Are there fans of H.P. Lovecraft and other Mythos authors here? I love this stuff.

Not fans of the work per-say, but I like many of the derivative products that surround the mythology, such as board games like Arkham Horror/Elder Sign and Unspeakable Words, and the artwork of John Kovalic. I regret I've only ever read excerpts of Lovecraft's work, and never actually full passages. (fails as a universal geek)

I got heavily into the Cthulhu Mythos in the early-mid 1980s, with the RPG Call of Cthulhu as my gateway. That led me into Lovecraft,then Derleth, then others. Sadly I found 20 year later that I didn't find them as compelling, some of the stories still made my flesh creep and sucked me in deeply, but many didn't. (Mountains of Madness and Shadow out of Time were two that did.)

I think maybe the longer more complex tales still sucked me in, but the shorter ones didn't. Perhaps because I am now so familiar with the Mythos tropes that the shorter tales just seemed to be a bit obvious, the fact that the "feel" was so familiar meant that I wasn't really getting the terror/surprise. In effect, a victim of its own success as what was once shocking is now part of our (or at least my) baseline. Whereas the longer tales built up the suspense more slowly and the creepiness grew.

Having said that, I'm pretty sure I have a set of the tales in my Kindle library, I'll download them and read a few to see whether 10 years or so on, I get the original feeling back. Once I've read the Thraxas novel I've just noticed was published earlier this year.


*** What a coincidence that Alyindar & I answered simultaneously ***

To be honest, you both seem more advanced than me. So far I have read only Lovecraft and a little Derleth and I am not familiar with the games. I do plan to try Brian Lumley.
From what I have read so far my favorite stories are Shadow over Innsmouth, The Whisperer in Darkness, The Shadow Out Of Time and The Mountains of Madness, The Lurking Fear and the Dunwitch Horror. I too enjoy the longer stories except from the Temple, which is quite short, but great. From Derleth I like all, but The Sandwin Compact seems to be the best...

Like Eoink, I was huge fan, back then. Was very into CoC (the RPG) and still find that Lovecraft has an influence on a lot of the fiction I write.

Can't say I've read much in the 20 years (really, that long!!!). I now feel I have to go and get some out and reread it... But who has the time.


And, of course, Simon is a huge fan and did his MA partly on Lovecraft....

yes, sometimes Simon's descriptions remind me of Lovecraft...