Category Archives: New books

Into the Nightlands…

14 Wednesday Jun 2023

Posted by in Lovecraftian arts, New books, Scholarly works

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S.T. Joshi has a new blog post.

A new second volume from Ken Faig Jr. is reported to be in the offing, More Lovecraftian People and Places. Super.

Joshi reports having a great time at the recent Nightlands festival and he’s joined with the organisers…

We are now planning a much larger event in two years’ time, with panel discussions, perhaps an art show, and much else. In all frankness, we will consciously plan this event as an antidote to the increasingly narrow and hyper-political conventions that now dominate the realms of science fiction and fantasy. We shall have freewheeling discussions (without any attempt to censor unpopular views) and avoid political ranting in its entirety. Let’s see what happens!

Sounds good. He also brings news of a new screen documentary on Lovecraft, Lovecraft’s World, will be appear at the Campus Miskatonic festival in France in November 2023. I assume it may be in French? Or maybe not.

Read the whole post, for much more news.

Malign Providence

29 Monday May 2023

Posted by in Lovecraft as character, New books

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News to me, Malign Providence (2022), a new Centipede Press book offering a “collection of stories by Jonathan Thomas”…

sixteen tales that depict a time and place from our recent past that is at once familiar yet distorted through Thomas’ cosmic horror lens. His Providence isn’t just that of Lovecraft’s home, but of his own brand of mythos [and the] creatures of Lovecraft’s most revered work are only present in whispers and rumblings.

Has titles such as “King of Cat Swamp”, although I’m uncertain if Lovecraft himself puts it some sort of appearance. Yet I know that Jonathan Thomas has written at least one story in which (it is said) the shade of Lovecraft rises to revisit modern Providence. Thus this book seems close enough for me to use the “Lovecraft as character” tag for the blog post.

Unfortunately for those wanting a copy, the 500-copy edition has sold out.

Lovecraft: Unknown Kadath – the trade paperback

16 Tuesday May 2023

Posted by in Kittee Tuesday, Lovecraftian arts, New books

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The release of the collected trade paperback for the Lovecraft: Unknown Kadath graphic novel has been put back to 12th July 2023, at least according to Amazon UK. It was supposed to be due out in this week. The eight comic-book series is however complete, and Amazon has them all as a download set. Albeit at £7 more than you’d pay for the collected trade paperback, and without its extras.

The artwork is your usual ‘dynamic comic-book’ sort (think ‘Neal Adams inked by Gene Colan’), but I see that at one point the art drops into a nice homage to Winsor McCay and the surreal Little Nemo — whose run finished the year before Lovecraft wrote Kadath…

FHTAGN in English

06 Saturday May 2023

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The German Lovecraftians report, of their open-source ‘original Lovecraft’ FHTAGN role-playing game, that…

Dean Engelhardt […] has now translated the FHTAGN game world into English, made his own minor adjustments and published it as The Open Cthulhu Mythos SRD (System Reference Document) (2023).

This is now a pay-what-you-want Open Game License book on the DriveThruRPG store.

There is however still scope for a book designer / illustrator to swoop in and help out…

This PDF contains the text of a full set of game statistics describing the creatures, rituals, and artefacts from Lovecraft’s original Cthulhu Mythos. In OGL terms it is a “System Reference Document” (or SRD). [It is not yet] presented in a fully illustrated and typeset form as you would expect from a core RPG rulebook.

Which means…

[It is not an] all-in-one Cthulhu Mythos RPG corebook (which traditionally cover both rules and “world” in the one volume)

As it stand it may thus interest purist Mythos writers as well as gamers, being only about Lovecraft’s creations and with only a core of RPG mechanics currently added.

Forthcoming: Midnight Rambles: H.P. Lovecraft in Gotham

02 Tuesday May 2023

Posted by in Lovecraft as character, New books

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David J. Goodwin’s ‘Lovecraft in New York’ book has a title and a date. According to Amazon UK, Midnight Rambles: H.P. Lovecraft in Gotham will appear in Kindle and hardback on 7th November 2023, and is billed as a 272-page…

chronological micro-biography of Lovecraft’s New York years emphasizing Lovecraft’s exploration of the city environment, the greater metropolitan region, and other locales and how they molded him as a writer and as an individual.

I’ll no doubt be reviewing it when I get a copy, probably in the company of the other 2023-expected book on Lovecraft in Florida.

Also of possible interest, and to be published in the same month, A Lovecraftian Biography of H.P. Lovecraft by Osvaldo Felipe Amorarte. Billed as biography of “Lovecraft’s private life and, using his own writing style and atmosphere” to convey his “relationships, illnesses, disillusions and his own fear of the unknown”. Although it looks like it might be a work assisted by a ChatGTP-type AI re-writer, judging by the descriptions of the author’s previous books.

Still, it’s an interesting idea. Tell of Lovecraft’s life, with factual accuracy, but in a series of linked stories written in his own style. Writing convincingly with Lovecraft’s style and language is easier said than done, of course. But who knows what style-morphing wonders AIs may yet unfold?

