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JerryLee
Feb 4, 2005

THE RESERVED LIST! THE RESERVED LIST! I CANNOT SHUT UP ABOUT THE RESERVED LIST!

Pope Guilty posted:

Stross is way too productive and prolific a writer for me to worry about that.

Prolific in general, yes, but he also has a few other continuities on his plate. (Which I think is awesome for him as a writer, but I just don't enjoy those others as much as the Laundry stuff.)

That said, much as I'd like him to just dump everything else and put out a Laundry book every year, I'll have no complaints if he stays on this schedule of alternating one Laundry novel for each other one.

TOOT BOOT posted:

It'd be interesting to see a Lovecraftian Apocalyse actually occur for once instead of being narrowly averted

Depending on how semantic you want to be, the Laundry universe's apocalypse will hopefully be "narrowly averted" in the sense that the Azathoth-analogue (or whoever) won't unmake reality altogether. But Bob is definitely going to be thrown into the poo poo filled frying pan and I couldn't be more excited for it.

e: If you want to see some attempts at writing what happens when the apocalypse doesn't get averted, you might check out Cthulhu's Reign. If memory serves, it wasn't an entirely unmixed bag (as genre anthologies tend not to be) but it was worth a read for me.

JerryLee fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Jul 5, 2012

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Ornamented Death
Jan 25, 2006

Pew pew!

JerryLee posted:

e: If you want to see some attempts at writing what happens when the apocalypse doesn't get averted, you might check out Cthulhu's Reign. If memory serves, it wasn't an entirely unmixed bag (as genre anthologies tend not to be) but it was worth a read for me.

Don't do this. Get The Book of Cthulhu instead. It most (or all) of the worthwhile stories from Cthulhu's Reign, but the remainder isn't made from complete crap, as is the case with the Cthulhu's Reign.

Mr.48
May 1, 2007

TOOT BOOT posted:

It'd be interesting to see a Lovecraftian Apocalyse actually occur for once instead of being narrowly averted

Check out the Adversary Cycle by F. Paul Wilson. You could probably just jump right into the last book, Nightworld, that has an awesome Lovecraftian Apocalypse.

JerryLee
Feb 4, 2005

THE RESERVED LIST! THE RESERVED LIST! I CANNOT SHUT UP ABOUT THE RESERVED LIST!

Ornamented Death posted:

Don't do this. Get The Book of Cthulhu instead. It most (or all) of the worthwhile stories from Cthulhu's Reign, but the remainder isn't made from complete crap, as is the case with the Cthulhu's Reign.

I actually didn't know this. Thanks for amending my recommendation!

Mr.48 posted:

Check out the Adversary Cycle by F. Paul Wilson. You could probably just jump right into the last book, Nightworld, that has an awesome Lovecraftian Apocalypse.

I'll also have to check this out.

Jedit
Dec 10, 2011

Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

Mr.48 posted:

Check out the Adversary Cycle by F. Paul Wilson. You could probably just jump right into the last book, Nightworld, that has an awesome Lovecraftian Apocalypse.

"The sun will set at 2.37pm on Friday and it will not rise again." One of the creepiest lines in fiction.

However, I wouldn't advise you to dive right in with the last. Wilson used the Adversary Cycle to tie a number of other books together, so it's not quite as stand-alone as Mr 48 suggests. The correct reading order is:

The Keep
The Touch
The Tomb
Reborn
Reprisal
Nightworld

After that, if you're still not tired you can read the rest of Wilson's Repairman Jack novels. They're good fun.

CornHolio
May 20, 2001

Toilet Rascal

Shonagon posted:

That is cool, but NB you can get Chambers free on Project Gutenberg if you have a Kindle. Mind you, everything that isn't King in Yellow has been crap so far.

Oh I know. I downloaded it to my phone. I also have the collection of his weird tales. So technically I already had two copies of The King in Yellow.

Doesn't mean owning the old musty version with the cool artwork is a bad thing!

Neurosis
Jun 10, 2003
Fallen Rib
So, I just finished The Croning. It was okay. My main issue with it was the pacing: after a fun opening vignette (the Spy was pretty cool) and the chapter in Mexico which was a lot too vague to be creepy we get chapters and chapters where the allusions are too imprecise and general to really evoke any fear. The final 10% was quite good, I will admit, and I found Don's ending suitably depressing.

