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 …

The Most Awful?

Between the alien structures that are abstruse debate over mythos taxonomy and the endless mud plains that are emotive debate over whether someone should read his works at all, I sometimes chance across more interesting artefacts, such as the question whether worship of Cthulhu is foolish or wrong. I say probably, but not for the …

Not So Deep One

With worrying footage of a fisherman fleeing from a glowing-eyed creature off the coast of Rio Grande do Sul, some people are asking whether it is in fact a seal playing in the wash. Those few familiar with the exegesis of Leman know there is a more troubling question: if Y'ha N'thlei (and hence all …

I for One Welcome Our Holly Overlords

May your holiday be awful and artificial, boils and ghouls. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTpVLI9D4Lk

Season of the Cultist

Haiku are closely associated with Zen, a philosophy which suggests human life has no intrinsic elevated value and reality is not as most people perceive it. Although often rather less bleak in expression, this view of existence will be immediately recognizable to Lovecraft fans as very similar to cosmicism. So, as I like both haiku …

There are No Monsters by Sebastian Leyendecker

Leyendecker blends the griminess and struggle of realistic espionage stories or noir with a hidden world of supernatural otherness, creating a novel that is both gritty thriller and cosmic horror. Decades ago, the Nocturne Society told Brockmann to stand down, their mission of destroying the monsters that used to plague humanity complete; however, when a …

Behind Superficial Mutability

On Saturday, I played through Bit Golem's Dagon game. As some of you will know, I am a casual player of computer games rather than one who seeks to speed run them or plays into the early hours of the morning; so my having completed the game the same day I started (in fact within …

The Peculiar Case of the Luminous Eye: A Paranormal Thriller by S.C. Barrus

Barrus combines the Victorian gentleman scientist with a threat that does not tidily fit into human assumptions about reality, creating a novella that evokes classic tales of paranormal detection and cosmic dread without feeling dry or stilted. Willem has devoted himself to the study of the liminal zone between biology, cryptology, and the aether sciences, …