Eternal Lovecraft: The Persistence of Hpl in Popular Culture

by Stephen King, Ian R. MacLeod, T.E.D. Klein, et al.

Fantasist H P Lovecraft enjoys an honour shared by few other authors of imaginative fiction - since his death, the term Lovecraftian has come into world-wide use to describe a body of work so fully... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0965590178
• ISBN13: 9780965590174
• Release Date: January 1998
• Publisher: Golden Gryphon Press
• Length: 410 Pages
• Weight: 1.19 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 5.9" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

A Interesting Interpretation of the Lovecraftian

While browsing through the stacks of the local branch library, I stumbled upon this book. Between being a fan of the Lovecraft Mythos and wanting to read some short stories, I checked and out and began to read the book. The introduction was an interesting analysis of Lovecraft's fight against time and the evolution of the story "The Shadow Out of Time." Turner takes aspects of Lovecraft's life and applies it to the evolution of his work. Insightful and an intriguing read. I have broken down my review by short story, since each has its own flavor and stands well on their own. Together, they are a good representation of Lovecraftian fiction. **There may be spoilers below. Beware** I. Lovecraft Country "Her Misbegotten Son" by Alan Rodgers - The story definitely has a Lovecraftian feel to it. Set in Arkham and telling the story of a boy since we has given to county services, the story meanders yet has a creepy feel to it. The antagonists are threatening, but in the end, they are ultimately thwarted. At a great expense, but the story is actually more up beat than I may expect from this vein. "Daoine Domhain" by Peter Tremayne - Though this story is still set in New England, it also takes place in Ireland and gives it more of an isolated mystique to it. My favorite of the stories in the first section, the story is excellently told and helps display the inevitability of a Lovecraftian tale. Portents and legends have a life here you cannot stop. "To Mars and Providence" by Don Webb - My least favorite of the first set, I was immediately set off by H.P. Lovecraft as the main character of this story. Described as an awkward boy with an unhinged aunt, he finds himself in the middle of a Martian invasion and empathizing with the Martians. He is believed to be one of them, and they try to restore him to his rightful form. The story did not draw me in, and I did not feel particularly awed of horrified by it. They story did have an interesting twist, and it was just enough to pull me through the story. Do not despair and quit reading the book though. There is much more good stuff further on. II. Eldritch Influences "Weird Tales" by Fred Chappell - A mock biography of the visionary poet, Hart Crane, this story does involve H.P. Lovecraft as well. However, he is a peripheral character to help establish the possible reality of the story. Quirky and off, they story approaches the nature of space and time, and the characters are lead into oblivion. Nice piece. "The Land of the Reflected Ones" by Nancy A. Collins - A common joke among Lovecraft's readers is it is safer not to read any of the books in his Mythos. In this story, the lesson is once again enforced when a greedy man seeking the power of a long forgotten book is trapped in what he desires. A good twist for the end. "The Shadow at the Bottom of the World" by Thomas Ligotti - Though suspenseful, the story fell flat for me near the end. Set in a rural town, they find

Great production values from Golden Gryphon

While I was at a meeting in St. Louis I came across this collection by Golden Gryphon Press. Publication date was 1998. It was expensive but $17.93 is very reasonable for high quality hardcover. First, the production values are high quality with a nice hardcover binding. The dustjacket has a wonderful painting by Nicholas Jainschigg, that depicts a glowing eye stranger walking away as some entity, perhaps Yog Sothoth, enters our dimension in the clouds. It is perhaps a little flimsy, already getting a few small tears in the edges, but then I was carrying it everywhere. The interior has some photographs of HPL. I hadn't seen them before, but maybe they are famous ones. The editor was Jim Turner. Yes, the Jim Turner. No, I don't know who the heck he is either. At any rate, his introduction is a nice scholarly essay mainly about The Shadow Out of Time. At the end he describes the 3 sections he divided the stories into, ones in HPL settings or where HPL appears, ones where there is a more or less overt influence by Lovecraft, and ones that may imply a Lovecraftian cosmic view. The last is similar to the more recent excellent anthology Horrors Beyond. Yeah yeah (I thought as I was reading) let's get to the stories. This was a compilation of previously published stories, and as such there is overlap with other anthologies (grumble). By and large, Mr. Turner has selected very high quality stories and I am sorry to write that he stated that this would be his last Lovecraftian collection. On to the contents, is alphabetical order, not necessarily as they appear in the book: ***There may be some spoilers below*** Weird Tales by Fred Chappell: Actually a subsubgenre I find incredibly tedious is one where HPL makes an appearance. It does less for me even than stories where the characters talk about HPL's works that supposedly depict fiction. At any rate, this one did not do much for me. The Land of the Reflected Ones by Nancy A. Collins: I could swear I had read this before but I don't know where. Not to worry, it is a finely crafted and creepy story about the dangers involved in casting spells from a musty tome when you don't really know what you are doing. Very enjoyable and made me wish Ms. Collins has written more mythos stuff for me to discover. Sensible City by Harlan Ellison: Nice, creepy, ghoulish, but no definite Lovecraftian allusions that I can recall. Nonetheless it reads well and does not sit out of place in such a collection. Ralph Wollstonecraft Hedge: A Memoir by Ron Goulart: Lame attempt at humor. A low point. Crouch End by Stephen King: Whatever anyone says, Mr. King deserves his accolades. This is a terrific tale, moody, atmospheric, tensions mounting beautifully and plain scarey. It concerns a couple who wander into a neighborhood in London that ends up being very far away from where they thought they were going. A masterpiece. The Events at Poroth Farm by T. E. D. Klein: This is only the second

Good Lovecraftian collection

Interesting anthology of Lovecraft-derived and Lovecraft-inspired works. The book is divided into three sections:1) "Lovecraft Country" includes stories most strongly connected to Lovecraft or his mythos, featuring "Her Misbegotten Son," a rather good sort-of-sequel to Lovecraft's "Dreams in the Witch-House"; "Daoine Domhain," an excellent story also available in SHADOWS OVER INNSMOUTH; and "To Mars and Providence," an interesting Lovecraftian take on the War of the Worlds originally in WAR OF THE WORLDS: GLOBAL DISPATCHES.2) "Eldritch Influences" is the largest section of the book, including stories that allude to rather than feature the Cthulhu Mythos- the stories in this section are mainly reprints, yet some of my personal favorites, including "The Land of the Reflected Ones" by Nancy A. Collins, the nightmarish "Crouch End" by Stephen King, the cosmic "The Turret" by Richard Lupoff, "The Giant Rat of Sumatra" (a Sherlock Holmes story with Mythos aspects) by Paula Volsky, and "Black as the Pit, from Pole to Pole" featuring a certain Mrs. Shelley's famous monster.3) The last section, "Cosmic Realms," contains stories only thematically related to Lovecraft's concepts of cosmic horror; I particularly enjoyed the creepy "Events at Poroth Farm" by T.E.D. Klein and the intriguing "A Bit of the Dark World" by Fritz Leiber.Those I have mentioned above are my favorites, but I can say I liked every story in this anthology to some degree. Wold-Newton fans may get a kick out of "To Mars," "Giant Rat" and "Black as the Pit," Mythos fans should enjoy most of the other stories, and anyone with a taste for fine horror should find this a good read.

Decent read

Fans of Lovecraft will have a good time with this book. It's par for the course as these sorts of collections go, nothing groundbreaking, but a nice way to spend a weekend. I found only maybe 1 or 2 stories not worth the trouble, and for the most part all the authors did a workmanlike job.