Category Archives: Lovecraftian arts

Basil Copper (1924-2013)

22 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by in Lovecraftian arts, New books

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The Guardian newspaper has an obituary on the death of Basil Copper, the British author of the Lovecraftian mythos novel The Great White Space (1974) and much else. This novel seems regarded by some as a favorite of early Derleth-era mythos fiction and which was republished a few weeks ago as an official budget-price Kindle ebook (warning: plot spoilers early in the blurb) from Valencourt Books. If you can find them, key recent books on Basil Copper are: the bio-bibliography Basil Copper: a life in books (2008) published as a 300-copy limited edition; and a fine two-volume collection Darkness, Mist & Shadow: the collected macabre tales of Basil Copper (2010) which is now out-of-print.

The Young Man of Providence (BBC, 1983)

16 Thursday May 2013

Posted by in Lovecraftian arts, Podcasts etc.

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The Young Man of Providence is a 43-minute BBC Radio dramatised documentary on Lovecraft, dug up from Halloween 1983 and online as an mp3. It’s a mix of narrated documentary and his letters, with occasional fragments from the stories read by old-school actors and mixed with excellent FX. The best Lovecraft documentary, I’d say, although not perfect. I wonder if it might be worked up into an unofficial fan-film documentary? It could be carefully expanded into a feature-length movie by inserting new narration-free sections (contemplative Ken Burns-style pans across archival materials / evocative landscapes / old haunts / Jarman-esque dream-montages) to slacken the galloping pace that the format of a 40-minute radio programme necessarily enforced on the producers.

Lovecraft Photo of Painting
Above: Lovecraft at 10 Barnes St. (1926-1933) by Cortney Skinner.

Digital Cthulhu does your bidding…

15 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by in 3D, Lovecraftian arts

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Need Cthulhu to do your bidding? No need to mess around with The Neconomicon and star-charts. The excellent Cthulhu Rising 3D model is currently 40% off, at $20.97. It’s a 3D digital model that you can pose and light and render (i.e. make a picture of) using the free DAZ Studio 3D software. Images made with him are royalty-free.

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There’s also a range of other Lovecraftian monsters available, and even a 3D Lovecraft himself.

Mass Effect 3 and Lovecraft

14 Tuesday May 2013

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Bill Coberly has a long and interesting essay on “The Call of Leviathan: Mass Effect and Lovecraft” at The Ontological Geek. Warning: big plot spoilers for Mass Effect 3, and the Mass Effect 3 DLC “Leviathan”.

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I bailed out of the Mass Effect trilogy at the end of the excellent first PC game, put off by press reports that the second game would do that “so 2009, dude…” thing of making the game experience dark and gloomy and depressing. I don’t remember the first game as being Lovecraftian, other than perhaps the cosmic levels of boredom induced by its bad DLC episodes. But with its sumptuous SF settings and excellent reviews, cosmic sweep and official God Mode, and the “Call of Cthulhu”-like DLC episode “Leviathan”, I might give Mass Effect 3 a try at some point this year.