I wouldn't mind reading how a more aware character (maybe Kurt) deals with the knowledge of the threat facing mankind, although I know that the notion of humanity being able to defend itself at all would run counter to this style of horror. Do any of Barron's short stories tie into the same world?

Ornamented Death
Jan 25, 2006

Pew pew!

Neurosis posted:

Do any of Barron's short stories tie into the same world?



A bunch of them. "The Men From Porlock" and "Blackwood's Baby" are the two that spring immediately to mind, but I know I caught several more oblique references in The Croning (which may explain why I liked it so much).

CuddleChunks
Sep 18, 2004

:shobon: I pre-ordered the Apocalypse Codex but forgot to sync up my kindle over the last week. Looks like the book is ready for download. Hahaha, hooray!

I've been having a lot of fun turning HP Lovecraft's stories into homemade audiobooks. It's easy for the shorter stories but man the dude gets super wordy with a lot of his fiction. What's nice is that many of his pieces use the conceit of a lost journal or final diary entry being dictated to the audience so it works well for reading aloud.

I've read one Poe story aloud but just haven't locked onto his works as much. There's something eerie but ultimately very listenable with Lovecraft's prose compared to other writers. Of course, every time he talks about how something was so horrible he couldn't possibly write it down I laugh. Woo, force us to use our imagination, HP!

Thanks for listing these other authors, they should help add some new late night reading/audiobook material.

TheForgotton
Jun 10, 2001

I'm making a career of evil.
I'm taking the plunge on Laird Barron. There's a short story collection of his up as the Kindle deal of the day on Amazon for $1.99.

Occultation.

Poopinstein
Apr 1, 2003

Yeah you did it!
Just finished Barron's "The Croning" myself, and I enjoyed it quite a bit! I'm not well read in cosmic horror outside of Lovecraft yet, but "The Croning" hit all the right notes for me. It *did* go a little too deep into esoteric information that isn't needed for anything, especially stuff surrounding Don's life, but I thought the pay off was well worth it. I had a good sense of dread building as it rolled along!

I've read "Occultation and Other Stories" already, so I'm definitely going to read "The Imago Sequence" here soon! After the first two books, I'm happy to call myself a bonafide Laird Barron fan!

Jedit
Dec 10, 2011

Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

This is going to surprise a few people, but you may want to look into HG Wells. His best known short story is The Truth About Pyecraft, which is hilariously cynical more than weird, but he also wrote a few good ghost stories and tales of the weird - some of which, like Into The Abyss and The Story of the Late Mr Elvesham, are decidedly Lovecraftian.

There's a folio-style omnibus of all Wells's short fiction in print at a very reasonable price. I recommend you indulge.

Vertigus
Jan 8, 2011

Poopinstein posted:

Just finished Barron's "The Croning" myself, and I enjoyed it quite a bit! I'm not well read in cosmic horror outside of Lovecraft yet, but "The Croning" hit all the right notes for me. It *did* go a little too deep into esoteric information that isn't needed for anything, especially stuff surrounding Don's life, but I thought the pay off was well worth it. I had a good sense of dread building as it rolled along!


My biggest problem with The Croning is that at no point in the story did I buy that the main character was in his mid-80s.

Neurosis
Jun 10, 2003
Fallen Rib
Don read like a man in his late 60s. Some frailties and neuroses but nothing crippling. Then again, he could have been a Rupert Murdoch type who defies senescence, I guess. Honestly I thought the mid section was very weak, while the Rumplestiltskin story and conclusion were very strong. The former appealed to my basic superstitions and human fear of the dark, while the latter was pure cosmic horror.

I've read the first few stories in Occultation and Other Stories and I have really not been impressed. Occultation itself was okay but not particularly scary. The ghost story was just kind of meh. It meandred along and never emerged from the muck.

Barron has a few writer ticks that bother me as well. "He/she lighted a cigarette" (which reads wrong to my Australian English) and his obsession with alcohol (despite being an inveterate boozehound myself) are a little jarring every time.

Dyscrasia
Jun 23, 2003
Give Me Hamms Premium Draft or Give Me DEATH!!!!

