Edward Hopper, “Night Shadows” (1921). New York.
Night Shadows
04 Thursday Aug 2011
Posted in Lovecraftian arts
Author Archives: asdjfdlkf
On Monsters
03 Wednesday Aug 2011
Posted in Historical context, New books
Due in October and now available for Amazon pre-order in the UK (only), the paperback of Stephen T. Asma’s On Monsters: An Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears (Oxford University Press). Ironically the hardback can had new, right now from third-parties on Amazon UK, and for just about the same price with shipping as the paperback will sell for when it eventually comes out in the UK. And it can currently be picked up for about $11 on Amazon USA. No sign of a Kindle edition for the UK, yet — which is rather ironic since that’s where Oxford University Press is based. If they have held off from a Kindle edition in the UK for fear of eating into paperback sales, then they just don’t understand their buyers. Anyway, On Monsters looks like an excellent book and has had good reviews. It apparently has very little to say about Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, etc, which is encouraging. Although it does also look at human monsters such as psychopaths and authoritarian ideologues, so it’s not all supernatural monsters. The Telegraph‘s review is here.
Kingsport, City in the Mists (2nd edition)
03 Wednesday Aug 2011
Posted in New books
Thanks to W.H. Pugmire for alerting me to the fact that there was a second enlarged edition of Kingsport, City in the Mists (1991, 2003)…
I just realised that there is an updated edition of Chaosium’s Kingsport, City in the Mists, that I don’t have! How I ache for it! Just beginning work on my new Kingsport story, hopefully soon to be a novelette.
It’s a gaming book, but an excellent one that’s much more of a guide/encyclopaedia for Kingsport — packed with details and maps about Kingsport, and as such it’s incredibly useful for writers. I used it when making my “The Monoliths under the Sea”. The 1991 and 2003 editions now sell for silly used prices on Amazon and eBay. I looked on the Chaosium website, but it’s unavailable there. It just seems incredible that publishers can let a desireable book like this go out-of-print, in the age of print-on-demand and eReaders, when they (and the authors) could be getting income from it.
Lord of a Visible World
02 Tuesday Aug 2011
Posted in Scholarly works
One can quite see why university presses are lapsing into bankruptcy or closure, or merger with the university library, when they fail to take advantage of print-on-demand for the back catalogue. I mean, for example, why has Ohio University Press let the Lovecraft autobiography Lord of a Visible World: An Autobiography in Letters go out-of-print, when it could be passed over to a print-on-demand house? Or placed on the Amazon Kindle store, for that matter.
Stealing Cthulhu – new book
02 Tuesday Aug 2011
Posted in New books
A new book, due out in about a week or so’s time, that seems like it might be useful for writers-seeking-ideas as well as gamers — Stealing Cthulhu…
Stealing Cthulhu is my guide to Lovecraftian storytelling for roleplaying games. Its central idea is: by stealing, adapting and combining Lovecraft’s ideas, you can create scenarios that seem new and horrific. […] The book is 175 pages and 30,000 words long (6″ x 9″), with original art by Jennifer Rodgers. It is annotated throughout by Kenneth Hite, Gareth Hanrahan and Jason Morningstar. […] The first part of the book breaks down Lovecraft’s stories, giving you ideas and storytelling structures to use in scenarios. The second part goes through a selection of Mythos creatures […]
It’s a limited-edition hardback, apparently. $35 in the USA, inc. shipping. Not sure what the shipping is to the UK, but there’s apparently going to be a PDF download edition. PayPal is accepted. It looks rather nice, even if (like me) you can’t see the attraction of RPG gaming unless it has a 3D virtual world wrapped around it.
Lovecraft’s fiction in a single PDF
02 Tuesday Aug 2011
Posted in New books
Cthulhu Chick has just released her recent excellent Kindle comporiblation of the Complete Stories of Lovecraft as an 8Mb PDF file. Useful for having on your desktop to do a quick keyword or phrase search of the entirety of the fiction.
Lovecraft on the Web Directory now more navigable
02 Tuesday Aug 2011
Posted in Housekeeping
Made the Lovecraft on the Web Directory more usable, by adding a top sections-index that allows you to jump down to the section you want.
Banning bots
02 Tuesday Aug 2011
Posted in Odd scratchings
The curse of the Web… dumb software bots trying to do the thinking for dumb users, and consistently getting it wrong. Browsers have a “no track” tick-box now, so how about a “no dumb bots” option as the next step?
Lovecraft’s catnip
01 Monday Aug 2011
Posted in Odd scratchings
Lovecraft’s secret for attracting the kitties on his many walks… “I always have a supply of catnip on hand” (from a letter by Lovecraft, given on p.54 of Fritz Leiber and H.P. Lovecraft: Writers of the Dark, Wildside Press, 2005).
‘When cats smell catnip they exhibit several behaviors common to queens in season (females in heat): They may rub their heads and body on the herb or jump, roll around, vocalize and salivate. This response lasts for about 10 minutes, after which the cat becomes temporarily immune to catnip’s effects for roughly 30 minutes. […] Response to catnip is hereditary; [only] about 70 to 80 percent of cats exhibit this behavior in the plant’s presence. […] Catnip is considered to be nonaddictive and completely harmless to cats.’ — Scientific American, 10th June 2009.
Cartographic octopii
01 Monday Aug 2011
Posted in Historical context, Lovecraftian arts, Maps
Frank Jacobs surveys the cartographic land octopus…
I suspect it’s those tentacles that explain why the octopus became cartography’s favourite land monster. They turn the CLO into a perfect emblem of evil spreading across a map: its ugly head is the centre of a malevolent intelligence, which is manipulating its obscene appendages to bring death and destruction to its surroundings. This is perfect for demonstrating the geographic reach of an enemy state’s destructive potential. […] The migration of the Kraken to land, somewhere around 1870, can be seen as an escalation, symbolising the hardening of international attitudes.
“It stalks the wild Moore…”
01 Monday Aug 2011
Posted in New books
Out now, an authorised biography of Alan Moore.
Lovecraft in Historical Context, volume 2 – now out in paperback
31 Sunday Jul 2011
Posted in Historical context, New books, Scholarly works, Summer School
Now available as a paperback, for those who prefer to read in print rather than from a screen — my new book Lovecraft in Historical Context: further essays and notes. PayPal accepted.
CONTENTS: Story – “The Quest to Azathoth” (new 5,000 word short story). Essays and Historical Notes – 1. The Typewriter of H.P. Lovecraft; 2. Some Notes on the Origins of Lovecraft’s “The Colour Out of Space”; 3. Appendix: Quabbin and “The Colour Out of Space”; 4. Lovecraft, Houdini, and Egypt in Fantastic Literature; 5. What Does Danforth See At The End of Mountains?; 6. A Fainting Spell: Lovecraft and fainting; 7. Looking into Lovecraft’s Toilet; 8. Loveman as a Source for “Hypnos”. 9. The Mystery of “J.N.”; 10. A Note on the Pickwick Club Disaster; 11. On The Real Mammoth Cave and “The Beast in the Cave”; 12. The Winds of Insanity; 13. The Cats of H.P. Lovecraft; 14. Cats and the Fantastical (a bibliography); 15. A Note on the Elder Signs; 16. Secrecy and Secretions; 17. Postcards from the High House; 18. Two Postcards from the Providence Public Library; 19. An Alternate Ending: a fiction.
Illustrated with my own cover artwork. 31,000 words. 134 pages. July 2011. Perfect-bound paperback with colour covers. Buy it here.
Also available: the first volume of Lovecraft in Historical Content (2010) in paperback