After a chilly May, a pleasant English summer is finally a’ coming in, and the verdant greenwood once again embraces Tentaclii Towers. Down in the moat, small fluffy goslings occasionally vanish into the savage jaws of a lurking pike. Curiously iridescent insects emerge from their wintering holes. Servants at the Towers become irritatingly frisky.<\/p>\n
One especially frisky servant has been my PC. So frisky that the old fellow keeled over and died, sadly. But I’m pleased to say I lost no books or other recent work. I should probably now be mercenary and start a ‘new PC for Dave’ crowd-funder. But I doubt it would get anywhere near the \u00a31,200 ($1,700) needed for a reasonably future-proof PC. So in the meantime I’ve fallen back on an old cupboard-hauled PC and have ordered a \u00a370 SSD drive to give it a speed boost. That’s where your kind Patreon donations have gone this month, rather than on a book or two.<\/p>\n
Volume two of Lovecraft’s Letters to Family<\/em> and several other Letters<\/em> books still await my reading, as (when not PC-wrangling) I’ve been immersed in reading and taking notes on Tolkien: maker of Middle-earth<\/em> and The Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien<\/em>. These have been waiting for over a year to be properly read, and I’d now dug out the magnifying glass needed — the fonts are often infinitesimally small and especially on the vital footnotes for Worlds<\/em>. <\/p>\n In June there may well be a long review of the last Lovecraft Annual<\/em> here, as I now only have the long final ‘zombies’ essay to get past (I have no interest in zombies, the ‘monster for the unimaginative’) and then the reviews to read and make notes on.<\/p>\n New books discovered and noted on Tentaclii<\/em> in May included: H.P. Lovecraft et le jeu video<\/em> in Spanish and French; and The Werewolf In The Ancient World<\/em>. Found via S.T. Joshi’s blog were the short books Lovecraft, l\u2019Arabe, l\u2019horreur<\/em> and Lovecraft: sous le signe du chat<\/em>, and I did a little more digging to discover what these were about. Also noted here were the journals St. Austin Review<\/em> and Modern Age<\/em>, re: their current willingness to carry articles about suitably interesting fantasy writers. In paid ‘Lovecraft & circle’ journals I noted the releases of the Italian Studi Lovecraftiani<\/em> #19, and Zothique<\/em> #6 & #7 — #7 being an R.E. Howard special issue. My “Fairytales” issue of the free Digital Art Live<\/em> magazine also appeared this month. <\/p>\n My regular ‘Picture Postals’ posts looked at Lovecraft and: the appeal of Georgian doorways; the neo-gothic Radiator Co. building in New York City; and his favourite non-weird artist Nicholas Roerich. A long post for a Patreon patron surveyed “HPL at the movies”. Also posted was a newly enlarged and colourised picture of 169 Clinton St. in 1935. <\/p>\n In freebies at Archive.org, I spotted the worthy three-volume Dictionary Of Mythology, Folklore And Symbols<\/em> (1962). This is newly available in downloadable PDF. Also free over at SFFaudio is a haul of tales determined to be newly ‘public domain’. I plucked the items of most interest from their list, and noted five from Frank Belknap Long. I added more links to free scholarly work at my Open Lovecraft page.<\/p>\n In bargain-spotting, I noted that the volume of Lovecraft-Barlow letters are available again in paperback and now at a very reasonable price. Presumably Florida University Press have wised up to print-on-demand, or else has produced a new print-run. The Barlow letters are now a good affordable ‘starter’ for those considering dipping a toe into the Lovecraft letters.<\/p>\n In comics and graphics novels I found several old ‘Lovecraft as character’ items, both new to me. These were Charles Cutting’s major graphic novel Kadath, or, The dream quest of Randolph Carter<\/em>; and Alex CF’s one-off Lovers<\/em> #1. In art I also noted that Armel Gaulme is selling off his “The Rats in the Walls” fine pencil illustrations. <\/p>\n In celeb news, Alan Moore announced his un-retirement, and del Toro won his legal case over supposed ‘plagiarism’.<\/p>\n In audio, Horrorbabble provided worthy new free readings of the Whitehead-Lovecraft tale “The Trap” and the Lovecraftian story “Far Below”. Dark Adventure Radio Theatre announced their paid CD of The Horror in the Museum<\/em>, but the release will not be until Lovecraft’s birthday in August.<\/p>\n That’s it for this month’s round-up. Please support me via my Patreon<\/a>, it really helps me out. Especially when my PC blows up. Thanks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After a chilly May, a pleasant English summer is finally a’ coming in, and the verdant greenwood once again embraces …<\/p>\n