The H.P. Lovecraft Collection: Slip-Cased Edition

Several years ago, I purchased The Complete Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft. (I actually bought it twice, not realizing the second copy was the exact same book with a different cover.) It's a really beautiful book, with a cloth cover, ribbon bookmark and a slipcover. Basically, the perfect collector's item. I tried to read the stories in that book, but as you can imagine, it's huge, with over 1,000 pages and that made things difficult. That's the only complaint I have about the collection.

So I was really excited when I was browsing on Amazon a few weeks ago and I saw a "new" set that was released about a year and a half ago (how did I miss that?), The H.P. Lovecraft Collection: Slip-cased Edition. According to one of the reviews, this set includes all of Lovecraft's stories, with the exception of one collaboration he did. And the best thing about it is that it's broken down into 6 separate volumes, which will make it so much easier to read than the larger book. I ordered it immediately.

Size comparison between The Complete Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft and the Slip-cased Edition.

Someone said these books use the Spongebob font and I can't unsee it.

If I had to buy one set...I wouldn't. I would buy both, honestly. That's the collector in me. Both editions are beautiful and deserve a spot on my already crammed shelves. I can't say one is better than the other.

Also worth nothing is that The New Annotated H.P. Lovecraft (another must-have) is receiving a followup in September - The New Annotated H.P. Lovecraft: Beyond Arkham. I've already pre-ordered my copy and I'll be counting down the days until it arrives on my doorstep.

Day 30: Favorite Horror Novel/Novella - The Shadow Over Innsmouth by H.P. Lovecraft

This novella is about a man who visits a decrepit fishing village (in my mind, I now picture it as the Fishing Hamlet in Bloodborne) and learns of its dark secrets, as well as one of his own.

The Shadow Over Innsmouth was the first Lovecraft story I ever read and I think I started with that one because of Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. I've already mentioned it in a previous post, but there's a particularly scary segment of that game where you have to escape from the room you're renting and I thought if the story was even half as scary as that part of the game was, it would be worth reading. I wasn't disappointed.

I keep hoping that someday, there will be a decent movie adaptation of this story. Ideally, made by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. Until then, they've created a wonderful old-time radio adaptation of it, which you can buy here.

Carter & Lovecraft

WARNING: This post contains some spoilers, but nothing that gives away the overall plot or the ending.

In Carter & Lovecraft, written by Jonathan L. Howard, ex-detective Dan Carter learns that he has inherited a bookstore in Providence, Rhode Island from Alfred Hill (who was missing for seven years before being declared dead), a man he has never met. Upon Carter's arrival, he meets the woman who has been running the store in Alfred's absence, Emily Lovecraft, a descendant of...You guessed it. H. P. Lovecraft.

Soon after, Carter is drawn into an investigation of a string of bizarre, impossible murders that lead him to a young man named William Colt and a place called Waite's Bill (where the men have a serious preoccupation with swimming, so you just know they have the "Innsmouth look"). With the help of Emily Lovecraft, Carter puts together, piece by piece, the mystery behind "The Twist" and Waite's Bill, something their ancestors worked to hide away from the world.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It referenced so many of my favorite things: pulp fiction (not the movie), Dashiell Hammett, Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, film noir and of course, Lovecraft.

I was sort of expecting Hammett meets Lovecraft, in a fun way, like Cabin in the Woods. If that makes sense. What I got was a bit more serious in tone, not that I minded. I absolutely think fans of Lovecraft's work will appreciate this book, but I think anyone who is looking solely for a mystery novel may be left wondering what exactly they just read.

There are a few things about Carter & Lovecraft that I think are worth mentioning.

Each chapter is around ten pages long, give or take a few. I really liked that because it meant they were short enough that I could read "just one more" before bed.

There were some things I could do without that seemed to add almost nothing to the overall plot. Specifically, the attempted rape. I don't know what the author's intentions were or how this figured into the plot in his mind, but as the reader, it seemed unnecessary. Rothwell could have had a complete mental breakdown without forcing himself on his girlfriend. It felt out of place and the story would not have changed significantly if it had been left out.

I mentioned earlier that Carter inherited the bookstore from a man named Alfred Hill. Throughout the book, I kept expecting to find out what happened to Alfred. I thought, maybe, he purposely disappeared, that this was all a setup to bring Carter to Providence. But unless there's been an oversight on my part (and I don't think that's the case, I read everything very carefully, with the intention of making this post), we never learn what Alfred's fate was. He's never mentioned again. For me, that was one of the biggest disappointments.

Carter & Lovecraft has a very bleak ending, perfectly fitting for a novel inspired by H. P. Lovecraft's work. Despite some unneeded plot devices and forgotten characters, it is a book I would recommend to anyone who is a fan of Lovecraft's stories.

Edit: I have been told that Alfred Hill was not forgotten, so maybe we'll learn more about him in the future.

Where it all began

My mom's favorite story to tell (complain about, really) is that when I was three years old, I told my dance instructor that I watched A Nightmare On Elm Street. As if it were somehow my fault that she was embarrassed that I told this woman I was allowed to watch Freddy Krueger murder people in their sleep. When I point out that I was a child and someone turned the movie on and let me watch it, she blames my dad, pretending she had no say in the matter.

The point is, I grew up on horror.

Thinking back, the first scary movies (I use that term loosely for one of them) I ever remember watching are House On Haunted Hill and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, and to this day, I still love both films. I was raised on Vincent Price movies. I knew him by name before any other actor and I couldn't get enough of him.

When I was old enough to read, I would always go to the library and borrow Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. The stories rarely scared me, but the illustrations kept me up at night. I would beg either of my parents to bring me to the book store so I could buy more Goosebumps books (and not long after, Fear Street, because Goosebumps just wasn't scary enough).

Now that I'm older, I'm a bit more particular about the kind of horror I enjoy. While Freddy was entertaining when I was a child, I'm no longer interested in his antics. And I've moved on from creepy stories about babysitters being stalked, as well. Today, my favorite kind of horror is psychological.

Movies no longer scare me. I've tried so hard to find something, anything, that will make me lose sleep, but the only film to unsettle me that much is In the Mouth of Madness. If I want to be truly scared, I have to turn to video games and Lovecraft.

I decided to start this for fun. I'm terrible at sticking to a schedule, but I would like to try to post at least once a week. I have no plans to even attempt to promote this blog, so if people find it, they find it and if not, I'm okay with talking to myself.