18 Wednesday Aug 2021
Posted in Lovecraftian arts, New books
The English edition of Francois Baranger’s oversized artbook At the Mountains of Madness Vol. 2 is set to ship in the UK on 26th October 2021. Lavish, cinema-scale painted pictures, full of fine detail. Vol. 1 is already available from HPLHS Store among others.
17 Tuesday Aug 2021
Posted in Lovecraftian arts, New books
S.T. Joshi’s blog has updated. He notes the release of the new paperback edition of…
Ramsey Campbell’s second essay collection, Ramsey Campbell, Certainly [has] a substantial section of essays on Lovecraft, including a fairly recent piece, “Lovecraft Analysed” (2013), that is one of the most perspicacious pieces on Lovecraft written of late.
He also anticipates seeing the new two-hour Lovecraft documentary Exegesis: Lovecraft at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival (the one set for Portland at the start of October 2021).
09 Monday Aug 2021
Posted in New books, Scholarly works
Neale Monks has a new review of Robert H. Waugh’s The Monster In The Mirror: Looking For H.P. Lovecraft (2006) in the latest SF Crowsnest…
Waugh argues that Lovecraft was strongly coloured by the Baptist religion of his family and Waugh provides numerous examples of how this religious background comes through in his writing. For example, the sheer variety of Old Testament names given to the characters of his novels, such as Asenath and Zadok, can’t simply be ascribed to chance. At the very least, they demonstrate Lovecraft’s knowledge of scripture. Then there are the incidents in Lovecraft’s stories which seem to have Biblical parallels. ‘The Dunwich Horror’, for example, includes not just events, a virgin birth, but also entire sections of dialogue apparently inspired by scripture.
At The Dark Man today there’s also another book review, of Robert Weinberg’s The Weird Tales Story: Expanded and Enhanced (2021). I had the original of this pegged as an early fannish history, light on business history, and would probably have got hold of it when The Thing’s Incredible! The Secret Origins of Weird Tales finally comes down in price (or becomes an affordable ebook).
But now The Weird Tales Story has been substantially expanded, and seemingly has a lot more to say about both R.E. Howard and editor Farnsworth Wright…
the book also exudes an almost hagiographic devotion to Farnworth Wright’s tenure as editor.
Right, sounds good to me.
28 Wednesday Jul 2021
Posted in New books, Scholarly works
Now listed at Hippocampus, the revised and augmented book Out of the Immortal Night: Selected Works of Samuel Loveman. The word “augmented” seems a bit of an understatement, as this second edition of the book has grown from 244 to 514 pages. Also new is Born under Saturn: The Letters of Samuel Loveman and Clark Ashton Smith…
The correspondence begins in 1913 [then extends] sporadically all the way down to 1941.
18 Sunday Jul 2021
Posted in New books, REH, Scholarly works
Now available to order, The Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard, Volume 1, the first of three planned volumes. This the collectable hardback. Due soon is a more affordable and perpetually in-print paperback edition with new cover-art.
While you’re waiting for a mighty-thewed delivery-man proffering your Vol. 1, this week DMR has a long consideration of the ‘decadent’ and ‘gothic’ traces to be seen in Howard’s “Spear and Fang”.
14 Monday Jun 2021
Posted in New books, Podcasts etc.
The journal Wormwoodiana No. 36 will ship shortly, and now has a table-of-contents. The same post has news that an estate-approved biography of acclaimed British supernatural/weird writer Robert Aickman is…
essentially finished, and we now need to explore the best way of seeing it published
Aickman was also a key leader in the post-war restoration of the extensive but neglected British system of inland canals. The restoration was a magnificent success, and now offers a vast network for off-road walking and cycling in leafy surroundings. The system also supports a thriving narrowboat hire industry, especially in the Midlands, bringing affluent tourists and their cash to all sorts of out-of-the-way rural places. Lovecraft the-conservationist-and-walker would be been very pleased that his beloved British Isles had seen such a remarkable and suitable transformation, and that it had been led by a weird author whom he would have deeply admired.
Portrait of Robert Aickman by Ida Kar, National Portrait Gallery. Here newly shadow-lifted and colourised. The painted step and can on the shelf above are traditional painted British canal-ware.
If you can’t wait for the biography, there are said to be two published auto-biographical books, The Attempted Rescue (1966) and the posthumous The River Runs Uphill: A Story of Success and Failure (1986). But how much they have to say about the writer rather than the conservationist, I don’t know.
For those who want a quicker overview and a clear focus on the weird writing, the recent 30-minute audio documentary / appreciation “The Unsettled Dust: The Strange Stories of Robert Aickman” (2017) is available at Archive.org.
Incidentally, perhaps some Aickman specialist can tell me this: what exactly was his connection with the English West Midlands? Certain small certain factors I’ve casually noticed in the past suggest he had some sort of connection with the Wolverhampton -to- Burton-on-Trent arc of Staffordshire, just above Birmingham on the map.
