Thursday, May 31, 2018

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.151: An Augmented Fourth


Tony McMillen’s An Augmented Fourth is another offering in the recent Lovecraftian Metal subgenre: basically, Black Sabbath’s Geezer Butler confronts monstrous cosmic horrors in the hallways of a partially abandoned snowbound hotel. What’s not to like?

Not as well written as Corpsepaint, but more fun to read.

Wednesday, May 30, 2018

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.150: Corpsepaint


Lovecraftian metal horror seems to have emerged recently as something of a niche subgenre, with Tony Miller’s An Augmented Fourth, and today’s (digital) offering, David Peak’s Corpsepaint. I first became aware of Peak through his The Spectacle of the Void - one of a slew of Lovecraft-inspired (pop) philosophy books which followed in the wake of Grahame Harman’s Weird Realism and Eugene Thacker’s In the Dust of this Planet.

Earlier reviews indicated that this was a novel of full-on doom-laden Lovecraftian-Ligottian nihilism by way of a Death Metal theme; unfortunately Corpsepaint is not that novel. In fairness, it is by no means bad - indeed, I have thoroughly enjoyed reading it, and it certainly does the job of evoking a sense of Lovecraftian cosmic dread in parts; it is just that this is a case of the reality not quite living up to the hype. The doom-laden nihilism here is more studied, trying too hard - the sort that male middle-class teenage adolescents are liable to affect when they first get into Death Metal, and less the full-blown Ligottian antinatalism which is likely to shake my cognitive architecture to its core. The intent is there but, in my jaded opinion, the book lacks the langauge to give it effective expression.

As I say, Corpsepaint is not by any means a bad book; indeed, it is different enough from much current horror fare to deserve a place on the modern Lovecraftian collector’s bookshelf - and I shall certainly continue to monitor the author’s literary progress with interest.

Tuesday, May 29, 2018

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.149: Pulp Cthulhu


Decades in the making, Pulp Cthulhu finally surfaced in 2017 with the release of the 7th edition of the Call of Cthulhu rpg. Like yesterday’s offering, this gorgeously-illustrated, full-colour hardback volume continues Chaosium’s ascendency as an rpg publisher.

The book itself offers a ‘new’ way to play CoC - although some might argue that the game has always had something of an Indiana Jones-style globtrotting pulp element to it; regardless, this equips the Keeper and players with the tools and mechanics for playing a variety of shades of action-oriented, two-fisted pulpiness, making even such deadly and total-party-killing campaigns as The Masks of Nyarlathotep survivable.

Monday, May 28, 2018

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.148: Doors to Darkness


A few years ago, with a few exceptions I sold off pretty much all of my (somewhat extensive) colle tion of Call of Cthulhu rpg material (which funded a good part of my first visit to NecronomiCon in Providence back in 2013).

Doors to Darkness was an early release off the back of the new 7th edition, helpfully providing Keepers of Arcane Lore new to the game with a set of introductory scenarios. Along with the two 7th edition core rulebooks, Doors into Darkness really sets the bar in terms of the high quality, full-colour hardback production values which eclipse anything Chaosium have produced previously

Whilst it is unlikely that I will be buying every new CoC release which Chaosium produce for 7th edition, it is quite possible that I have been bitten by the CoC collecting bug again

Sunday, May 27, 2018

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.147: Shoggoth Ascendant



This is another curious acquisitions from yesterday’s visit to my local aquarium shop (which, by the way, is close to Burn Hill, and sits on the boundary between the boroughs of Horsingdon and Trentford). I call it ‘Shoggoth Ascendant’.

Saturday, May 26, 2018

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.146: The Silver Tentacle of Doom


Earlier today I took one of my occasional trips to the local garden centre. I’m not much by way of a gardener, but said garden centre also hosts a very large aquarium store - and any wargamer worth their salt knows that such places can be a veritable cornucopia when it comes to wargaming terrain: aquarium ornaments often take the form of ancient ruins or temples, interesting rock formations and the like - often in the same scale of commercially available 28mm wargaming terrain, but significantly cheaper.

Whilst today’s trip didn’t reveal much by way of wargaming terrain, I discovered the above curio which I think it was advertised as a kraken’s tentacle; in any case, I purchased it immediately for the reasonable sum of £9.99. I think it looks like a vaguely art-deco Lovecraftian statuette, and it will shortly be gracing my cabinet of curiosities. I call it ‘Cthulhu Rising’ (or, if you prefer, ‘The Silver Tentacle of Doom’).