Neurosis posted:

Don read like a man in his late 60s. Some frailties and neuroses but nothing crippling. Then again, he could have been a Rupert Murdoch type who defies senescence, I guess. Honestly I thought the mid section was very weak, while the Rumplestiltskin story and conclusion were very strong. The former appealed to my basic superstitions and human fear of the dark, while the latter was pure cosmic horror.

I've read the first few stories in Occultation and Other Stories and I have really not been impressed. Occultation itself was okay but not particularly scary. The ghost story was just kind of meh. It meandred along and never emerged from the muck.

Barron has a few writer ticks that bother me as well. "He/she lighted a cigarette" (which reads wrong to my Australian English) and his obsession with alcohol (despite being an inveterate boozehound myself) are a little jarring every time.

Barron is all about sex, drugs and cosmic beings. I think thats pretty awesome.

SlaveTrader
Jan 12, 2003

*sigh* Those were the days...

Jedit posted:


After that, if you're still not tired you can read the rest of Wilson's Repairman Jack novels. They're good fun.

Don't do this. The Adversary Cycle has some nifty ideas wrapped in a blanket of crappy writing. With Repairman Jack, the blanket is infested with small pox and is made of asbestos. Wilson writes Repairman Jack as some libertarian ubermensch with all of the secondary characters being hilarious racist stereotypes. It gets incredibly grating.

Skyscraper
Oct 1, 2004

Hurry Up, We're Dreaming



SlaveTrader posted:

Don't do this. The Adversary Cycle has some nifty ideas wrapped in a blanket of crappy writing. With Repairman Jack, the blanket is infested with small pox and is made of asbestos. Wilson writes Repairman Jack as some libertarian ubermensch with all of the secondary characters being hilarious racist stereotypes. It gets incredibly grating.

I had heard great things about the Repairman Jack series, but reading the first novel put me off anything further, for the exact reasons you've just mentioned.

Mr.48
May 1, 2007

SlaveTrader posted:

Wilson writes Repairman Jack as some libertarian ubermensch with all of the secondary characters being hilarious racist stereotypes. It gets incredibly grating.

Yeah I couldnt read past the 4th or 5th book, it got really terrible.

MockingQuantum
Jan 20, 2012



I know this isn't technically relevant, but I think it's a good venue for this question: Anybody have any recommendations (or whatever the opposite of a recommendation would be?) of good comic book/graphic novel adaptations of Lovecraft? Or any graphic novels with a distinctly Cosmic Horror flavor?

navyjack
Jul 15, 2006



MockingQuantum posted:

I know this isn't technically relevant, but I think it's a good venue for this question: Anybody have any recommendations (or whatever the opposite of a recommendation would be?) of good comic book/graphic novel adaptations of Lovecraft? Or any graphic novels with a distinctly Cosmic Horror flavor?

There was a 4-issue comic adaptation of Stephen King's 'N' which is very love crafty. Alan Moore's 'The Invisibles' has some of that too.

JerryLee
Feb 4, 2005

THE RESERVED LIST! THE RESERVED LIST! I CANNOT SHUT UP ABOUT THE RESERVED LIST!
Thank God I'm not the only one who couldn't stomach the Repairman Jack novel. I was trying to read through the six-book series that Jedit posted, and the Keep was enjoyable if inexpertly written, but The Touch made me feel like I was reading supermarket-style "supernatural" fiction rather than anything cosmically horrific, and The Tomb was just going to be more of the same, so about halfway through Tomb I just took it back to the library so I wouldn't have to read it anymore. Both books also felt orientalist as gently caress. I'm halfway tempted to try reading Nightworld on its own for the advertised Lovecraftian apocalypse, but I'm starting to feel like it would be a pretty lovely apocalypse that needs books like these to put it in context.

Zola
Jul 22, 2005

What do you mean "impossible"? You're so
cruel, Roger Smith...

Jedit posted:

This is going to surprise a few people, but you may want to look into HG Wells. His best known short story is The Truth About Pyecraft, which is hilariously cynical more than weird, but he also wrote a few good ghost stories and tales of the weird - some of which, like Into The Abyss and The Story of the Late Mr Elvesham, are decidedly Lovecraftian.

There's a folio-style omnibus of all Wells's short fiction in print at a very reasonable price. I recommend you indulge.

I just read "The Star" and "The Country of the Blind". Although "The Star" more properly fits into the sci-fi genre, it was pretty creepy, and "The Country of the Blind" also had its moments.