13 Sunday Jun 2021
Posted in Lovecraftian arts, New books
You’re likely to need a tongue like an eel, to do justice to reading aloud Lovecraft’s poetry translated into Swedish. But it’s good to know such a book exists.
Kosmofobi : Dikter om varldar bortom was new from Aleph Bokforlag in 2020, with 176 pages and 10 illustrations…
The book collects all the author’s surviving horror and fantasy poems. These are published in the original side-by-side with Swedish interpretations in free verse. There is also an essay by the prominent Lovecraft expert Robert M. Price, written especially for this Swedish edition.
Also from the same publisher, Jens Heimdahl’s illustrated “Dream Quest”, Soekandet efter det droemda Kadath (2020, 2nd edition). According to the publisher…
Something of an art book, solidly illustrated by Jens Heimdahl, who also has a section on the author and analyzes the story.
They’ve saddled it with a cover with poor ‘shovelware’ typography, but here are some samples of the art…
31 Monday May 2021
Posted in New books, Scholarly works
The new book of Lovecraft’s letters, Letters to E. Hoffmann Price and Richard F. Searight, is now showing up on Amazon UK. Albeit currently with the notice “Usually dispatched within 1 to 3 weeks”.
“Ancillary material includes Price’s distinctive recipe for Indian curry.” Yum.
30 Sunday May 2021
Posted in Lovecraft as character, Lovecraftian arts, New books
New to me, Kadath, or, The dream quest of Randolph Carter from Sloth Comics of London, 2014. Creator Charles Cutting is an illustrator from Oxford, in the UK. I like the style, and it’s probably even better on paper. There’s lots of it too, with over 100 pages of detailed art.
The first quarter of the adaptation was a webcomic originally on The Illustrated Ape website, then the first issue appeared in 2012 — but a crowd-funder for the rest of the issues is said to have failed. Congratulations to Cutting for getting the book finished and published regardless, especially in the context of the difficult UK scene. One review lamented that…
work of this calibre seems to slip ‘under the radar’ in the comics community
It certainly slipped under my radar, and yet Lovecraft + comics is on the radar for me. But then it’s always been a problem finding out about entertaining completed-story graphic novels for over-18 readers, unless they’re mass-market superhero fare or the sort of angsty politically-correct wrist-slashers that the reviewers flock to.
Anyway, get Kadath for £11.99 (about $17 U.S.) as a new paperback via Sloth (appears to be still in print, delivered by Amazon) and help support Charles with royalties. Or get it used on Amazon for (currently) a little less inc. postage.
27 Thursday May 2021
Posted in Lovecraftian arts, New books, Scholarly works
A new essay-book from Carlos Gomez Gurpegui of Seville, Spain, examining H.P. Lovecraft et le jeu video (H.P. Lovecraft and the video game). Available now from Ynnis Editions, and marked “2021”. It appears to be in Spanish. (Update: I’m told it can also be had in a French edition).
26 Wednesday May 2021
Posted in New books, Scholarly works
S.T. Joshi’s blog has updated with news of his 350th(!) book. He is currently working on his The Recognition of H. P. Lovecraft book and also the forthcoming Lovecraft Annual #15. Also news that “Ken Faig Jr.’s Lovecraftian People and Places” is due soon from Hippocampus.
10 Monday May 2021
Posted in New books, REH, Scholarly works
A new (to me) issue of Zothique: Rivista di Cultura Fantastica e Weird, from Dagon Press. This is No. 7 (Summer 2021), and an R.E. Howard special. Here are the contents translated…
The World of Robert E. Howard, by Giuseppe Lippi.
“Autobiography” by Robert E. Howard.
“A Confession” by Robert E. Howard.
“An Analysis of the Howardian Vampire”, by Wade Wellman.
“The Song of Vampires” by Robert E. Howard.
“A Dream” by Robert E. Howard.
THE LETTERS OF ROBERT E. HOWARD.
“The day I met Robert E. Howard”, by E. Hoffmann Price.
“Wolfsdung” [Wolfshead?] by Robert E. Howard.
“The Tower of the Elephant: a Lovecraftian tale”, by Robert M. Price.
“The Appearance on the Moor”, by R.E. Howard.
“The Shadow of the Condemned”, by R.E. Howard.
“Almuric, the wild and mysterious planet”, by Giovanni Valenzanol.
“Steve Harrison: iron fist against degradation in River Street”, by Matteo Mancini.
THREE STORIES OF SCIENCE FICTION by Robert E. Howard:
The Gondarlano. [?]
The Supreme Moment.
The Land of Ashish.
“The romantic roots of the poetry of Robert E. Howard”, by Mariano D’Anza.
“A portrait of the marauder Cormac Mac Art”, by Michele Tetro.
“Lo latromante” [?], by Andrea Guido Silvi.
Also new to me, Zothique #6 (spring 2021) which was a Gustav Meyrink / The Golem special.
Previously on Tentaclii: Zothique #2 and Zothique #3 – #5.