Nice.

Friday, May 25, 2018

The Lovecaftian Thing a Day (2018) No.145: Mi-Go Miniature Madness!



The Mi-Go (or the Fungi from Yuggoth if you prefer) are one of my favourites of Lovecraft’s monstrous creations - which is a good excuse to include as today’s offering a couple of miniatures of that curious interstellar species. These are old RAFM sculpts, and have been in my possession for well over 15 years. These will hopefully hit the tabletop at some point during the Summer, when finally get around to playing the Strange Aeons miniature game (which helpfully comes with a solitaire mode).

Thursday, May 24, 2018

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.144: The Fantastical Art of Jim Pitts





UK artist Jim Pitts has had a long association with the Lovecraftian scene, contributing art to a wide range of Lovecraftian fanzines and professional publications. I received The Fantastical Art of Jim Pitts as a Christmas present, and I must say this is a lovely volume offering a fine retrospective of Mr. Pitts’ art, with a large selection of weird pieces likely to satisfy even the most jaded connoisseur of visual Lovecraftian horror. Nice.

Wednesday, May 23, 2018

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.143: The Forgotten Age


This latest campaign expansion to the Arkham Horror Card Game takes players to the rainforests of southern Mexico to confront a new, horrific threat, with another six smaller scenario packs to follow which will complete the campaign.

I’m intrigued by this, but I’m not sure that the Arkham Horror Card Game is quite hitting the thematic spot for me - I was hoping, after The Dunwich Legacy expansion, more ‘traditional’ Lovecraftian fare involving Innsmouth, Kingsport, and other well-known Lovecraftian locales. I was also hoping, much like the ‘saga’ expansions for Fantasy Flight Games’ Lord of the Rings Card Game (which allow you to play through the entire narrative of both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings novels), that we would see similar expansions for AHCG themed around epic tales such as At the Mountains of Madness. Instead, it seems like the game is firmly located in its own, original Arkham Horror universe, which increasingly feels like a separate entity to the ‘canonical’ Lovecraftian cosmos. Still, this is one of the closest things to a solitaire Lovecaftian rpg experience on the market at the moment, so I shall perservere.

Tuesday, May 22, 2018

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.142: Jungles of K’naanothoa


We return for a final visit to Geoffrey McKinney’s Carcosa, with a brief sojourn in the Jungles of K’naanothoa. Needless to say, McKinney delivers in spades with the high Lovecraftian weirdness, intersecting this creatively with classic Old School AD&D: the cover of the supplement depicts the emergence of Juiblex (a demon lord from the Monster Manual) from an eldritch gate leading the demonc planar abyss as described in the Dungeon Master’s Guide. In any case, the four new Carcosa supplements, combined with the original Lamentations of the Flame Princess edition, now provide a massive Lovecraftian sandbox hexcrawl which should keep you players occupied for some time.

Monday, May 21, 2018

The Lovecaftian Thing a Day (2018) No.141: Tentacle and Tome



This is my latest ‘creation’: a burgundy velvet bookmark which I’m calling the ‘Tentacle and Tome’ bookmark. Nice.

Sunday, May 20, 2018

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No140: No mask! No mask!


Whilst Lovecraft’s cosmicsm was already firmly developed before he encountered Robert W. Chambers The King in Yellow, that fictional work still had a formative influence on the former writer’s fictive universe; in turn, with the popularisation of Lovecraft, Chambers’ own classic work of ‘Lovecraft-adjacent’ weird fiction has attained wider recognition, with any number of King in Yellow anthologies appearing in recent years (especially in the wake of the hugely-popular Chambers/Lovecaft/Ligotti-influenced True Detective television series, where the issue of masks and unmasking is somewhat central to the plot).

Here, then, is a classic Dave Carson interpretation of the extant fragment of Act 1, Scene 2 of Chambers’ eponymous play, where Camilla confronts The Stranger, precipitatng the apparently sanity-blastng effects of the second Act.


Saturday, May 19, 2018

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.139: Silver Elder Sign Pendant



Last night, my Silver Key opened up a doorway to the realm of dreams, leading me once more to the little town of Ulthar, where it has long been decreed that no human shall ever be allowed to take the life of a cat. It was twilight as I wandered through the deserted streets, and the only other living soul I  encountered was a great black cat, who was catnapping upon the marble balustrade which circled a quiet fountain in a small secluded courtyard in a northerly quarter of the town.

