October Horror 2011 discussion

I'm probably not going to get around to reading much longer work this month so I'm hoping instead to squeeze in some short story reading.

Crazy as it sounds I've never read any Lovecraft short stories. I've read At the Mountains of Madness, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath but not really anything else. Since I may be short on time I was wondering of anyone could direct me to the best of his other work and also recommend any other similar period short story writers and some good stories (MR James perhaps?)

My personal favorites are:

The Call of Cthulhu
The Tomb
The Rats in the Walls
Dagon
The Haunter of the Dark
The Shadow Over Innsmouth
The Whisperer in Darkness
The Shadow Out of Time

In terms of contemporaries, I'm fond of Robert W. Chambers.

Much obliged Mr.Swensen. I lied, I have read "Call of Cthulu" and I've a feeling I may have listened to a radio adaptation of "Rats In the Walls". or it may have been something else to do with rats, anyway it had Vincent Price and it was cool.

I look forward to reading those.

Good call on Robert Chambers as well, that looks right up my alley. I think I may have had a peek at King in Yellow once and read the opening and it seemed pretty awesome.

Oh, it was Three Skeleton Key and it has nothing to do with Lovecraft but it was bloody good...

Robert Chambers is amazing, and The King in Yellow is a masterpiece.

As far as HPL goes, I like some things by him, and love a couple of things, but dislike most of the stuff I've read. I do greatly respect him for what he started and who he influenced, but I don't get the slavish devotion from folks like S.T. Joshi et al.

So even though he may be the most "important" of the weird authors, he is actually among my least favorite - mainly because I think he is a terrible writer. I greatly prefer what I've read from Machen, Blackwood, Chambers, Hodgson, and even like the modern guys like Cisco and Ligotti a lot more.

D_Davis wrote: "As far as HPL goes, I like some things by him, and love a couple of things, but dislike most of the stuff I've read."

Right on. I love HPL's concepts but I don't think he was much of a writer.

Yeah, when Lovecraft is good, he's really good, but when he's bad he's dreadful.

I don't love Lovecraft (hehe). He has some good stories and I think he has made his mark on horror. I can take him in small doses. I think I prefer Lovecraft-influenced horror to his actual writing style. It's way too melodramatic at times for me.

Having said that, these are the stories I like by him:

Beyond the Wall of Sleep
Pickman's Model
The Strange Case of Charles Dexter Ward
The Dunwich Horror
Dreams in the Witch House


I much prefer MR James and I don't think you can go wrong with any of his stuff.

If you have a Kindle ereader you can find both of these on Amazon for free, and they are worth reading:

Ghost Stories of an Antiquary
More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary

I'm sure they are free online from other sources as well.

I like the ones D_Davis listed.

I'm not quite as familiar with weird fiction as you. The Three Imposters was a very important book for me , one I read years before I did any Lovecraft so I probably love it more...

I don't recall that Lovecraft was a terrible writer though. On the contrary, I thought At the Mountains of Madness a mini-masterpiece in sustained horror writing and had pegged it as a bit of a masterpiece. I recall the prose writing being particularly good and adding so much to the atmosphere, but hey, that was a while ago. He has a bit of a reputation which probably unfairly dwarves his contemporaries but I'm sure it's not completely undeserved.

Oh yeah, this might be a good time to finally try out some Ligotti. I've been looking forward to that for some time...

Thanks Danielle. The very little MR James I've read has been excellent. I've never been a huge short story reader for some reason I can't even explain myself, and that's why I haven't read some of these things!!!

I do have a Kindle. It's awesome ... not sure how I ever got by without it now!

I love At The Mountains of Madness in spite of the clunky prose and overly-passive voice.


And I, too, like Lovecraft-inspired fiction far more than I actually like Lovecraft's work. HPL was a great ideas man, but I usually can't stand his writing. I think many other authors did the whole purpose prose thing much better.

Alex, I have realized that you can clean house when it comes to classic horror if you have a Kindle. Happy days!

In terms of recommending contemporaries/influences of Lovecraft, you will likely want to check out Algernon Blackwood who is an outstanding weird/horror short fiction writer.

Particlar stories of his to look for include "The Willows", "The Wendigo", "Ancient Sorceries" and "With an Intent to Steal". Most of his stories are of a high standard so you could probably try anything you can find and not be disappointed.

Clark Ashton Smith is another of his cotemporaries who also wrote many amazing short stories although he drifted from horror to SF and fantasy more often than Lovecrft did. A couple of recommendations in the horror vein: "The Dark Eidolon" and "The Second Internment".

William Hope Hodgson's Carnaki Ghost Finder stories you might like if you are a fan of stories about paranormal investigators.

If you are willing to go a bit more modern (60's-70's), you might like Robert Aickman who wrote wonderful, creepy, ambiguous strange/supernatural stories. I have not read anything by him that wasn't brilliant.

For something modern in the Lovecraft vein, besides Ligotti, you should check out Laird Barron or Jonathan Thomas.