Various new books

26 Wednesday Apr 2023

Posted by in New books, Scholarly works

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Newly listed at the Hippocampus website, the forthcoming books Implications of Infinity: Collected Essays by George Sterling and A Splendid Poison: The Letters of Ambrose Bierce and George Sterling. Both edited by S.T. Joshi and David E. Schultz, and at a pre-publication discount via the publisher.

This reminds me that it’s about the time of year when thoughts might be turning to the key Lovecraft journal, The Lovecraft Annual. In terms of potential contributors starting to polish their submissions, ready to send off to S.T. Joshi.

In other forthcoming books, I see that The Spirit of Revision: Lovecraft’s Letters to Zealia Brown Reed Bishop is being newly listed in hardcover on Amazon UK. This will be an “enhanced second edition” from Helios House Press, having previously been available from the HPLHS (and, at a much higher price, from Amazon). The new edition is set for release on 31st May 2023.

Note that these letters are apparently also in the new Letters to Woodburn Harris and Others volume from Hippocampus.

French translation of the letters of Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft

25 Tuesday Apr 2023

Posted by in New books, REH, Scholarly works

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In France, the translator of their new Lovecraft editions is interviewed in interview with La Petit Journal. This is free and in HTML, so can be easily translated. The chat brings news of the next project…

Q: Today, a subscription is launched, until 4th May 2023, for the French translation of the correspondence between Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft. How important is this exchange between the two authors, in terms of a better understand Lovecraft’s work?

A: We see the man at work, and in his exchanges with a friend and fellow author. They talk about literature, publishing, history and politics. It is, in a way, the “behind the scenes” of Lovecraft at work.

Q: What will this new French translation of the letters offer, compared to the original?

A: We have some original documents, but above all we intend to enrich this correspondence with our own critical apparatus. Along with several iconic documents: photos of the authors, of their friends, of the places where they lived, reproductions of their letters, covers of the magazines where they published, etc.

The crowdfunder is at a site I’d not known about, fr.ulule.com, as La correspondance de Robert E. Howard et Howard P. Lovecraft. It’s already been nearly 400%+ funded.

New ebook: Lovecraftian People and Places

09 Sunday Apr 2023

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Hurrah, I see that Ken Faig’s Lovecraftian People and Places (April 2022) now has a Kindle ebook edition, published before Christmas 2022. The table-of-contents is available at Hippocampus. There you’ll also find details of his print books Lovecraftian Voyages (effectively his biography of Lovecraft), his other book of essays The Unknown Lovecraft, and three books presenting the life and work of Lovecraft’s friend Edith Miniter.

New book: Autour de Lovecraft

05 Wednesday Apr 2023

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The final volume of the new French translation from Mnemos has shipped, and by now should be in the hands of those who pre-ordered it. I had been uncertain if it was to be about Lovecraft or Lovecraft’s circle, given the uncertainty of the title’s translation. Turns out it’s not about the Circle.

Book 7 (Autour de Lovecraft) has…

* The Diary of an Impossible Translation by David Camus, which recounts the intellectual and personal adventure that was this major work [of translation] carried out over more than ten years.

* A study on the influences of [on?] Lovecraft.

* The reception of Lovecraft in France and a chronology of his publication in French.

* The difficult genesis of Weird Tales.

* A glossary of the most important Lovecraftian terms and words.

Elsewhere we learn there’s also a Joshi section in the book, in which he addresses the earlier volumes in order…

Studies by S.T. Joshi:

Study of volume 1: The Dreamlands.
Study of Volume 2: The Mountains of Madness and Other Tales of Exploration.
Study of volume 4: The cycle of Providence.
Study of volume 5: Horrific stories – tales of youth – humorous stories.
Study of volume 6: Lovecraft as an essayist and letter writer.

Congratulations to all concerned at Mnemos and elsewhere, on the successful completion of this acclaimed set.

Forthcoming: Lovecraft’s essays in German

02 Sunday Apr 2023

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The German Lovecraftian organisation has issued the March 2023 round-up. Of note are…

* In March 2023, “double-issue 7 & 8 (‘Von Hexen’ und ‘Hexerei’) of the German annual Lovecrafter appeared on DriveThru” as a PDF download. Although both issues seems to be mostly RPG related, judging by the DriveThru table-of-contents.

* “The literature team are currently working on the completion of the planned volume of Lovecraft’s essays in German, and an end is now in sight.”

New books from Hippocampus Press

14 Tuesday Mar 2023

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S.T. Joshi’s new 9th March 2023 blog post notes the arrival of “a sheaf of new publications” from Hippocampus Press. These include Robert Barlow, Eyes of the God in the new expanded edition of nearly 600 pages, and the journal Dead Reckonings No. 32 (Fall/Autumn 2022). Looking at the cover of the latter I see it has a number of interesting items…

Several other new items are mentioned by Joshi in his post, including a new extensively annotated translation of Lovecraft’s “philosophical essays”.

Looking at the “New” page on Hippocampus I see that Darrell Schweitzer has a story collection titled The Children of Chorazin and Other Strange Denizens.