The slumbering feline opened one eye as I approached, observing me with cool indifference. It nodded slightly at an object which lay upon the cobblestones at the base of the fountain, then arose imperiously and, a moment later, was mysteriously gone from that place.

The object to which the cat had gestured was a small velvet bag, containing a pendant of silver upon which was inscribed the hoary and cryptic Elder Sign - a pendant which, upon awakening, I found hanging from my neck upon a leathern cord.

Friday, May 18, 2018

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.138: Eidolon of the Deep


This curious item appeared on my doorstep this morning, with no return address - I possess images similar to it within my sanctum sanctorum - all protected by the most powerful of arcane wards and glyphs of binding; I also know enough of their provenance to recognise that such objets d’art are of an alien design entirely, and the product no human hand.

This particular piece is, I believe, an attempt to replicate in a physical medium the true represenation of one of those monstrous beings of elder lore said to have once walked the earth strange aeons ago, before retreating into a state of dreamless undeath within the depths of the earth, or otherwise entombed within the weed-strewn basalt blocks of some ancient comprised of impossible angles, which long ago sank beneath the waves.

I do not know if there is any significance to the fact that I received this strange eidolon on the day of my fiftieth birthday - but I fear the worst...

Thursday, May 17, 2018

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.137: Expedition



Expedition is marketed as a card based, app-driven solitaire roleplaying game, for which a Lovecraftian horror supplement is also available. This being right up my street, I dove right in, downloaded the app, and began playing...

Or at least I would have done had not the app crashed multiple times. But being the perservering type I tried again. And again. And again.

Finally, I managed to access the introductory scenario for the basic game. This went something along the lines of ‘All of the town’s cheese has been stolen. You follow a trail of crums, which lead to the sewers. There you encounter some rats. Fight them’. So much for the immersive rpg experience I was anticipating. Combat ensured, which was a lifeless, abstract affair. I think I lost, but then the app crashed again.

Not to be deterred, after more attempts to launch the app with the added material from the Lovecraft supplement, I began my next scenario, anticipating a heavily story-driven tale of cosmic horror. Instead I got somethng along the lines of ‘All of the town’s cheese has been stolen. You follow a trail of crums, which lead to the sewers. There you encounter a Hound of Tindalos. Fight it’.

Perhaps I am missing something here, but regardless, these fuckers are going straight onto ebay.

Wednesday, May 16, 2018

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.136: Helen’s Story by Rosanne Rabinovitch


Continuing with the theme of latter-day sequels to weird classics, today’s entry looks at Rosanne Rabinovitch’s Helen’s Story, which takes as its central conceit the fact that Helen Vaughn did not succumb to the fate ascribed to her in Arthur Machen’s The Great God Pan, instead picking up her tale in modern London where she seeks union with the strange, mystical realm which birthed her. Thematically, then, Helen’s Story is somewhat removed from its antecedent: whilst horror isn’t entirely absent, this is more a recapitulation of the Machen who evokes a sensuous mysticism than the Machen whose principle concern is with lurid-yet-numinous terrors; Rabinovitch also calls forth shades of the strange, archaic and outre landscapes of The White People, which are fleeting glimpsed in the denouement of Helen’s Story as the everyday gives way to an intimation of another, intoxicating realm beyond.

This is beautifully and lyrically written, and sharply observed, deserving far more attention than it has thusfar received - presumably because it is written by a woman, and subverts the implicit misogyny of the original. Rosanne Rabinovitch’s Helen’s Story is still available to purchase in electronic format here, and in hardcopy here

Tuesday, May 15, 2018

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.135: The House of Silence by Avalon Brantley



Avalon Brantley’s The House of Silence appeared in the post today; as such, I have not yet had an opportunity to review it - but I understand that it evokes the shades of William Hope Hodgson’s two classic tales of cosmic horror: The House on the Borderland,  and his monumental (but flawed) The Night Land (I presume that title of Brantley’s novel is derived from a horrifying locale of the same name encountered in that epic tome).

The House of Silence is currently only available in a limited print run of 170 - there are, however, still a few copies available here. Thanks to Acep Hale for pointing me in the direction of this.

