Even more Open Lovecraft

Additions to the Open Lovecraft page…

* Thomas B. Whitbread (2005), “Samuel Loveman: poet of Eros and Thanatos”, The Fossil, Vol.101, No.4, July 2005.

* Kwzia L’Engle de Figueiredo Heye (2003), “Weird fiction and the unholy glee of H.P. Lovecraft”. (Masters disseration for the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil, online from July 2012. In English. Asks if the concept of weird fiction can be classified simply as a sub-genre of horror, or if it constitutes a genre of its own).

* Bobbi Sinha-Morey (2007), “Fungi: the Poetry of H.P. Lovecraft”, Calenture, Vol.2, No.2, January 2007. (The H.P. Lovecraft special issue).

* Phillip A. Ellis (2007), “The Construction of Race in the Early Poetry of H.P. Lovecraft”, Calenture, Vol.2, No.2, January 2007. (The H.P. Lovecraft special issue).

* Anon. (2008), The Fungi from Yuggoth: a Concordance”, Calenture, Vol.3, No.3, May 2008.

* Frank Coffmann (2006), “H.P. Lovecraft and the Fungi from Yuggoth Sonnets (part one)”, Calenture, Vol.2, No.1, September 2006.

* Pino Lasone (2007), “Asenath and Leucothea: female figures from the sea of literary fiction”, Calenture, Vol.2, No.3, May 2007.

* Af Simon Hesselager Johansen (2011), “Tilstedevaeren ved Vanviddets Bjerge: Martin Heidegger, H.P. Lovecraft og mellemkrigstidens elitære konservatisme”, Tanken: studieblad for filosfi, No.4, 2011 (Short article in Danish, title translates as something like “On the Folly of Climbing Mountains: Martin Heidegger, H.P. Lovecraft and interwar elitist conservatism).

* James L. Aevermann (2009), “The Destruction of the Hero: an examination of the hero’s purpose in Lovecraft’s works”, IN: Huppert (Ed.), Where Fear Lurks: Perspectives on Fear, Horror and Terror, Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2009.

More Open Lovecraft

Added to the Open Lovecraft page…

* Ben Woodard (2010), “Thinking Against Nature: nature, ideation, and realism between Lovecraft and Schelling”, Speculations journal, No.1, pp.47-65.

* The journal Antartes: prospettive antimoderne, No.00, 2011. (Special Lovecraft issue, in Italian only).

* Cecile Cristofari (2012), “Le temps du reve lovecraftien, ou l’elaboration d’un temps du mythe”, e-lla, May 2012. (In French. In the online journal of the University of Provence, France. Title translates as: “The dreamtime Lovecraft, or a development from the times of myth”. Essay tests the application of the Australian Aboriginal idea of ‘the dreamtime’ to key Lovecraft stories).

* Tomi Vatanen (2010), “Tuntemattomiem Kaahujen Tutkijat: maailmankuva H.P. Lovecraftin novelleissa” (Title translates as “The Unknown Terrors of Researchers: the worldview of H.P. Lovecraft’s stories”. In Finnish. Appears to be a Masters dissertation from Finland).

Cthulhu mythos as a literary movement

A thesis, newly deposited online:

Rodolfo Munoz Casado (2000), Los mitos de Cthulhu como movimiento literario, Ph.D. thesis. Madrid, deposited online 2012. In Spanish.

“analyses the so-called Cthulhu Mythos as a true literary movement […] the Cthulhu Mythos fiction has a fundamental unity and a prominence within a literary genre, and it is not commercial work to be considered as lower in quality or importance.”

Ratcliffe

An amusing little bit of additional evidence, re: my recent essay that uncovers a key source for “The Rats in the Walls”. ‘Viscount Ratcliff’ was one of the titles belonging to Dilston, and Ratcliffe was the family name of James Ratcliffe, Earl of Derwentwater…

— from William Berr’s Encyclopaedia heraldica or complete dictionary of heraldry, Volume 2 (1828)

— from Stephen Whatley’s England’s Gazetteer (1751)

— from Thomas Rose’s Westmorland, Cumberland, Durham, and Northumberland (1832)

There is also a tantalising note from Notes and Queries of 1914, perhaps relevant to the idea of some long-absent descendant coming to claim Exham Priory, but I am unable to get more…

“the following extracts from The Times and contemporary journals:— ” Great excitement was caused at Hexham and the western parts of Northumberland on Tuesday by a lady who claims to be a descendant of Ratcliffe … The lady first appeared upon the scene … in 1865, and a year or so later took possession of Dilston more or … to be a descendant of Ratcliffe, the last Earl of Derwentwater, taking possession of Dilston Castle, about three miles from Hexham, and claiming all the estates once belonging to that unfortunate [Earl]”

Clockwork Empires (PC game)

I have fond memories of a few of the best of the isometric-view strategy videogames, and once greatly enjoyed Sid Meier’s Civilisation II and later his Railroads and others. Also Titan Quest [review], although that was more Diablo-like. So the new PC Gamer magazine’s pre-release coverage of the moddable PC game Clockwork Empires sounds very interesting. Especially as it’s apparently a…

“Lovecraft-laden steampunk city-builder” [in which the player is a Civilisation-style] colony-builder amid the grand idealism of Victorian discovery [but] with horrors, madness, wild species, and volatile science.”

Sounds awesome, but sadly it’s all very much “under development”. It looks like we’ll have to wait until around Sept/Oct 2013 before we can play it.