Ideology and Scientific Thought – in English

28 Thursday Jan 2021

Posted by in New books, Scholarly works

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Late last year Tentaclii noticed the new book Ideology and Scientific Thought in H.P. Lovecraft. In my initial post I said the book was in Spanish, relying on the Spanish publisher’s page for the book and its use of…

“Idioma: Castellano” (language: Spanish)

But, according to a blog comment made here and labelled as coming from the book’s author Juan L. Perez-de-Luque, the book is actually in English. This appears to be confirmed by the free TOCs and sample pages in PDF. Presumably the publisher’s assistant did not have either this PDF sample or the book itself to hand, to double-check the matter, when setting up the sales page.

Neither Amazon UK or Amazon Spain give details of what language the book is in. I see the book is significantly cheaper from the Spanish Amazon, where it lists at the publisher list-price of 15 Euro, compared to UK price-gouger listings of £27 and £37. It’s not being sold on eBay, at present.

Fiction magazine (France, 1953-1971?)

27 Wednesday Jan 2021

Posted by in Lovecraftian arts, Odd scratchings

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Newly on Archive.org, and possibly a rare treat for readers of French, a 1966 selection of not-Lovecraft translated tales from Weird Tales.

This is No. 10 and this book-a-zine began to do quite a trade in French translations of the best sci-fi and fantasy tales from America and Britain. It also carried reviews, and what appear to be occasional survey-essays.

Archive.org has early issues, with No. 2 (above) being 1960. Though No. 1 is said to have been back in 1953. After 1960 it became quite regular and the latest I can find at Archive.org is No. 211 in 1971. Over 200 issues in a decade is very impressive. Did it survive into the age of colour TVs?

Sadly the covers are missing from scans, on almost all of the run. A pity as some were Lovecraftian artists later to work on Metal Hurlant, such as Druillet.

‘I gatti di Ulthar e altri racconti da H.P. Lovecraft’

26 Tuesday Jan 2021

Posted by in Kittee Tuesday, Lovecraftian arts

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Italian newspaper Il Giornale has a review of the new Lovecraft comics anthology, noticed here before Christmas.

The stories selected by Congedo and Montano all predate the Cthulhu Cycle. There are no cosmic gods screaming from the centre of the universe, no scary, sprawling creatures emerge from the bottom of bubbling abysses. “The Terrible Old Man”, “The Cats of Ulthar”, “The Outsider” and “The Hound” are by comparison (almost) stories of everyday life. And it is precisely this frightening simplicity that help keeps the reader gripped until the last panel. The comic’s colors are acid, the strokes are pulp. … “The Outsider” becomes a sort of literary confession that drops the reader into a labyrinthine abyss and makes him touch the ultimate meaning of feelings such as loneliness and isolation of the truly ‘different’ person. And it is here that Lovecraft literally comes face-to-face with one of the themes dearest to him: the devastating density of the feeling that one is completely ‘out of this world’.

A fine new front-cover is now available, which wasn’t to be had before.

The Book of Iod

25 Monday Jan 2021

Posted by in Odd scratchings

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Nocturnal Revelries extracts Henry Kuttner’s The Book of Iod: The Eater of Souls and other Tales from the vaults and gives it a new review. This was one of Robert M. Price’s usefully affordable ‘cycle’ collections, made for wide distribution by RPG company Chaosium in the mid 1990s.

Not Derlethian formula and not… “hugely original, but they are least varied” […] “Some of the stories are so shamelessly Lovecraftian that they almost read like rewritten versions of Lovecraft’s work. “The Black Kiss” comes directly from “The Shadow over Innsmouth”. “The Salem Horror” is “The Dreams in the Witch House”. “Hydra”, “The Secret of Krallitz” and a few of the other tales also felt remarkably familiar. Still though, Kuttner was about 21 when he was writing these tales, and after he wrote them, he’d send them to Lovecraft in the post. […] Kuttner stopped writing Lovecraftian horror a few years after Lovecraft died, but he continued to write for another 20 years or so. I know Ray Bradbury thought very highly of his writing.