Monday, May 14, 2018

The Lovecraftan Thing a Day (2018) No.134: True Detectve, Season 1


Accompanied by accusations of plagiarism, and disappointment on the part of some weird fiction fans who felt that it didn’t make good in its promise of an actual, full-on, Lovecraftian/cosmic horror reveal in the finale - not to mention the toxic masculinity which runs through the entire thing - season 1 of HBO’s True Detective somehow also managed to be one of the most beautifully-shot, artfully-scripted, and well-acted televisual events of 2014 - one which remains probably one of the biggest thing to happen to weird fiction and cosmic horror in recent years: Chambers, Machen, Lovecaft and modern masters like Barron and Ligotti are all subtly (or not so subtly) referenced here; the following scene in particular (one of the one’s which led to accusations of plagiarism being levelled at lead writer Nic Pizzolatto) is pure Ligotti:


For my part, I still feel conflicted about True Detective; whilst I’m glad that it didn’t opt for an outright Lovecaftian conclusion a la Inspector Legrasse disrupting the Cthulhu cult ritual, I also felt slightly cheated that decades of weird fiction were being drawn on blithely and in a manner which sometimes felt like nothing more than fashionably noirish mood-setting - rather than an attempt to really engage with the philosophical core of the genre. And whilst I actually did like the concluding scene of the season (with reservations about how it ultimately overvalued forms of toxically-masculine bonding over other kinds of human relations), it was nonetheless something of a betrayal of the source material.

Sunday, May 13, 2018

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.133: New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos/Shaft Number 247


Picking up the thread of a couple of earlier posts, today’s entry returns us to another of my favourite modern Cthulhu mythos tales; this is, in some respects a double posting, as the story in question appears in Arkham House’s 1980 publication New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, edited by Ramsey Campbell (and one of only 15 or so Arkham House volumes which I own). I believe I first encountered this in the 1988 UK Grafton paperback reprint; I managed to pick up a copy of the Arkham House hardback (shown above) a few years later (I managed to get ths signed by Ramsey Campbell at NecronomiCon 2015).

In any case, this was a game changer for me - at least half the stories in the volume caused me to radically reconsider what the Cthulhu mythos was capable of as a literary form, and indeed to rethink what constituted the mythos outside of the standard, pastiched tropes which informed so much of what had been written under the rubric of mythos fiction post-Lovecraft. In this respect, it is unsurprising that New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos was produced under the editorship of Ramsey Campbell, who had already effectively contemporised Lovecaft’s original vision via the urban alienation and grimy social realism of his own work. Indeed, New Tales showcased a number of stories which have since become modern Lovecraftian classics - such as Stephen King’s ‘Crouch End’, A.A. Attanasio’s ‘The Star Pools’, David Drake’s ‘Than Curse the Darkness’, Campbell’s own ‘The Faces at Pine Dunes’, and of course what is probably one of the best known of all modern Lovecaftian tales, T.E.D. Klein’s ‘Black Man with a Horn’. I’m still surprised that we haven’t seen a reprint of this volume since 1988.

My favourite entry in New Tales - and one of my top ten Cthulhu mythos tales of all time - remains an unacknowledged classic of Lvecaftian horror: ‘Shaft Number 247’, written by the woefully-underrated Basil Copper. Depicting life in a an Orwellian subterrenean dystopia, it is not really clear how or in what way ‘Shaft Number 247’ constitutes a tale of the Cthulhu mythos: there is certainly nothing to identify it as such by way of any named monstrous beings or blaphemous tomes of the mythos making their appearance. What does emerge, however, is a sense of growing Lovecraftian dread in relation to some unnamed and unnameable existential terror which has made the surface of the Earth its habitation - and from which humanity has been forced to flee underground. Campbell gives a hint in the book’s introduction as to what exactly is going on, suggesting that the tale concerns the ultimate event of the Cthulhu mythos (presumably the return of the Old Ones to Earth); if this is the case, Copper skillfully represents this (unrepresentable) occurrence as something which is, quite literally, unthinkable - such that to contemplate it’s possibility in the world of ‘Shaft Number 247’ is to engage in a kind of Orwellian thoughtcrime.

