Call of Catthulhu, Book I: The Nekonomikon by Joel Sparks

While laden with allusions to the works of Lovecraft, this rule book focuses on simulating cats in the liminal zone between realistic and fantastical, very definitely giving it the feel of Eliot not Ulthar. The world faces many threats, from the mundane dog to the eldritch Snarlyhotep and Phatproggua. While saving civilisation from these threats …

The Green Flame Rises

By arcane tabulations and eldritch schemes, my wife and I have almost wrought our yearly Festival. All that remains is to face the most lively awefulness to summon forth those items that cannot endure long in this world, such as salad. To aid you in bastioning such winter celebrations as you correlate, a blessing from …

Cosmic Laughter

Many people allege cosmicism is bleak; however, this is to ignore the Prophet Lovecraft’s dictum that the universe is comedy. In glimpse of this, yesterday I found a Yog-Sothothic joke roiling in my mind; whether this shift in my mental state is a sign I am overcoming the slight foulness I acquired from Tenebrae or …

Oc-Tea-Puss

Betimes the curious traveller comes across a thing of sublime beauty: for me, one such is Keiko Masumoto's Kitsch Kogei collection, ceramics that combine traditional Japanese ceramics with octopuses. Of course, if that traveller is also experienced in matters of true consequence rather than the ephemerality that passes for discourse amongst what is known as …

Squamous Decay

Cold winds howl around me! A claw tears at the very fabric! Foulness spreads! The black abyss gapes ever closer! By which of course I mean that we are having our decking replaced, so there is a craftsperson prying up rotten boards and carrying them through the house to their van with the resultant wind-tunnel …

Ink For Blood by Kevin Weir

Weir blends a strong gothic aesthetic with fast-paced visceral fights and creepy mysteries, creating a baroque nightmare of addict-assassins fighting existential horrors with distilled angel blood and arcane machinery. A century ago, the Great Machine appeared on the English coast, offering a way to fight back against the mindless parasitic sludge called the Mire. Now …

Music of the Congruent Spheres

Sometimes alien stars strangely align, raising up things that cannot be put down. Such as this rather fine collaboration on a Lovecraftian dance club by Cibex and Midjourney. Is it better not to speculate what arcane blasphemies might creep forth from that miscegenation of musical samples? Or set sail into the smoke-machine dark voids of …

Whispering the Darkness

As perspicacious readers might have inferred despite my reticence in openly discussing the matter, I am not unfond of Lovecraft's work and cosmic dread in general. So, I was most joyous to discover Matt Hundley's film-length adaptation of The Whisperer in Darkness; while it is not perfect, it inclines strongly toward my preferred approach in …

Dreams from the Witch House: Female Voices of Lovecraftian Horror, ed. Lynne Jamneck

Jamneck applies a broad rather than narrow criteria to both female voice and Lovecraftian horror, resulting in a diverse range of stories. This anthology contains twenty short stories and novelettes that portray a female-perspective on an incomprehensible universe. “Shadows of the Evening” by Joyce Carol Oates. Escaping the tedium of life as her ageing aunt's …

Alchemical Divorce

Over the weekend, I re-encountered the theory that Lovecraft's fiction is a thin veil of fantasy over occult secrets shared with him by Aleister Crowley. While I am greatly fond of the mythos surrounding both men, so would feel joyous if this were true, I find it sadly implausible. Lovecraft's letters, the primary source for …