Anyone read any?

I've had a limited exposure (gee, that seems to be a running theme). I've read some poppy stuff by Dean Koontz. I've read some Stephen King (mostly the non-horror stories though, but I did like Shining). Last thing involving horror I read was a collection of Lovecract stories. I particularly liked "The Dunwich Horror." Nothing like having a redneck get impregnated by Evil, and birthing twins (one who is normal and Evil, and the other who is misshapen and Evil) who seek Evil In Book Form.

Oh yea, I just remembered, that I was required to read some Poe during the earlier schooling years, but who wasn't?

So really, any recommendations for good "creepy and kooky" books?

-Thierry

I've mostly read King, though I read some stories set in White Wolf's various game settings that weren't too bad.

Rice's Interview with a Vampire is a nice read.

For some reason I can tolerate dopey sci-fi and fantasy much more than dopey horror. I just haven't read too much horror.

Hey Thierry,
For horror I'd recommend sticking with the Lovecraft a while longer. If you liked Dunwich Horror (great synopsis btw), track down The Colour out of Space, The Rats in the Walls, The Innsmouth Horror, At the Mountains of Madness and The Thing on the Doorstep.

Horror is difficult to make effective, which is why most of it stinks. I personally don't recommend Anne Rice much, unless gothic romance is your thing. Brian Lumly is popular, but I haven't gotten into that stuff yet. King's Salem's Lot is probably his best, or at least my favorite. House on Haunted Hill (the BOOK) is great.

Of course you can't go wrong with Dracula.

Andrew

Take the plunge and get right into Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath. It's kind of a mix of fantasy and horror, but it's one of my favorite Lovecraft stories. The Innsmouth Horror is pretty damn good, too. I love Lovecraft. You know--in a strictly platonic sense.

=)


-Ben

Actually, Clive Barker does some pretty effective horror writing, too, although like Dreamquest, a lot of it might be more accurately classified as "dark fantasy."

Check out Weaveworld--the best thing Barker has ever written. Also, the Great and Secret Show ain't half bad.

Yeah Ben,
But Unknown Kadath almost requires a lot of reading before you start it. It becomes a lot more meanful if you "do" Beyond the Wall of Sleep, The Yigs of Fane, The Statement of Randolf Carter, The Cats of Ulthar and maybe The Doom that Came to Sarnath first.

(Psst... which of the above did I make up? ;>)

Thierry, the Dreamlands Lovecraft stuff are all collected in a great volume from Del Rey called The Dream Cycle of HP Lovecraft. The intro is by Neil Gaiman and, if you've read some of his fiction like Neverwhere and a couple of the Sandman issues, then I'd wager you'll like the Lovecraft stuff.

I'm not as fond of Barker to be honest, though the Hellbound Heart and the Books of Blood are worthwhile.

Ben, I suppose this means I won't be reviewing that Call of Cthulhu action game... will I? ;-)

Howard Phillips Bubcraft

Well, I've never heard of the Yigs of Fane, so I'm guessing that one.

And yeah, Dreamquest might read better after you read the rest of his "dream cycle" stories, but I don't think the order is really critical. I mean, you could as easily argue that all the related stories read better after you've read Dreamquest.

Re: The Cthulhu game: dream on, Mr. Bub. =)

-Ben "they call me the Crawling Chaos" Nyarlothotep

Also, I'm not fond of all of Barker's books, but if you haven't read Weaveworld, at least give it a chance. I've read it about three times, and I've liked it better with every repeat reading.

-Ben

Yigs of Fane sounds more like Dr. Seuss than Lovecraft. I can't imagine any self-respecting Lovecraft fan not being able to figure that one out!

-Tom

Actually there is a Yig, though--he's one of the Old Ones (the story was "the Curse of Yig," I believe).

-Ben

I'm sorry, but The Curse of Yig sounds like a parody of Lovecraft. I'm supposed to be frightened of a monster named Yig? What, he makes us laugh ourselves to death?

"At last we have read the arcane spells in the Necromicon and summoned the Eldar One."

"You mean he's arrived from the depths?"

"You betcha. The Yig is up."

Ben wins a prize.
Tom is obviously a self-respecting Lovecraft fan who probably just read Ben's message.

As Ben pointed out, he's a serpent god ("Old One") from South America.

Mark, you might be right. The Curse of Yig, (and also The Mound) which are where the name appears were later Lovecraft. That was during his "tweak the readers and mess with Robert Bloch" phase. Yes, the Robert Bloch who wrote Psycho.

Now,
Can any "self-respecting Lovecraft fan" tell me in which story does HP kill his friend Robert Blake (Bloch)?

Truly Tom, it was Dr. Seuss' Mythos work that is the most sanity blasting.

I will not eat them with a goat (a black goat of the woods with a thousand young! AI!), I will not eat them in a boat. etc.,

Now, to tie all this into another message thread... I also heartily recommend John Tynes Lovecraft inspired fiction. Tynes wrote that cool Wizards of the Coast article Asher linked and runs a small press called Pagan Publishing.

Now, to bed with me. The piping grows ever louder...

-Andrew

I'm only 3/4 of the way through it, but House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski is both original and creepy. And long. It's sort of a cross between Lovecraft and David Foster Wallace. Here's the description on Amazon.com:

"Had The Blair Witch Project been a book instead of a film, and had it been written by, say, Nabokov at his most playful, revised by Stephen King at his most cerebral, and typeset by the futurist editors of Blast at their most avant-garde, the result might have been something like House of Leaves. Mark Z. Danielewski's first novel has a lot going on: notably the discovery of a pseudoacademic monograph called The Navidson Record, written by a blind man named Zampan�, about a nonexistent documentary film--which itself is about a photojournalist who finds a house that has supernatural, surreal qualities. (The inner dimensions, for example, are measurably larger than the outer ones.) In addition to this Russian-doll layering of narrators, Danielewski packs in poems, scientific lists, collages, Polaroids, appendices of fake correspondence and "various quotes," single lines of prose placed any which way on the page, crossed-out passages, and so on."

It's not *nearly* as impenetrable and unmanly as that makes it sound, though. It's pretty straightforward considering all the American McGee's cockeyed typesetting.

Bub:

---

Quote:

The Rats in the Walls

---

Pickman's Model. Yeah, that was a great story.

A dictionary can help, although not always--Lovecraft couldn't always find words horrible enough to describe his monstrosities, so he sometimes just made up new words.

And Bub--no making fun of Shub-Niggurath. He's listening, you know... ;)


-Ben

"A dictionary can help, although not always--Lovecraft couldn't always find words horrible enough to describe his monstrosities, so he sometimes just made up new words."

He also frequently used the word "cyclopian" as a description of, well, everything!

And Bernie, The Crypt is my favorite horror story ever. Probably because it was my first and, at the time, I was really into the Twilight Zone.

--Andrew
PS: The answer to the Robert Bloch/Blake question is Lovecraft's The Haunter of the Dark.

Yeah, he was really a master of adjectives, that Lovecraft.

There's a nifty little Lovecratian story by Michael Chabon in this week's New Yorker. That is all.

Lovecraftian

Michael Chabon does Lovecraft? Or did you mean Lovecroatian? Is this a Serious Sam thing?
That should be interesting.

Maybe Bruce will send me his copy. I find the New Yorker to be a creepy magazine....

"There's a nifty little Lovecratian story by Michael Chabon in this week's New Yorker. That is all."

You still read? I thought you were on a diet of 100% TV? Whatever it was, I'm sure it can't compare to this week's episode of Friends.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com