H.P. Lovecraft

H.P. Lovecraft, I don't know why I think of the author right now, but mabye its because one of his books is right here under my computer table. Full of dust, waiting to be uncovered.

I read some of his short stories and two novels of his; wow is all i can say. He is a pioneer for the sci-fi/horror genre of novels. His stories are full of frightningly haunting macbre and deadly intelligent writitng style.

Stephen King sucks.

Richard Matheston is as good though.

Oh...Stephen King sucks...again...

[thinking aloud]Is there a way to stop users from starting more than a certain number of new threads per day?[/thinking aloud]

Hmm...mabye, I'll have to check into that one...

Stephen King sucks.

BLASPHEMY!!! I should string you up by your toes and force you to read Nightmares and Dreamscapes upside down!

EDIT: Oh yeah, 5000th post! :D

BLASPHEMY!!! I should string you up by your toes and force you to read Nightmares and Dreamscapes upside down!

You go ahead and do that...alright?

I love H.P. Lovecraft, but sometimes it gets irritating when people namedrop him constantly. He was fantastically inventive, especially in creating the whole Cthulhu mythos, but his writing style got pretty cumbersome after a while (when every other word is "Cyclopian," you can tell somebody's trying too hard!). Still, science fiction, horror, and fiction in general wouldn't be the same without him, and he's endlessly important in modern literature.

And Stephen King isn't exactly the best of authors, but he's far from the worst (The Stand and his Gunslinger books are enjoyable, but the majority of his stuff is airport newsstand-fluff). That merit goes to the twatwaffle who wrote Summer of My German Soldier.

He's genius. To come up with an entire reality and theme for a fantasy like world that he created. What a mind he must have had.

H.P. Lovecraft was that one author PFC Arlene Sanders always talked about...I really should check into one of his books. I bet I'll find some Eldrich stuff.

Lovecraft also owned one of the two copies (the other was owned by Aliester Crowley) of the Necronomicon, which I find to be really awesome.

I've read a bit of Lovecraft, and I find, for the most part, what Ubik said about it being cumbersome to be true, yet there is the occasional story that makes up for it. I really enjoyed the story (cant remember the name) about the guy that was visiting other realities in his dreams and used drugs to stay awake because he knew he would die if he slept again.

AT LEAST THIS THREAD IS NOT A POLL

I've never read anything by Lovecraft, though I have wanted to for some time (if only to find out why people keep talking about him). I might guy a book of his stories after I finish reading The Godfather. Stephen King isn't a great writer... but some of his earlier stuff isn't that bad. He just needs to stop writing is all. When trying to read a good book, however, I often turn to an auther a friend introduced me to back when I was in Middle School; Clive Barker. His stuff is usually worth reading.

Dingus Khan said:

Lovecraft also owned one of the two copies (the other was owned by Aliester Crowley) of the Necronomicon, which I find to be really awesome.

I'm pretty sure the Necronomicon has already been proven to be an idea fabricated by Lovecraft for his stories, and then seized on by other people as the epitome of some kind of "dark book."

"Regarding the Necronomicon--I must confess that this monstrous & abhorred volume is merely a figment of my own imagination! Inventing horrible books is quite a pastime among devotees of the weird, &...many of the regular W.T. contributors have such things to their credit--or discredit. It rather amuses the different writers to use one another's synthetic demons & imaginary books in their stories--so that Clark Ashton Smith often speaks of my Necronomicon while I refer to his Book of Eibon . . & so on. This pooling of resources tends to build up quite a pseudo-convincing background of dark mythology, legendry, & bibliography--though of course none of us has the least wish actually to mislead readers."
     - H. P. Lovecraft, letter to Miss Margaret Sylvester (January 13, 1934)

lament : AT LEAST THIS THREAD IS NOT A POLL

Wow you are quite the distinguishing one, aren't you! Now you go along and make your petty comments somewhere else. I beat sarcasm with sarcasm. You of course would know the saying, "fight fire with fire". Better yet, my saying: "fight fire with water". Alright you figured it out. Now that I have demoralized your being, please run along and play with yourself somewhere else. There should be a good post in hell you should look at if you are not that busy. But if you spend as much time coming up with shitty jokes and replies as I quoted, you are sure to be plenty busy.

You have been crotch kicked.

Have a nice day! :}

Heh... I have a copy of Necronomicon... Giger's work is amazing.

I haven't had the chance to read Lovecraft. I need to finish these damnd Drizzt books first.

the_Danarchist said:

I haven't had the chance to read Lovecraft. I need to finish these damnd Drizzt books first.

read his stories on dreams :)

MagnuM said:

Wow you are quite the distinguishing one, aren't you! Now you go along and make your petty comments somewhere else. I beat sarcasm with sarcasm. You of course would know the saying, "fight fire with fire". Better yet, my saying: "fight fire with water". Alright you figured it out. Now that I have demoralized your being, please run along and play with yourself somewhere else. There should be a good post in hell you should look at if you are not that busy. But if you spend as much time coming up with shitty jokes and replies as I quoted, you are sure to be plenty busy.