As with the best and greatest of Lovecaftian fiction, the horror of ‘Shaft Number 247’ is a horror which exists within those cognitive gaps the content of which ultimately eludes human conceptualisation. Like gravity, we can’t see it or measure it, but we infer its existence based upon the effect it has upon and around us. Whatever constitutes the actual horror of ‘Shaft Number 247’, its enormity can only be gauged indirectly by way of the monstrous social, cultural and psychological effects it has exerted upon what remains of humanity in the dystopian universe of the tale. And this is what makes for some of the best Lovecaftian fiction: the final, horrific revelation in At the Mountains of Madness is neither the appearance of a shoggoth nor the realisation that humanity is an accident or mistake; rather it lurks in those numinously-awestruck hints of an ultimate and yet more horrifying cosmic reality - one which is again inconceivable and unrepresentable - which William Dyer relays to us second-hand, via the Cthulhuvian word-salad which his companion Danforth spouts after glimpsing what really exists beyond those Mountains of Madness.

Saturday, May 12, 2018

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.132: The Greenwood Faun by Nina Antonia


This gorgeous hardback edition of Nina Antonia’s The Greenwood Faun appeared on my doorstep earlier this week: a sequel of sorts to Machen’s visionary classic The Hill of Dreams, haunted by the spectre of The Great God Pan, and a lush paean to fin de siecle decadence, copies of The Greenwood Faun are still available from Egaeus Press.

Friday, May 11, 2018

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.131: To Fight the Black Wind



Tonight’s entry is something of a deviation from the intended post - on account of the large number of superb cocktails I have been imbibing this evening (not to mention the newly acquired bottle of 5 year old Somerset Cider Brandy which demands investigation once I get home). So, in place of a capsule analysis of another classic of modern Lovecraftian fiction, instead we have a recent acquisition: To Fight the Black Wind.

inappropriate euphamisms aside, this is the latest novella in Fantasy Flight Games’ Arkham Horror fiction line, which also comes with a set of cards allwing you to play the tale’s main chatacter, Carolyn Fern, in the Arkham Horror Card Game. Carolyn Fern is a regular go-to of mine in games like Elder Sign and Eldritch Horror, so I do have a certain investment in this particular Lovecraftian-gaming fiction hybrid.

I’m about a chapter into this one, and in fact the writing is an improvement on previous entries in the series; it is worth noting, however, that FFG’s recent line of Arkham Horror fiction hasn’t garnered great reviews, and my current opinion is that, whilst they are viable but workmanlike pieces of pulp gaming fiction, they severely miss the mark when it cones to evoking a sense of cosmic dread. That said, one online reviewer made the point that these novellas are not, in fact, aimed at the Lovecraftian connossieur, but are character pieces meant to facilitate gamers’ investment in the protaganists which populate the Arkham Horror universe - and in doing so, to encourage a greater sense of narrative immersion in the storylines of that world. This is an approach which does, on reflection, have merit; as such, I may have to re-evaluate my own attitude towards the series in future.

Well, that was not the short, pointed post I had intended to produce - in any case, with that out of the way, time for further interrogation of that fine bottle of cider brandy by way of my squidified portable shot glass...


Thursday, May 10, 2018

The Lovecaftian Thing a Day (2018) No.130: Discovery of the Ghooric Zone by Richard Lupoff


Following on from yesterday’s post, the next few entries will detail what I consider to be some of the best modern Cthulhu mythos tales (with regard to which, today’s post is, in a roundabout way, a revisiting of one of 2016’s Lovecraftian Things a Day). Whilst Stross’ ‘A Colder War’ is in my top 5 of such tales, currently sitting at the number 1 spot is today’s offering: first published in 1977, I first encountered Richard Lupoff’s ‘Discovery of the Ghooric Zone’ in 1990’s revised, scond edition of Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, and is far removed from your typical Lovecraftian fare - starting, as it does, in media res as we encounter three non-binary posthuman cyborgs having sex on a spaceship heading towards a tenth planet beyond Pluto. The date is March 15th 2337 - precisely 400 hundred years after Lovecraft’s death.

To attempt to describe what follows would not do justice to the ambitious scope of Lupoff’s novella (fortunately you can read it for yourself here) - other than to say we are presented with a phastamagoric, time-shifting narrative which manages to evoke a sense of Lovecraftian cosmic awe, wonder and horror in a way I have rarely encountered outside of the work of the Old Gent himself; all this tinged with a poignant melancholy reminiscent of parts of the Fungi from Yuggoth sonnet cycle (to which ‘Discovery of the Ghooric Zone’ is, in a strange sort of way, the sequel).

