Monthly Archives: January 2015

Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard : Index and Addenda

08 Thursday Jan 2015

Posted by in New books, REH

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Available on Amazon now, The Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard : Index and Addenda, the index to the three-volume 300-copy limited-edition hardback set The Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard. Which appear to be selling out…

Volume One is SOLD OUT; Volumes two and three are still available.

Hopefully there will be a paperback edition in print-on-demand at some point, but the Index‘s author Bobby Derie doesn’t know of any plans for one.

The Temple in Huddersfield

06 Tuesday Jan 2015

Posted by in Lovecraftian arts

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Should you be huddling in Huddersfield, England, this coming Friday…

Friday, January 9, brings something quite different to the Square Chapel audience – an atmospheric evening of horror and fantasy presented by Michael Sabbaton. His one-man show, The Temple, is based on H.P. Lovecraft’s undersea tale of possession and madness and tells the tale of what happens when a strange ivory, carved head comes into the possession of a submarine commander… The show starts at 8pm.”

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter

01 Thursday Jan 2015

Posted by in Lovecraftian arts

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Being widely hailed as one of the PC games of the year (warning: there’s a spoiler in the description at the end of that link), the videogame The Vanishing of Ethan Carter (26th Sept 2014) had until now escaped my attention. A weird murder-mystery adventure story, it appears to have sensibly avoided the use of the “Lovecraft, Lovecraft!! LOVECRAFT!!” marketing buzzword, and instead left that for reviewers to decide. The makers say rather that it is… “Inspired by the weird fiction stories and other tales of macabre of the early 20th century”. Be warned that the game is a short one, four-to-six hours apparently, though game geeks often don’t realise how fast they can buzz through games. Those less familiar with PC gaming and its numerous fiddly conventions may take a good few hours longer than that to play. Especially those flummoxed by a non-combat first-person detective puzzler story-game, which is said to offer little hand-holding in terms of game mechanics. As compensation for the relatively short length, it’s a walk-anywhere 3d ‘open world’ in a Vermont / New England -like autumnal landscape named Red Creek Valley…

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“while not strictly a Lovecraft game [it] is one of the best examples of these themes for a long time” — Bleeding Cool.

“Somewhere in-between H.P. Lovecraft and Gone Home” — IGN.

“There’s a wonderful Lovecraftian pay-off for your toiling in the darkness [in one section of the game]” — Eurogamer.

[As with Lovecraft…] “most of that horror is derived from an eerie sense of dread created through [the slow revealing of] the presence of the alien and the weird in an otherwise familiar environment.” — PopMatters.

Stories and Visions for a Better Future

01 Thursday Jan 2015

Posted by in Unnamable

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Want some antidotes to Lovecraftian pessimism and cosmic doom, for the gloomy start to the New Year? Neal Stephenson’s Project Hieroglyph aims to counteract the descent of science-fiction writing into butt-clenching angst, dreary visions of the gloom-pocalypse, and general middle-aged grumpiness. Hieroglyph’s main dose of practical optimism is their acclaimed new SF story anthology Hieroglyph: Stories and Visions for a Better Future (paperback and audio-book). Probably best read in combination with Matt Ridley’s excellent non-fiction The Rational Optimist (there’s a good potted version of the book as a free audio lecture and a more recent follow-on lecture). Also the more USA-oriented mass-market primer Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think.

New Year’s Eve Trivia Quiz: the answers

01 Thursday Jan 2015

Posted by in Odd scratchings

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Fiendish Lovecraftian New Year’s Eve Trivia Quiz: the answers…

1. What was the name of the talented Lovecraft correspondent who went on to write Green Lantern comic book stories in the 1940s?

   A: Henry Kuttner, who took over writing Green Lantern when Alfred Bester departed DC Comics. Kuttner was credited as “Lewis Padgett” by DC (somewhat similar to Lovecraft’s own pseudonyms Lewis Theobald and Henry Paget-Lowe, though there is evidence to suggest the similarity was a co-incidence).

2. What was the name of the long-lived street cat Lovecraft often met, when he walked into the centre of Providence?

   A: “Old Man”. “I first knew him as a youngish cat in 1906” wrote Lovecraft. His Commonplace Book of story ideas recorded an unused 1928 story germ featuring Old Man: “153. Black cat on hill near dark gulf of ancient inn yard. Mew hoarsely — invites artist to nighted mysteries beyond. Finally dies at advanced age. Haunts dreams of artist — lures him to follow — strange outcome (never wakes up? or makes bizarre discovery of an elder world outside 3-dimensioned space?)”.

3. What was Lovecraft’s membership-card number for the UAPA?

   A: 1945c.

4. In 1935 Lovecraft and Barlow designed faux letterhead stationery, for which fictional Lovecraft character?

   A: Randolph Carter.

5. Lovecraft once received in the mail a copy of the Fourty-Sixth Anniversary edition of the journal “The Lovecrafter” (1936). When did this journal start its run?

   A: 1936, as that was the only issue, it being a 46th birthday present to Lovecraft from Shepherd and Wollheim.

6. The convivial Kappa Alpha Tau society, for which Lovecraft composed poetry and song, regularly met together at which prestigious venue in Providence?

   A: A large shed roof in or near the garden of The Arsdale (formerly the Paxton) at 53 Waterman Street, a retirement home that backed onto 66 College St. Lovecraft often “borrowed” some of the many cats that sunned themselves on this shed roof, and named them the Kappa Alpha Tau (KAT), a humourous allusion to an adjacent Brown University fraternity house.