You have been crotch kicked.

Have a nice day! :}

Hm, not bad, but I prefer this one :D

"You can tongue-tickle my diseased left nut, you mentally deficient, heifer-humping, man train caboose-riding, golden, flaky cum biscuit; it's every good citizen's duty to take the initiative to club you with any nearby blunt objects and tie you up to a telephone pole, leaving you wide open to anal assaults by passersby with sexual inadequacy issues. I'll crack you open like a lobster and eat your white, rich, pasty insides with a delicious butter sauce."
*EDIT* Oh, and H.P. Lovecraft rules. I don't know why, but I recall there a link, maybe it's nothing, between Lovecraft and the Poe short story, "Metzengetzerstien", or something like that.

Ha ha! Well said!

Lovecraft got me through many boring nights while aboard a carrier in the middle of nowhere. I picked up a collection of some of his short stories (I forget the exact title,) from someone, or somewhere, and read it cover to cover. Eldrich, indeed.

Lovecraft is really cool. I haven't read much of his work but what I have read I think is excellent. Quake was inspired in many ways by his work - Shub-Niggurath is one of the many horrible creatures Lovecraft invented.

Lovecraft is Da Man.

I've only read The Call of Cthulhu and Imprisoned with the Pharaohs, and I've started reading The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. I was pretty fascinated with the stories I've read, especially Cthulhu since I've heard so many references to it. Suddenly "The Thing That Should Not Be" by Metallica makes perfect sense. The style does get a little cumbersome and archaic sometimes, especially to me since English is not my first language. But I think it's definetly worth the effort, and I intend to read through all of his horror stories sooner or later.

From Stephen King, I've only read "It" and found it pretty well-written and very engrossing. But his style is definetly different from Lovecraft, and I can't see King's novels being still read eighty years after they were first written, like Lovecraft's stories are.

Anyone remotely interested in H.P. Lovecraft should go here : The H.P. Lovecraft library. Among other things, it has HTML and PDF versions of every story, poem and letter Lovecraft ever published. Something to read on a quiet night.

I need to finish these damnd Drizzt books first.

Who exactly is Drizzt?

H.P. lovecraft is a the best horror writer out there.
iI love his books. Steven King is realy good too. But I like Clive Barker more.

MagnuM said:

Who exactly is Drizzt?

Drizzt is a Drow (dark elf) ranger from the D&D Forgotten Realms setting. These are all the books in the series written by R.A. Salvatore:

The Icewind Dale Trilogy
The Crystal Shard
Streams of Silver
The Halfling's Gem

The Dark Elf Trilogy (prequel to the Icewind Dale trilogy)
Homeland
Exile
Sojorn

The Legacy of the Drow Series
The Legacy
Starless Night
Siege of Darkness
Passage to Dawn

Paths of Darkness
The Silent Blade
The Spine of the World
Servant of the Shard
Sea of Swords

Then theres a new book called The Thousand Orcs

Last one I read was Passage to Dawn, so I still have five more to go through. :D

That's a badass looking Elf...

I've never been much for straight-up D&D-oriented fantasy; it's almost invariably overwrought, far too long, poorly written and with little characterization. I don't see why I have to read seventeen books to get through a relatively generic plot with no real insight or depth to its characters.

Most of it apes Tolkien's work in the first place, and his novels had all the same faults I mentioned above (I could barely even get through Fellowship of the Ring), not to mention the WORST POETRY/SONGS EVER. And yes, I realize Tolkien meant to write a "new mythology" for England and didn't do much in the way of characterization for that very reason, but I don't think the other aspects of his work are very strong either.

I guess that's why I prefer fantasy by authors like Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett: they have great characters, actual insight and depth, and aren't so horribly serious as most fantasy seems to be.

Sure, a lot of D&D novels are rather poor, but R.A. Salvatore is almost certainly the best writer of D&D novels (Ed Greenwood is probably second). I'd even go as far to say that he's one of the best modern-day fantasy writers.

In response to the Necronomicon comments:

I never knew that the Necronomicon was an imaginary book. I would never have thought that since i've seen an actual copy of it in print, which I now assume he wrote. Or someone else who heard him mention it's title did. Thank you for correcting me.

there are actually two versions of the necronomicon, both 'inspired' by the work of lovecraft. they're both available freely online if you search, but i personally don't see much point, since despite yog sothoth being the gate, i still can't summon him no matter how much i jerk off to those sigils.

also, h.p. lovecraft was a fantastic writer.

Ubik said : "I guess that's why I prefer fantasy by authors like Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett: they have great characters, actual insight and depth, and aren't so horribly serious as most fantasy seems to be."

Another good fantasy writer is Robert E. Howard, atleast I think that is his name. The writer of "Conan". Now that is good literature. It's just to bad the guy shot himself at 35, he could have made many more horrifically good stories. But people make decisiona and act on them.