H.P Lovecraft

[Quiver he/him]

For a while now, I've been wanting to get into H.P Lovecraft, specifically the Mythos stuff. I've been planning on going through the Tor re-read, and following what they are doing. While I'm doing that, though, I thought maybe it wouldn't be a terrible idea to have a topic for people to talk or discuss H.P Lovecraft and the Cthulhu-mythos stuff.

 

(And hey, any advice you guys can give to a newbie on all this is greatly appreciated!)

[Blaze1616 he/him]

I'm actually not a huge fan of the Cthulu story itself. It was no where near as terrifying as some of his other stories. My two personal favorites are The Shadow Over Innsmouth and The Whisperer In the Darkness.

[Eerongal he/him]

If you're looking to get in to reading HP lovecraft works, I recommend looking into this series of paperbacks. They're usually pretty short and easy to digest, and it pulls works from lovecraft and his group of authors (the mythos was made by more than just lovecraft), and they're usually pretty good a cherry picking the good stories.

 

That said, you can pick up a "complete" collection of HP lovecraft stories pretty easily. I've gotten this one from barnes and noble in store from the clearance section (in store) more than once, for under 5 bucks. Note that these are ONLY lovecraft's stories, so they're hardly the "complete" work of original mythos stories.

 

It's worth noting that a lot of the writing in the original mythos stories can feel sort of "dated" at times. Their writing style often comes off to me as "old timey"

[ThirdGen]

Also, brace yourself.  Weird, extreme racism bursts out at odd intervals.

 

Oh, sorry, this is Lovecraft.  Eldritch intervals.

[Orlion Blight he/him]

 

Oh, sorry, this is Lovecraft.  Eldritch intervals.

 

On cyclopean pages!

 

I would say a lot of Lovecraft is...just awful... he struggled to write and he knew it, the readers knew it, and soon you'll know it. Of course, what's actually interesting are the ideas, which boils down to: the Universe does not care about you. Uplifting stuff.

 

So when August Derelith decided to put his spin on the Mythos... ugh, I know I just said Lovecraft was awful, but Derelith took it to a whole other level. Think of his stuff as fan-fiction... or just don't read it. Really, August's part in this whole thing (the important one, anyway) was keeping Lovecraft stories published until they somehow became a cultural force of their own. 

 

I have not read any of the other older Mythos stuff, though I would like to read Howard and I have a book by another author whose name escapes me at the moment... charles? Charley? You may also want to check out some Ambrose Bierce ghost stories, since a few of those inspired Lovecraft (and, though they aren't Mythos, they are borrowed from). 

 

I'll have to check out the Tor re-read, this could be fun! Awful, awful fun!

[smithybadger she/her]

Ok so, I've been attempting a Lovecraft reread using this. However, it is a monster of a book and not very fun for casual reading, but the annotations really do help in understanding the cultural background of Lovecraft's work, along with some of the subtler links between his works. I'd honestly start with just a small collection of some of his more well known works so you can get a feel for him, and then read that book. 

 

As for just some generally good stories, I kinda enjoyed the short story Nyarlathotep, along with most of the Randolph Carter stories (Randolph Cater was basically Lovecraft's self insert??).

 

(Also other people mentioned this already but just. brace yourself for Lovecraft's general racism, sexism, anti-semitism, and also his very anti-immigrant attitude.)

Edited July 13, 2015 by smithybadger

[Dunkum he/him]

A lot of Lovecraft is public domain now, so a bunch of it is available on Wikisource for free (probably other places too, maybe even google books).  I read through most of what was easily and freely available a while back, and the main thing I remember is that he didn't really seem to be buidling a mythos.  there were some things that were common across stories, Arkham, the Necronomicon, some of the elder god types, but for the most part the stories are not related to each other at all except for their shared themes.

[ThirdGen]

Derleth really built it into a mythos, but his stuff is unfortunately not public domain yet.

[ParadoxicalZen he/him]

I bought the Necronomicon compendium/commemmorative version from Waterstones a while ago but have yet to read it. I do however have the Cthulhu Munchkin format

Edited July 19, 2015 by ParadoxSpren