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.
09 Sunday May 2021
Posted in New books, Scholarly works
The latest Studi Lovecraftiani #19, the Italian Lovecraft studies journal, now available from Dagon Press.
* The volume opens with two essays on Lovecraft and racism/censorship, one by S.T. Joshi.
* A long special “The Cats of Ulthar” section, including “a new complete and annotated translation [to Italian]” of “Ulthar” and related artwork.
* An essay on “Lovecraftian archetypes of ‘the alien invasion'”, though it seems to survey uses of his ideas by later authors.
* A survey of “curious parallels with Dante, present in the story “In the Vault”.”
* What appears to be an account of a personal falling-out or disagreement among Italian Lovecraft scholars?
* A comic by Teodorani and Farinelli.
* An essay on “Lovecraft and witchcraft”, with the author apparently drawing on real letters from a (modern) witch?
* “A Lovecraftian story” by Pietro Rotelli.
* Some reviews and reports.
For those who read Italian, here is a screenshot of the TOC…
08 Saturday May 2021
Posted in Historical context, New books, REH, Scholarly works
A new ebook from Fred Blosser, Exploring the Worlds of REH #3. The survey essay “Home, Hearth, Heroes, and Hauntings: Howard’s Texas Weird Tales” introduces four chapters each discussing one of R.E. Howard’s ‘Weird Texas’ tales. As a Kindle ebook for a very small sum.
Related is the earlier Exploring the Worlds of REH#1: A Study of Two Texas Terror Tales (Dec 2020), which examines “Graveyard Rats” and “Black Wind Blowing”.
Readers of both may also want to have on their Kindle Mark Finn’s “Texas as Character in Robert E. Howard’s Fiction” which is free online.
03 Monday May 2021
Posted in New books, Scholarly works
Donald R. Burleson’s Lovecraft: Disturbing the Universe is set to be a Kindle ebook from 11th May 2021, from the University Press of Kentucky.
27 Tuesday Apr 2021
Posted in Historical context, New books
I’ve found a new source for the colour in “The Colour out of Space”, on which more in my forthcoming review of Lovecraft Annual 2020. In the meanwhile, those fascinated with the histories of colour may be interested in the latest shelf-trembler from Bloomsbury. The mammoth A Cultural History of Color runs to six handsome volumes, and costs £395. Which I think is roughly about $500.
A pity, perhaps, that there wasn’t also a pre-history volume surveying and summarising what we now know about colour in the deep past. Although, admittedly, the emphasis might have been largely on the various shades of ochre and umber.
27 Tuesday Apr 2021
Posted in Lovecraftian arts, New books
H.P. Lovecraft, suddenly popular in Hungary with a string of new pocket-book editions with fine translations.
Here’s a loose summary-translation of the review-article, trying to get some sense out of Google’s goulash of a translation…
… rumour has it that these two H.P. Lovecraft collections are among the most successful in Helikon’s impressively designed pocketbook series. Their success perhaps offers an insight into the current nervous state of the Hungarian people … [One little-remarked] characteristic is that Lovecraft’s work is that it is hardly inseparable from the works of those he felt to be his fellow warriors. One could muse at length on the intricate spread of effects and repercussions among his circle, and at times I feel that this literary program was emphatically, though never declared as such, movement-like. [When one considers his stances and his almost gnostic understanding of the world/cosmos] the tricky question is whether Lovecraft should be considered “reactionary” or just “progressive” from the point of view of the history-of-ideas. [Of course, many mis-read him, but his cult is guarded by] aesthetic priests who are the Jesuits of pop culture: their reputation may be fearsome, but whoever gets to know their views more thoroughly inevitably comes to understand them. For instance the Hungarian Lovecraft Society [is doing fine work nationally … but even they may not fully penetrate the] remarkable “local history” aspect to his reflexively “cosmic” works — perhaps then it is permissible for this zealous but distant deacon, interested in deliberate misreadings, to commit a dark hermeneutics. On Lovecraft’s gravestone not “I Am Providence”, but “I am the Providence.
26 Monday Apr 2021
Posted in New books, REH, Scholarly works
Well, well… an issue of The Dark Man, journal of Robert E. Howard Studies, snuck-out the door at Christmas 2020 (Vol. 11, No. 2). It’s news to me, and perhaps to you. Looking at the TOCs it seems like it’s worth my getting a copy this time around, as all items sound at least interesting. Though at present it’s not yet in ebook.
The Dark Man, Volume 11, Number 2, 102 pages.
Articles:
* “Harsh Sentences: H.P. Lovecraft vs. Ernest Hemingway” by Bobby Derie.
* “A Publication History of The Dark Man” by Luke E. Dodd.
* “Illustrated Auguries: Images Out of Time” by Phil Emery.
* “Deviations from Realism in High and Low Literature” by Jason Ray Carney.
* “Cosmic Horror: Lost in Translation” by Jacob Lindner.
* “A Brief Analysis of the Aesthetic of Weird Tales” by Mara Tharp.
Reviews:
* Book: The Howard Companion, by Richard Toogood. Reviewed by Gary Romeo.
* Book: Fantastic Paintings of Frazetta, by J. David Spurlock. Reviewed by Dierk Gunther.
25 Sunday Apr 2021
Posted in New books
Wormwoodiana blog’s Mark Valentine has a new book of his writings, Sphinxes & Obelisks…
a new volume of essays on rare books and recondite subjects.
Available as a Tartarus Press limited-edition of 300.