Singing Potatoes
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Wednesday, 10 March 2004
Speaking of Lovecraft...

Squelch asks what the best Lovecraft work would be to start with, for someone who's never read him.

That's a toughie. My favorite is The Shadow Out of Time, but it's not really representative of Lovecraft; it's a pure science fiction tale, making only passing mention of his horror mythos.

The Call of Cthulhu is probably one of his most famous works, introducing the Thing pretty much synonymous with Lovecraft. Still, "The Music of Erich Zann" and "Pickman's Model" are two shorter stories that give a good sample of what Lovecraft's writing is like.

I'm also partial to The Rats in the Walls, The Dunwich Horror and The Thing on the Doorstep. And that's leaving out a bunch of other good ones. Well, there's a place to start, at any rate; there's plenty more.

Sadly, Lovecraft was a bit of a xenophobe and racist, which does show through in his writing. He also wasn't too fond of women, who as a result were nearly absent from his œuvre. Still, the man was a Hell of a writer.

Posted by godfrey (link)
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Comments
Thanks! :)
Posted by Squelch on 10 Feb 2004 05:27
I would recoomend getting a nice compiliation book. The one I picked up at Borders has all the stories Godfry has mentioned, and a couple more. I LOVE "The Thing on the Doorstep"! He does a really good job of freaking himself out. Enjoy!
Posted by Lisa on 10 Feb 2004 14:26
All lovecraft, all good.

Sid
Posted by Sid on 12 Feb 2004 18:41