Comments on: I liked Lovecraft countless primaeval aeons before it was cool

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 07 May 2014 22:04:54 +0000

Which works, specifically, is it hard to get ahold of? Stories published in magazines? Are his any harder than anyone else’s?

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By: Nornagest

Nornagest — Wed, 07 May 2014 20:48:51 +0000

Ligotti’s fun, but damn is it hard to get ahold of some of his work.

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By: Damien

Damien — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 19:38:45 +0000

“The Old Ones are not demons or even evil gods; they are beyond good and evil in a fashion we can’t even comprehend”

Part of the problem with HPL is that asserting such things isn’t the same as convincing the reader. I’d say that “beyond good and evil” is bullshit; if you can comprehend the difference and aren’t good then you’re evil, and if you can’t then you’re *beneath* it, not beyond it.

Speaking very simplistically, because blog comment, but that’s the gist of it: if someone says “I am beyond your primitive morality” the only answer is “no you’re not, you evil f-cker.” (This is different from “your morality is primitive because of X Y and Z, and should be upgraded to W”, which itself may or may not be convincing.)

“Religion, philosophy, morality, even art itself are all ultimately meaningless, merely human creations that have no value or substance beyond what we invest in them”

The other problem with HPL-as-horror is that a lot of moderns are essentially nihilists or existentialists whose response is “yeah, so what?” Vast gulfs of space and time, the random and contingent nature of evolution, the non-existence of morality as a “thing” rather than a human judgement, the fragility of the human mind and brain, are all things I grew up with, literally. I’m not even sure how much HPL himself was horrified by such things, vs. cultivating it for his stories; I’ve heard he was pretty pro-science.

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By: Damien

Damien — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 19:11:54 +0000

“Morgoth was cast into the outer darkness forever instead of given ten years with time off for good behavior”

Well, they tried the latter already. Okay, he was called “Melkor” at the time, but still.

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By: Damien

Damien — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 19:09:30 +0000

The dangers of reading the Necronomicon is overrated. Pretty much any professor of Miskatonic University seemed to have read it. The mind-ripping part was finding out that what it said was *true*.

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By: Pope and Change: An Atheist’s Guide To Vatican Decision 2013 | Slate Star Codex

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 10:10:33 +0000

[…] understand it’s not always an unalloyed good to mock what is holy. But if something makes a claim to holiness, and falls short, and does it in a really funny way, […]

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By: Nomophilos

Nomophilos — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 22:31:46 +0000

The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath is probably my favourite story from Lovecraft, I read it as a teen and liked it a lot – I like fantasy world building that isn’t in the shadow of Tolkien. I liked his other stories but they didn’t mark me as much.

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By: Joshua Fox

Joshua Fox — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 09:27:52 +0000

Interesting fact: H.P. Lovecraft, who disliked immigrants and Jews even more than was acceptable in blue-blood New England circles of the time, married a Jewish immigrant woman, though they separated soon after.

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By: Joshua Fox

Joshua Fox — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 09:25:36 +0000

My visions of Cthulhu were largely inspired, for the first ten years or so that I knew about it, by AD&D Deities and Demigods First Edition.

Actually, I enjoyed Dreamquest but his other books and stories (and I have read quite a few) do not inspire the emotions they are intended to.

Lemony Snicket says: “It’s impossible to read the work of H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) without experiencing a familiar sensation. The throat constricts. The lips purse. A shudder goes through your body, and the hands rise involuntarily to the mouth. But all resistance is futile, and you must succumb — to a profound case of the giggles.”

I don’t agree with Lemony, as I don’t find Lovecraft’s stories funny, though I do find Cthulhu funny and indeed, my cellphone ringtone for a while was my four children reciting “ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn” by heart in perfect unison.

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By: im

im — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 19:36:16 +0000

Well, it *was* futile, of course, but I’d say that says more about people’s ability to find racial overtones in everything compared to the Lord of the Rings.

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