Jedit
Dec 10, 2011

Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

Zola posted:

I just read "The Star" and "The Country of the Blind". Although "The Star" more properly fits into the sci-fi genre, it was pretty creepy, and "The Country of the Blind" also had its moments.

Which version of The Country of the Blind did you read? Wells revised the story in the 1930s and had the Country of the Blind destroyed by a natural disaster that the inhabitants would not flee because they didn't believe Nunez could see it coming.

Barbelith
Oct 23, 2010

SMILE
Taco Defender

navyjack posted:

Alan Moore's 'The Invisibles' has some of that too.

That was Grant Morrison. And it's weird. Very, very weird.

Alan Moore did a Lovecraft inspired thing called Neonomicon, though. Didn't read it and it was published through Avatar Press which generally doesn't inspire much confidence.

Neurosis
Jun 10, 2003
Fallen Rib
It's pretty bad. Alan Moore is a great writer but Neonomicon was just bizarre and not very enjoyable.

iostream.h
Mar 14, 2006
I want your happy place to slap you as it flies by.

MockingQuantum posted:

I know this isn't technically relevant, but I think it's a good venue for this question: Anybody have any recommendations (or whatever the opposite of a recommendation would be?) of good comic book/graphic novel adaptations of Lovecraft? Or any graphic novels with a distinctly Cosmic Horror flavor?
There was the 'Fall of Cthulhu' series from some time ago that I enjoyed quite a lot.

Neurosis
Jun 10, 2003
Fallen Rib
Oh and Ed Brubaker is writing Fatale now which is heavily Lovecraft influenced. It's pretty good. But then every Brubaker/Phillips collaboration is good.

Zola
Jul 22, 2005

What do you mean "impossible"? You're so
cruel, Roger Smith...

Jedit posted:

Which version of The Country of the Blind did you read? Wells revised the story in the 1930s and had the Country of the Blind destroyed by a natural disaster that the inhabitants would not flee because they didn't believe Nunez could see it coming.

It was the unrevised version, where he found a way out of the valley on the eve of having his eyes removed

I'll have to see if I can find the revised version and see what it's like, although what you describe feels almost heavy-handed in contrast to the version I read. Almost like forcing the story to have a "moral" when it was fine as it was. Kind of like: In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king and if the blind can't understand this natural law, they should pay the price for their backwardness

AuMaestro
May 27, 2007

Ramsey Campbell started off on some Lovecraftian stuff, although his best works aren't quite cosmic horror. Alone with the Horrors is a good collection of short stories.

Donald Tyson's Necronomicon is a quite enjoyable travelogue of the Cthulhu Mythos. All of the other (unrelated) Necronomicons are awful.

Vertigus
Jan 8, 2011

derkaiser posted:

Alan Moore did a Lovecraft inspired thing called Neonomicon, though. Didn't read it and it was published through Avatar Press which generally doesn't inspire much confidence.

Alan Moore is loving crazy and half of Neonomicon was about an Elder One raping one of the characters repeatedly.

C2C - 2.0
May 14, 2006

Dubs In The Key Of Life


Lipstick Apathy
Just reiterating the Thomas Ligotti recommendation. Finding his material in print can be frustrating; it's rather expensive. Thankfully, his stuff is slowly getting rolled out in the Kindle format.

Jedit
Dec 10, 2011

Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

Zola posted:

It was the unrevised version, where he found a way out of the valley on the eve of having his eyes removed

I'll have to see if I can find the revised version and see what it's like, although what you describe feels almost heavy-handed in contrast to the version I read. Almost like forcing the story to have a "moral" when it was fine as it was. Kind of like: In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king and if the blind can't understand this natural law, they should pay the price for their backwardness

I wouldn't say the 1939 revision was heavy-handed or patronising; it just makes it more obvious that there are none so blind as those who will not see, which was a part of the original.

Unfortunately I can't find it anywhere on the net. See if you can find the Omnibus in a brick-and-mortar bookstore; the only significant change to the text is to replace everything after the third from last paragraph with the new ending.

SlaveTrader
Jan 12, 2003

*sigh* Those were the days...

JerryLee posted:

I'm starting to feel like it would be a pretty lovely apocalypse that needs books like these to put it in context.

