HPLinks #36.
* A new Radio France podcast on Lovecraft, celebrating his publication in the highly prestigious Plaiades book series.
* A new article on “La influencia de Lovecraft en la ciencia ficcion por R.R. Lopez”. (‘The influence of Lovecraft on the science fiction of R.R. Lopez’). Freely available online. In HTML, so easily auto-translated.
* S.T. Joshi’s blog has updated again. He notes he did a new podcast interview, now on YouTube. Also, that Lovecraft’s “The Cats of Ulthar” is now translated into Hebrew and published, which sounds good. I presume it wasn’t translated before?
* New on YouTube, “The Space-Eaters” by Lovecraft’s good friend and fellow writer Frank Belknap Long. Presented as a 75-minute audiobook, with a suitable reader. Adverts, if you just press ‘play’ and view as a video. But no adverts, if you download it with Mediahuman YouTube to MP3 or similar freeware.
* Movie-industry trade paper Deadline reports “‘Herbert West: Reanimator’ Movie Remake In Works”. Sadly, it only hopes to be a “contemporary reimagining” of Lovecraft’s shocker serial, rather than a period piece. But it sounds like it has both talent and ‘cancel-culture resistant’ finance and it’ll happen…
… production and finance shingle [i.e. independent wholly-owned movie-financing outfit] Woodlake Entertainment is fully financing the project. Multi-Emmy-nominated artist- and producer Jeffrey Lewis and Keith Previte will produce for Woodlake, with the Lovecraft adaptation the first in series of elevated genre pics the company plans to develop and finance.
* In the Norwegian folklore journal Folkminner, “Ett groteskt och gigantiskt fettberg – om uppkomsten av monster i London”, on the latest real-life variant of a ‘London sewer-monster’. In Norwegian, but easily translated from an HTML page. Freely available online.
* Wormwoodania gets “‘Steeped in Antiquity and Fantasy’: Some Esoteric Seventies Music”. Specifically, of the British earth-mysteries / gothic / fantasy sort, digging out highly obscure bands which were issuing music from the late 60s / early 70s… “Fantastic literature pervades the ideas and images of many of the bands.”
* Nothing of note in the latest monthly update from the German Lovecraftians, but I see elsewhere that Gou Tanabe’s graphic-novel of Lovecraft’s “The Cats of Ulthar” is making its appearance in a 224-page German translation soon, as Die Katzen von Ulthar along with other tales from the Dreamlands. Set for a 1st July 2025 release.
* The sumptuous new Illustrator’s Quarterly #45 book-a-zine reportedly includes… “a Gallery of Doc Savage artists: pulp illustrator Baumhofer, James Bama, Ken Barr, Bob Larkin, Boris Vallejo, and Alex Ross.”
* A book title that’s new to me, on the history of the pulp-and-paperback industry — Pulp Fiction and the Rise of the Australian Paperback (2024). Appears to be a well-researched academic book.
* The Politically Incorrect Guides series has just published the Politically Incorrect Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy. 216 pages (reported as “243 pages” in Kindle ebook format). I’m not sure how deep it goes, given what are likely to be fairly short-and-sharp chapters. I think I’d want to see an author index before I shell out £15, and there’s no index to be had via Google Books.
* My regular Tolkien Gleanings reaches posting #300. The latest Tolkien links, with a strong emphasis on noting the latest scholarship and insightful fan blog-posts. No blather about movies, TV, fan-awards or cos-play events.
* And finally, be sure to make the Elder Sign and pass by, if you encounter the new ‘Arkham House Publishers’ outfit at arkhamhousepublishers.com. Apparently hailing from Sauk City, but unconnected to Derleth or his estate. Not only will this vanity press ‘publish’ any book you pay to have published, but they can also have their AI-fuelled shoggoths-on-typewriters write it for you. I’m not against AI assistants, you understand, but using the press name seems rather underhand and could mislead both writers and book-buyers.
— End-quotes —
“By 1899 my poetical outbursts had become quite numerous, one collection [at age eleven] being still in my mother’s possession. It is a book made of cheap pad paper, bound with pins, & is entitled “Poemata Minora”. It contains an ode to the moon, regrets on the passing away of the pagan religion, musings on the downfall of Rome, & such like things!” — Lovecraft to Kleiner, November 1916.
“The visible world is my circus and prompt-book, but I don’t take it very seriously and don’t give much of a damn what becomes of it. To me the most important thing — and the most primarily interesting thing — is opportunity to think and dream and express myself as I please.” … “As for a book of my stuff — I don’t think it’s worth bothering very energetically about.” — Lovecraft to Moe, and Lovecraft to Derleth, both March 1923.