With a little contrast adjustment, an eBay listing supplies the complete TOCs…

Sax fiend

23 Saturday Jan 2021

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New on Archive.org, a scan of The Armchair Detective, Spring 1980. Including a short but engaging personal account of all the shoe-leather and touring of obscure bookstores needed to find Sax Rohmer (Fu-Manchu etc) books in the 1960s and 70s.

Here in the UK Rohmer does not enter the public domain until 2029. But American buyers can get budget-priced Tantor (aka Trantor) audiobook readings of the first three Fu-Manchu books.

Walls of R’lyeh: A Tribute to Howard Phillips Lovecraft

23 Saturday Jan 2021

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Walls of R’lyeh: A Tribute to Howard Phillips Lovecraft. A multi-band compilation album from Gates of Hypnos, a Russian curator released via a Polish label, and dated December 2020.

Difficult to find out more, but described in passing by one sonic observer as in the ‘rasp ambient and noise’ sub-genre (who knew?). Here that serves to power soundscapes which evoke some of Lovecraft’s famous landscapes. There are samples to listen to, which on hearing are actually rather more approachable than the daunting sub-genre tag might suggest. Although the final track does evokes the Plateau of Leng via a constant wall of warbling static, seemingly without even any fleeting vocals.

In like ambient vein, and rather more listenable, is a recent ambient concept album by Air. They released a Music for Museum album a few years back as a limited-edition vinyl gatefold album, which is probably why I missed it. It’s somewhat similar in concept to Eno’s famous Music for Airports, but evoking wandering through a big museum. The four best tracks are on YouTube, where they effectively form an E.P. version…

Reverse Bubble.

The Dream of Yi.

Integration Desintegration.

Octogum.

‘Picture Postals’ from Lovecraft: 17th November 1931

22 Friday Jan 2021

Posted by in Historical context, Night in Providence, Picture postals

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Currently up for sale at Abebooks, a lesser Lovecraft postcard. Judging by the 10.30pm postmark, it was likely written on the evening of 17th November 1931, and then posted with others after a night stroll. Assuming he was at home at Barnes Street, this raises the interesting question of exactly where the nearest pick-up mailbox (with a late 10.30pm collection) was and how far he would have to walk from his home?

On the card “HPL” writes a brief note…

He congratulates Coates on the recent edition of Driftwind, and the frontispiece of the frequent little magazine which shows what sounds like a view of Montpelier, Vermont. Lovecraft seems to imply rapid change may be happening there and that the picture may have changed? This is not the view in question, if wide view it was, but it is perhaps indicative…

Lovecraft was at that moment very interested in how small isolated towns might change and perhaps for the worse. On his desk lay the pages that would become the famous story “The Shadow Over Innsmouth”, set to be complete two weeks later on about 1st/2nd December 1931. This concern fitted well with the mood of the times, as the third winter of the Great Depression began to grip the nation.

On the card Lovecraft then supposes that Paul Cook, fellow amateur and leading collector of weird books, will be visiting Coates at Thanksgiving 1931. Thus implying that Lovecraft has not had any letter recently from either to confirm this point. Lovecraft alludes to his own usual winter hermitage with the final line… “If it were mid-July I’d surely [join?, enjoy?] him!” and thus assumes that Coates is well aware of his aversion to cold… and to a Vermont winter in particular.

The front of the card is not show or described at Abe. But it was published by the Berger Bros. of Providence, suggesting a view of Providence. Indeed it was… a quick search found the front on the seller’s own store as a good scan, and it shows the new Industrial Trust Building at night.

The November issue of Driftwind was 44 pages including a “Check List of Publications of Driftwind Press”, including H.P. Lovecraft’s The Materialist Today, later to become one of the rarest of Lovecraft’s publications. Issues of Driftwind earlier in the year had been the first to publish sonnets from the Fungi From Yuggoth cycle, and more would follow.