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So far The Starry Wisdom - a Tribute to H. P. Lovecraft is proving a bit of a dissapointment to me. The first three stories seem overly obsessed with grotesque sex, which is a decidedly un-Lovecraftian theme. Ramsey Campbell addresses this in the introduction, saying of H.P.'s theoretical impression of the anthology, "He might have found so much sex disconcerting, but sex was an element in the tales by Arthur Machen he admired." O.k., so maybe this should have been a tribute to Machen then, but then he's not as likely of a selling name, eh?

The Ballard story was not written for the anthology, and the editor merely felt it reminded him of Lovecraft. I get the feeling that's probably the case with many of the bigger names. I'll review the Ballard tale nonetheless in his thread when I get to it.

In general, the anthology, while clearly saying "Science Fiction" in bold print on the back, is doing little to address that element of Lovecraft's work. Perhaps that will change as I read on, but nothing in the introduction or foreward makes that seem likely. I guess this is a bit of a review in progress...

Well "Black Static" by David Conway is proving me wrong on the lack of SF claim any way. It has elements of cyberpunk and nanotech spun in with a more traditional Lovecraftian theme.

So far the gem of the collection has been John Coulthart's magnificent graphic illustrated interpretation of the classic Lovecraft story "The Call of Cthulhu". It isn't easy to convincingly show in "comic book" (inapropriate term, nothing funny here) fashion a story which features imagery that is supposed to drive you mad if you see it, but his effort is valiant, and the results are chilling.

Re-animator was an entertaining and funny movie, but it is largely thought of a Lovecraft's lowest literary work. It was among his very first published efforts of course.

Yay! So glad to see the creator of this wonderful site taking part in the current discourse! Welcome home. As you can see, we've been doing what we can to keep things interesting.

Great point on "The Shadow Out of Time."

I think it is in many ways the connection between Lovecraft and one of his main followers, Robert Bloch, author of Psycho, that gets H.P. lumped commercially in "horror."

Psycho by the way certainly answers this question of Custer's:

Is a story about a very nasty serial killer, without any fantastic elements, horror?

I think horror has more to do with the psychology of fear than the supernatural per se (which is where Lovecraft admittedly fits in.)

My apologies Ray, I failed to notice that Custer's post was in response to yours asking him to review your book. It does sound very interesting to me!

I think your points about Lovecraft and characterization are for the most part true in his shorter works, but a bit less true in some of his novel length writings (which are admittedly in the minority since most of his writing was written for and published in the pulps.) The Case of Charles Dexter Ward for instance gets into the main character's head a bit more than the short stories, but it does often seem the Lovecraft's characters were based more than a little on H.P. himself.

As it appears you figured out, my comments were not about your book, but about the explanation for it on the website which Custer posted. Your personal comments are much appreciated and do a lot to make one want to read the book. If you've read the rest of this thread, you'll find that I started it to make the case that Lovecraft's inventions were to me more Science Fiction than Horror, and that they have had a profound influence on the former genre. It seems you are delving into some similar ideas with your novel.

I would be very interested in reading and reviewing your book, though such a review here would not nescessarily be read by many people. We're (Custer and I) trying to promote this board, but a look at recent posts show that most of them come from him and me (with the exception of some in the Movie section.) I do also write for some other sites with a bit more traffic however. Feel free to e-mail me at ljim_2000@yahoo.com if you are interested sending me a copy to review. Otherwise, I'll certainly add your book to my wishlist on Amazon, and maybe come Christmas there will be some tentacles in my stocking!