Is this a short story that has been taken to a new level by later writers?

I want to read the story but all I see in the bookstores are analysis books by other people. What should I look for to get the Cthulhu story?

I'm not sure if I've read your post correctly, but I'll reply anyway....

.... Cthulhu was a fictional, alien, godlike creature.

The Cthulhu mythos was created by H P Lovecraft, although this term, describing the setting for his weird horror tales, was actually coined by someone else!

Other writers pay homage to him by using similar themes/settings/characters etc.

You may be interest to know that there is a FAQ!

To answer what I think was the question, yes there would have been an original story and to find it you'd need to get yourself an H P Lovecraft collection. Check here.

Hope this helps!

Thanks

Lovecraft was an amazing author... I have all his work...

I know I'll get flamed for this, but I find HP Lovecraft very dull. I tried really hard to get through "Mountains of Madness", and just couldn't do it. If you could write the word "Dull" a million times, then read out loud in a low, monotone voice what you'd written, you'd get an idea of just how mind bogglingly boring I found HP Lovecraft's work. I guess it didn't help when I had friends gushing about how great that particular book was.

Argh. Cthulhu is a neat idea, in spite of the dullness of its creator.

Marianne

I hope you don't get flamed, but his writing can be very trying (his prose is "interesting"), but he still is my favorite.

Ok...how do you pronounce Cthulhu (a little trivia for y'all).


...the bloated obscenity pulled itself forth from the blackened abyss, and at that moment my mind mercifully snapped and all became dark...

Giantrobo, the Cthulhu creatures are also presented in the older original versions of the ADnD "Deities and Demigods" handbook. Subsequent versions of the book had all mention of Cthulhu deleted as it was a term used without permission by the Lovecraft estate.

I have only read one story by another writer that was worthwhile: The Hounds of Tindalos. (I think that Zelazney put an homage to them in one of the Amber books.)

Lovecraft's prose was ... difficult. A lot of the plots were wooden. There are no naked women, gun battles, or heros.

But he got rid of all those silly vampires and ghosts, and wrote horror stories about things that are really disturbing.

The AD&D write-ups were pretty bad, as I recall. Check out the Cthulhu RPG, in which your character has a limited number of sanity points. Your character usually goes mad in the end.

For a good first Lovecraft story, read The Colour Out of Space.

"Thoo-loo"

Try the graphic novel (a collected comic book series) called "Hellboy: Seed of Destruction" for something that takes Lovecraft-like ideas and applies them to a wildly entertaining story. The artwork is absolutely perfect as well.

Maybe it was just me, but I found Lovecraft absolutely fascinating and wonderful to read. It really gripped me, and I loved the language and descriptions used.

At any rate, the real story that gets to the basis of the Cthulu mythos is "The Call of Cthulu". Lovecraft created several different cycles/mythos's including the Dreamquest cycle, the Cthulu cycle, and the Innsmouth cycle, and all of them overlap each other at one point or another.

Tuan Jim

I love Lovecraft's stories and I love reading about Lovecraft himself. H.P. Lovecraft: A Life by S.T. Joshi is really a great book if you want to read HPL's biography. As for other writers doing Cthulhu stories, I've really hated most of them. The only writers I've read who have been able to replicate Lovecraft's tone are Ted Klein and Thomas Ligotti, though neither of these writers did any actual Cthulhu material. Ted Klein's story "The Events at Poroth Farm" as well as his novel The Ceremonies (and his collection of stories called Dark Gods) seem kind of like modern-day Lovecraft. The prose isn't as dense as HPL's, but it still has this ominous, depressing tone to it that I like. The same goes for Thomas Ligotti, who has a collection out called The Nightmare Factory which contains the majority of his stories. As for HPL himself...I noticed that there are some "annotated" versions of his stories on the market, and they contain helpful footnotes that explain some of the more obscure language and locales. Those might be good for someone having a hard time getting into that type of writing.