Whilst so much Lovecraftian fiction in the 1960s and 1970s tended to gravitate towards respectful pastiche, Lupoff’s tale was one of those works which revitalised the Cthulhu mythos by contemporising it - and, in doing so enabled Lovecaft’s fictive mythology to speak to later generations of fans in new ways. Go and read ‘Discovery of the Ghooric Zone’ now.

Wednesday, May 09, 2018

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.129: A Colder War by Charles Stross


Nominally a ‘sequel’ to At the Mountains of Madness, Charles Stross’ A Colder War imagines a secret history of the 20th Century - one premised on the assumption that various of the world’s governments gained access to alien technology in the aftermath of the events of Lovecraft’s novella.

What follows is a reimagining of the latter years of the Cold War, seen through the eyes of a CIA analyst who is witness to the weaponisation of the Cthulhu mythos by shady government agencies - and Oliver North - at the behest of the global superpowers. One memorable scene, which characterises the mood of the piece - involves the ghastly aftermath of the CIA’s use of Elder Thing gate technology to smuggle arms and heroin into Afghanistan.

This is, to my mind, one of the best - and most horrifying - modern Cthulhu mythos tale ever penned, contemporising Lovecaft’s fictive mythology in ways which allow it to speak to acutely modern , late 20th/early 21st Century fears and anxieties. It also has one of the bleakest endings in a literary genre notable for its prolific use of the bleak ending.

Stross’ later Laundry series employs some of the tropes and themes of A Colder War, but are not direct sequels and handle bureaucratised Lovecraftian cosmic horror with an intentionally lighter, comedic touch. Whilst I thoroughly enjoy the Laundry books, I can’t help but wonder what Stross might have produced had the Laundry novels been written in the same vein and mood as A Colder War...

Helpfully, A Colder War is freely (and legally) available to read here. There is also an excellent and chillingly narrated audiobook version here.

Tuesday, May 08, 2018

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.128: Beyond the Mountains of Madness


Despite the high regard in which it is held, there are only a handful of anthologies which take Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness as their core theme or focus - Robert M. Price’s edited collection Beyond the Mountains of Madness (not to be confused with the Call of Cthulhu rpg campaign of the same name) being one of the more recent.

Unfortunately, peak Cthulhu appears to be looming: it sometimes feels that there is at least one new Lovecaftian or Cthulhu mythos collection appearing every other week, such that even the most dedicated Lovecraftian must find it nigh impossible to keep up with current outpouring of Cthulhuvian fiction. In this instance, Beyond the Mountains of Madness has found itself subsumed within an evergrowing ‘to read’ pile of mythos fiction; as a consequence, I must shamefully admit to having only managed a couple of brief delves into the contents of this particular volume - which, nonetheless, hosts some of the best names in contemporary Lovecraftian fiction. In any case, the two stories which I have thusfar read were both excellent.

On that basis (for what it’s worth), I would definitely recommend Beyond the Mountains of Madness - especially if boreal tales of cosmic horror happen to be your particular cup of tea.

Monday, May 07, 2018

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.127: The Weird Company by Pete Rawlik


The Weird Company is a follow-up to Re-Animators, and is part of Pete Rawlik’s wider fictional cosmos in which the author constructs something of a Lovecraftian parallel to Philip Jose Farmer’s Wold-Newton universe: by way of filling-in various historical and conceptual gaps in Lovecraft’s tales, Rawlik suggests that they constitute a deeply-interconnected narrative whole (a kind of Lovecraftian metanovel), whilst at the same time, intersecting with various other pulp, sci-fi, fantasy, and horror universes.

In this instance, Rawlik masterfully brings together various well-known characters from Lovecraftian lore to form - a la Alan Moore’s The Extraordinary League of Gentlemen - ‘the Weird Company’, whose exploits are indeed shown to constitute a hidden history of the 20th Century. Central to The Weird Company are the events and discoveries documented in At the Mountains of Madness which are themselves also demonstrated to be foundational to many of the key events underpinning the modern world.

In any case, Rawlik’s prose and grasp of Lovecaftian themes and timelines are used to great effect to create a convincing and novel development of Lovecraft’s fictive universe. Come and play in the sandbox - once here, you won’t want to leave. Ever.