You don't need the other books to put it into context since it's, like you said, supermarket supernatural. The best parts of the apocalypse are in the beginning of the story. The sun keeps setting earlier and earlier, the moon is suddenly showing it's dark side, random holes are opening with monstrous insects pouring forth. Eventually the sun doesn't rise at all. At that point, the main 'plot' takes over and the book goes to complete poo poo

I put the end of the world behind spoilers just in case you felt like torturing yourself by reading NightWorld

Vertigus posted:

Alan Moore is loving crazy and half of Neonomicon was about an Elder One raping one of the characters repeatedly.

It was a Deep One. And for anyone that's curious, the victim manages to convince the Deep One to help her escape by giving it a handjob.

GrandpaPants
Feb 13, 2006


Free to roam the heavens in man's noble quest to investigate the weirdness of the universe!

SlaveTrader posted:

It was a Deep One. And for anyone that's curious, the victim manages to convince the Deep One to help her escape by giving it a handjob.

I think the handjob thing was a way to placate the Deep One so that it would stop raping the lady. The Deep One helped her escape because he did the "pregnancy test" and realized she was pregnant.

Neonomicon would have been pretty okay if like half of it wasn't an extended rape scene. The initial investigation part and the mythos interpretation at the end were pretty cool, but then there is just a bunch of uncomfortably explicit rape in the middle and it's like, welp. It's still not a stellar story or anything.

Ligotti has some graphic novel interpretations of his works, but I have no idea how they are. There are two volumes of The Nightmare Factory (not to be confused with his book of the same name), but again, I have no idea how well done it was.

CuddleChunks
Sep 18, 2004

While we consider our next mind-blasting tome of ancient horror, you might want to check out this frontpage article: http://www.somethingawful.com/d/dungeons-and-dragons/cthulhu-mansions-madness.php


Good times in Chaosium's Call of Cthulu RPG. The second installment is even better but helps if you've met the characters from the first ep.

Ornamented Death
Jan 25, 2006

Pew pew!

MockingQuantum posted:

I know this isn't technically relevant, but I think it's a good venue for this question: Anybody have any recommendations (or whatever the opposite of a recommendation would be?) of good comic book/graphic novel adaptations of Lovecraft? Or any graphic novels with a distinctly Cosmic Horror flavor?

Boom! Studios did a whole bunch of comics like this. Someone already mentioned Fall of Cthulhu, which is actually four sequential mini-series. There are also a whole ton of tie-ins and related books: Hexed, Necronomicon, Cthulhu Tales, The Calling, and an illustrated version of Nyarlathotep.

Dynamite's Savage Tales comics also frequently had Lovecraftian segments, though they weren't as good as what Boom! was doing.

There's the two volume The Nightmare Factory that adapts several of Ligotti's stories, but they aren't all cosmic horror.

And, of course, there are the Hellboy and B.P.R.D. comics.

Groke
Jul 27, 2007
New Adventures In Mom Strength

Vertigus posted:

Alan Moore is loving crazy

Yeah, and while his craziness has resulted in lots of awesome output over the years, lately I find the awesomeness increasingly lacking.

Mr.48
May 1, 2007

C2C - 2.0 posted:

Just reiterating the Thomas Ligotti recommendation. Finding his material in print can be frustrating; it's rather expensive. Thankfully, his stuff is slowly getting rolled out in the Kindle format.

Yeah, one of my biggest regrets is passing on an original copy of Nightmare Factory for a measly $40. This was before I realized just how rare and valuable that particular collection was, they usually go for several hundred dollars on ebay.

I did manage to snag copies of Noctuary and Shadow at the Bottom of the World though.

mdemone
Mar 14, 2001

C2C - 2.0 posted:

Just reiterating the Thomas Ligotti recommendation. Finding his material in print can be frustrating; it's rather expensive. Thankfully, his stuff is slowly getting rolled out in the Kindle format.

Finding a plastic-wrapped first edition of Teatro Grottesco in the local used-book shop...ah, memories-

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Ornamented Death
Jan 25, 2006

Pew pew!

mdemone posted:

Finding a plastic-wrapped first edition of Teatro Grottesco in the local used-book shop...ah, memories-

An actual Durtro first edition or the Mythos edition? There's a huuuuuuuuge difference :).

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