I've read little of Lovecraft but what I did read I found interesting. I vaguely remember a story called Dagon, where the protagonist finds the abode of the Philistine god, or something; and another story about an Evil Clergyman. Hehehehe.

I remember having a conversation with an author called Ramsey Campbell, and he told me if it wasn't for H.P. Lovecraft, he would never have become a writer. Ah Well.

I feel the same way, unfortunately. I really like the mythology and atmosphere he created...and then nothing happens. I often joke that I can sum up most Lovecraft stories by adopting a faux British or New England dialect and intoning the line, "...then I looked upon the forbidden tome of The Old ONES...and went MAAAAAD!!!"

Don't get me wrong, I really want to like his stories, but I think his prose is dense and convoluted with no real concept of how to tell a story. Kind of like buying a really beautiful sportscar that only travels at 5 mph. The idea is good, but it just doesn't go anywhere.

Somehow, I think I may have taken some of the future flames off you now.

Jeez, I responded to this thread a year ago.

Caoimhin: Reanimator.

Lovecraft fans really should check out the new videogame Eternal Darkness. While it doesn't directly reference Lovecraft's work, it's obviously heavily inspired by him. There's even a "Sanity Meter" and when you go mad all sorts of wild things happen in the game.

Brian Lumley was an early Lovecraft disciple.Before he did his "Necroscope" Vampire series, he wrote his 1930's occult detective "Titus Crow" series, set with Cthulhu overtones. This is more adventure than horror though. You might want to check out the three released volumes of his six books.

I always say "coo-TOO-loh" but I could be wrong.

Actually, Lovecraft said that the name could not be reproduced with human vocal cords.

I have yet to read any of his stories, but I was in Borders tonite, and I picked up "The Best Of H.P. Lovecraft".

I contains "The Call of Ctuhulu" "The Dunwich Horror", "The Colour Out Of Space" and "The Shadow Over Innsmouth".

Is this a good place to start? Or should I be reading something else first?

I've finally started reading Lovecraft's stories, after years of putting that on the backburner. Being a completist and chronological freak, I've started from the beginning. I made a major score at a second hand bookstore several weeks back, and got all the modern Del Rey paperbacks for like .50 each. Woo hoo!

Anyway, I would say if you're not the completist that I am, these stories are very popular, except maybe Colour Out of Space (I personally haven't heard of that one), so you've got a good collection there.

I'm sure someone with much more Lovecraft knowledge and fervor will be along shortly to set you in the right direction.

How cool Thunderball! I had that very same book in my hands last weekends while at Borders but I didn't buy it.

I want to get into Lovecraft because his stuff seems so complex.

This FAQ has some suggestions (about halfway or two-thirds of the way down the page) on where to start:

http://www.hplovecraft.com/internet/ahcfaq/mini-faq.htm

And, for laughs, read the "book-a-minute" version of Lovecraft here:

http://rinkworks.com/bookaminute/b/lovecraft.shtml

Tball, I would say that that is an excellent place to start.

Mutley, if you want to be a completist, you need to get the four hardcover volumes edited by S.T. Joshi and published by Arkham House. The Del Rey books from the early 90s skipped stories and had duplicate stories between them. It was a very strange arrangement.

Alyxstarr, that's very funny.

I highly recommend the volumes published by Arkham House. As far as I know the S.T. Joshi versions are the most up to date and corrected versions available. They make great additions to your library. I love Lovecraft's stories but I haven't read them in a few years. I'd say if you aren't sure if you like him, try the best of book you purchased and, if you decide to continue, check out Arkham House (I think they have a web site now with an online catalog).

My personal favorite story is "The Rats In the Walls"

Michael

Thanks for the advice. I actually went back to Borders today to pick up the new Maxim(my DVDTalk subscription hasn't started yet ) And I grabbed the other "best of" book they had. This one was about Dreams.

I figured after reading those 2, I could get a good feel for the author..