Sunday, May 06, 2018

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.126: Eldritch Horror - Mountains of Madness




Mountains of Madness translates Lovecraft’s classic novella into an expansion for Eldritch Horror, Fantasy Flight Games’ boardgame of globe-spanning investigation and Lovecaftian horror. The expansion comes with a new board which is used in addition to the standard game board, and which includes key locales from At the Mountains of Madness, which players must navigate and explore in order to halt monstrous plans of the Elder Things of Antarctica. Whilst this ticks so many boxes for me in terms of being able to participate in the key events of AtMoM via the medium of boardgaming, the expansion has yet to hit my table - hopefully I will have the opportunity to rectify that state of affairs over the Summer months.

Saturday, May 05, 2018

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.125: At the Mountains of Madness by Childe Roland


Whilst not a concept album per se, Childe Rolande’s At the Mountains of Madness and Other Strange Songs (and released by Rainfall Records) offers the discerning listener a selection of Lovecraftian, Lovecraft-adjacent, and weird fiction-inspired tunes with psychedelic folk-rock stylings. The cover also sports a fantastic piece of artwork by Steve Lines depicting the title track. This is a nice companion piece to Strange Aeons: a double-album anthology of Lovecraftian tunes and readings also released by Rainfall, and which featured as one of 2016’s Lovecraftian Things a Day. You can purchase copies of both albums here.

Friday, May 04, 2018

The Lovecaftian Thing a Day (2018) No.124: At the Mountains of Madness


I consider At the Mountains of Madness to be Lovecraft’s prose masterwork (although I’m undecided as yet as to whether it edges out The Fungi from Yuggoth sonnet cycle as Lovecraft’s highest literary achievement), and one of the greatest horror tales of all time. Given that this is the 85th year since its writing, for the next few days, I will be presenting a few AtMoM themed posts in celebration of the fact.

Today’s offering is Richard Coyle’s reading of the novella (and which was originally aired on BBC Radio in five parts); whilst an abridged version, it remains one of my favourite renditions of the tale: Coyle’s voice work effectively builds a sense of looming dread, and the background music effectively develops on Lovecraft’s powerful engagement with landscape and environment in the original work to evoke an appropriately chilling mood of boreal horror. Nice.

Richard Coyle’s audiobook of At the Mountains of Madness can be purchased for download from Amazon, as well as from here.

Thursday, May 03, 2018

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.123: NecronomiCon 2017 Tote Bag


Just a quick offering for today’s entry: my freebie tote bag from NecronomiCon 2017, still chock full of swag from that fine convention - all of which will, no doubt, find its way onto the pages of this blog in due course...

Wednesday, May 02, 2018

THe Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.122: The Mountains of Dream


The Mountains of Dreams is the third of Geoffrey McKinney’s epic Carcosa supplements. Inspired by Lovecraft’s The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath, this section of McKinney’s massive hexcrawl campaign maps a section of Carcosa containing such fantastical Lovecraftian locales as Thalarion, Xura, Parg, Kadath, and (my personal favourite) the dreaded Plateau of Leng; but as with its source material, whilst retaining a quality of outre weirdness, this corner of Carcosa possesses a more oneiric, mystical quality as opposed to the overtly horrific feel of the other modules. In any case, a welcome addition to the Carcosa series.

Tuesday, May 01, 2018

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.121: The Amulet of Celaeno


This amulet is said to be gifted by the secretive Wardens of the Great Library of Celaeno - a vast, monolithic structure which rests upon a storm-lashed spar of barren rock protruding from out the depths of turbulent black seas - seas which otherwise encompass the entire suface of a bleak planet orbiting a star far disant from Earth.

It is also said that the great stone shelves of the Library are filled only with tomes bearing within their cursed pages the monstrous and unfathomable secrets of an elder arcana - one whose secrets have been drawn from the darkest corners of the universe, and from the abyssal depths of those inscrutable realms which lurk beyond known time and space. Other more earthly esoteric texts relate that possession of the Amulet of Celaeno will grant the bearer access to that body of black, forbidden lore.

The Wardens of the Great Library are tall, crooked beings whose bodies and visages remain entirely cloaked and hooded, so that none who have ever visited that dreadful place have ever borne witness to the true forms of those cryptic librarians. The circumstancs by which I became the custodian of this Amulet must forever remain secret; I will, however, allude to the fact that there is indeed truth to the rumour that the Wardens extract a terrible price from those seeking to consult the library’s holdings...