort of ties in a lot of the Cthulhu Mythos. .. I guess there's the long one about Joseph Curwen (is it the case of Charles Dexter Ward?). These build and build, but there's a lot of mood creation and less of the "crap! a nameless horror!"

In between size we have the Dunwich horror, Shadow over Innsmouth, those ones. They can be quite good too, I like them for the details about the Miskatonic world.

I liove the fantasy stories, Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath, and its related stories about King Kuranes, the cats of Ulthar and so on, bu they have less horror, and its more stylised...I was tempted to give an example but I won't spoil it for you. Give the Dream Quest a burl, its a lovely bit of Dunsany-like fantasy, pre-Tolkien faery tale stuff. i suppose the Outrsider straddles the fantasy and horror genre.

The silver key stories get a bit out of control, but cross over back into steadier ground as a horror tale.

[Conqueror]

I liove the fantasy stories, Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath, and its related stories about King Kuranes, the cats of Ulthar and so on, bu they have less horror, and its more stylised...

It frequently goes way beyond stylized, getting outright trippy surrealistic. Seriously, you'd think the man was doing opium when he wrote the DQoUK. That's what makes it so awesomely weird though. There's for example this scene where

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

the protagonist escapes from THE MOON by riding on a pack of talking cats, that are able to travel through space by literally leaping from Earth to Moon and back.

[Fragony]

Some time ago I've read 'Call of Cthulu'. I liked it but I doubt it was Lovecraft masterwork. What would you guys recommend I read?

Everything really, I would advice you to only read it when you are in the proper mood.

[Peasant Phill]

Everything really, I would advice you to only read it when you are in the proper mood.

And what mood would that be?

[Shieldmaiden]

Kinda surprised it hasn't been done to death. Lovecraft is America's best known writer after all. As far as I know only 'The lurking fear' had a (very lose) movie adaptation. Especially The color from outer space would be great movie-material.

Rod Sterling's Night Gallery did a few Lovecraft adaptions in the '70's - Cool Air was awesome, but I haven't seen Pickman's Model :(

Mikeus Caesar - Guillermo del Toro is interested in doing an At the Mountains of Madness movie, it is years away though.

My personal favourites are The Colour Out of Space and Pickman's Model.

I just read At the Mountains of Madness and then noticed the thread... woo!

[Cyclops]

DQoUK is very dreamy, full of hints and asides. I love the little side glances and un-followed-up references like the lost Jungle palaces.

I used to imagine the supernal sunset city or the citradel of the Gods atop Kadath lookig like they were designed by Phillipe Druillet. It is pretty psychadelic.

If you liked it you might enjoy some Dunsany, and the illustrations of Sidney Sime.

And what mood would that be?

May I suggest...

...squamous and rugose...

...and possibly non-Euclidian. At the very least eldritch.

...Pickman's Model...

Absolute corker. "Taboggan-ride of reverse evolution".

[Fragony]

And what mood would that be?

Well in the mood for Lovecraft! On a creepy stormy night of course. You could call him a one trick pony, oh no ancients! the horror! ; and have a point. But Lovecraft has the distinct quality to truly freak me out, it's so sick, it just hits a nerve. The horror creeps up on you, you feel uneasy. I really cannot think how the Color from outer Space could be more disgusting, people being drained from life, it doesn't sound like much but it's such a horrible mental image when Lovecraft does it, you won't forget it any soon I promise.

[Subotan]

One thing that bugs me about his work is that he uses the word "Cyclopean" far too much

[Cyclops]

One thing that bugs me about his work is that he uses the word "Cyclopean" far too much

Add to this list: Eldritch, rugose, squamous, non-Euclidian, nameless (in fact he usually ends up supplying a name for his nameless horrors). He likes certian phrases too: eg "rimed with nitre" (as opposed to "a bit white-ish").

Certan authors have a penchant for their favourite terms. E.E. "Doc" Smith gave the term "coruscating"" a real workout.

H.P. had a wide vocabulary as was not afraid to use it: in this he reflects the deliberate quaint archaizing of the late 19th century authors he so admired: its hard not to blame Dunsany for this.

edit-anyway, whats wrong with "Cyclopean"? Ain't you ever met anyone from Cyclopia before?

[Meneldil]

That's it. Now I am annoyed. Eldritch again. I don't know what that word means. It is never used in french, but comes up a lot in video games, books and movies in english, and I simply can't understand the meaning.

I'm very well willing to pretend that I get it for a little while, but it's more than I can take. Eldritch this, eldritch that, eldritch dude. What the hell does that mean? From what I roughly understood, it's related to magic, but that's about it.

[Fragony]

I guess sinister comes close