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Gee, what wou'd Mr. Lovecraft say? (pg. 3)
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| netroM |
| quote: | Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On
Also, The Hound was a really great story. In the Call of Cthulhu game, there is a creature called The Hound of Tindalos
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I've watched a friend play that game. Looks really good, apart from some slight bugs. I never really liked survival horror though :o |
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| bamski |
| quote: | Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On
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The first seven pages in the first of his books that I started reading, (intro written in '66 by some Derleth guy..). Was a great introduction into how much he struggled with his work, and hints can be found that most of them did not do well at all, simply because they were too obscure (maybe even today, but at the time, certainly). And perhaps even grammatically incorrect, wouldn't know about that.
So in no ways am I saying the man was the greatest writer of all time. The only way I can describe him is that he paints me pictures that are beyond comparison when it comes to darkness and richness, texture, and all that jibba-jabba.
edit: And thanks for proving my point, J. well, I guess the lesson is that everyone has their opinion and you take from them what you will. |
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| Halcyon+On+On |
| quote: | Originally posted by netroM
I've watched a friend play that game. Looks really good, apart from some slight bugs. I never really liked survival horror though :o |
I meant the pen & paper game by Chaosium. 
//But the PC game from a few years back is brilliant as well. Bug-laden, for sure, but this is done on purpose, to, uh, mirror the flaws in Lovecraft's work. Yeah, that's it.
But there are incredibly stressful parts of the PC game that deal with a sanity system not dissimilar to the pen & paper version. When you stare directly at statues of Cthulhu or shoggoths themselves, your vision begins warping, you trip and stumble around as you're overcome with panic, you begin whispering to yourself, and if you carry around ammo with you, you have a chance to just shoot yourself in the head. So it takes the 'survival' dynamic from a few other horror games where you have scarce resources (Resident Evil comes to mind) and it turns it on its head... so to speak. It's great, and Amnesia probably owes a lot to it. |
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| netroM |
Ah, my bad :P
Yeah, Amnesia looks to have been seriously influenced by it. |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| quote: | Originally posted by bamski
edit: And thanks for proving my point, J. well, I guess the lesson is that everyone has their opinion and you take from them what you will. |
I'm not demanding you agree with me, nor calling you an idiot for your opinion. I just found it extremely surprising to see several people with good taste praising the guy without any mention of his deep, deep flaws. For me they overwhelm any enjoyment I get from his work, and it's definitely not just my tendency to pick out flaws. If they don't for you, that's great, but Lovecraft remains a massive disappointment for me. |
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| bamski |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
I'm not demanding you agree with me, nor calling you an idiot for your opinion. I just found it extremely surprising to see several people with good taste praising the guy without any mention of his deep, deep flaws. For me they overwhelm any enjoyment I get from his work, and it's definitely not just my tendency to pick out flaws. If they don't for you, that's great, but Lovecraft remains a massive disappointment for me. |
All points taken from my part. If you could only have named a few writers that might have managed to pick up where he left off, and managed to avoid these horrid mistakes and disappointments you speak of, then your posts would have been more than useful, and face it, nice .
That is, if he wasn't awful beyond comparison. You make it sound like there's people who(m?) can do this 'painting pictures' thing better for me? And I'm also interested of knowing about his deepest flaws, since I'm new I wouldn't want to waste my time reading too much 'extra'.
Sorry for preaching about social skills. Robot need oil? |
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| SYSTEM-J |
Well, Lovecraft's influence is so engrained in 20th Century horror that the list could go on forever. It's like asking who has taken Kraftwerk's ideas on in music (except Kraftwerk were great in their own right). Certainly you can find Lovecraft in the work of giants like Stephen King, John Carpenter and HR Giger, to name various fields of horror. His work is echoed in thousands of videogames and graphic novels.
I think it's testament to the radical innovation of his work that Lovecraft still doesn't feel clichéd or dated, at least in terms of content. The tentacles, ancient gods and sunken cities have been beaten to death in the last century, but his own work doesn't suffer from over-familiarity. I have huge respect for his vision, but sadly very little for his execution. And as I said, there are a couple of stories where he gets it right. I've read 10-20 of his works, of various lengths, which is not comprehensive. I'm sure there's more good in there, I just don't really want to dig for it. |
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| bamski |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
Well, Lovecraft's influence is so engrained in 20th Century horror that the list could go on forever. It's like asking who has taken Kraftwerk's ideas on in music (except Kraftwerk were great in their own right). Certainly you can find Lovecraft in the work of giants like Stephen King, John Carpenter and HR Giger, to name various fields of horror. His work is echoed in thousands of videogames and graphic novels. |
I was kind of hoping you'd bring up someone like, let's say.. Poe.
Since you're clearly familiar with H.P's work, do you see any resemblance to Poe at all, or "see Poe" at all..?
Once again, just curious since I'm not familiar with Poe, either. :( |
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| Halcyon+On+On |
| I've heard exactly 11-21 Dubstep tracks. |
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| Lira |
If I had a name like Lovecraft, I'd write cyperpunk porno. Or just plain porn.
"Hey, baby, hop on the Love Craft and hold tight because this is going to be a bumpy riiiiiiiiide!" |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| quote: | Originally posted by bamski
I was kind of hoping you'd bring up someone like, let's say.. Poe.
Since you're clearly familiar with H.P's work, do you see any resemblance to Poe at all, or "see Poe" at all..?
Once again, just curious since I'm not familiar with Poe, either. :( |
You can't have caught my edit on the first page where I said "The Outsider is like a bad parody of Poe." Although Poe came before Lovecraft and was a big inspiration on him, and I don't think you'd get the same Lovecraftian vibe from him. Poe was working more within the realms of the straight-up gothic, where Lovecraft is a grotesquely mutated gothic. I can't say I'm a massive fan of Poe either, but there's no question that Poe was a master craftsman with total control over his work.
| quote: | Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On
I've heard exactly 11-21 Dubstep tracks. |
Your surface-level irony is marginally less effective than one of Lovecraft's laboured plot twists. |
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| bamski |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
You can't have caught my edit on the first page where I said "The Outsider is like a bad parody of Poe." Although Poe came before Lovecraft and was a big inspiration on him, and I don't think you'd get the same Lovecraftian vibe from him. Poe was working more within the realms of the straight-up gothic, where Lovecraft is a grotesquely mutated gothic. I can't say I'm a massive fan of Poe either, but there's no question that Poe was a master craftsman with total control over his work. |
Actually I did miss that and am glad you brought it up, as I was never even a big fan of science fiction, let alone weird fiction, which is a term he pretty much coined(?).
I knew I was leaning towards Poe for a reason, and that one sentence tells me I'm on the right path.. What you mean't with "more within the realms of the straight-up gothic" could be taken as "less dragons, more dungeons", no? Because I'd be a lot more interested in reading stories that are written in the same way but more of this world. Stuff about how Jack and Jill ran up the hill, rather than how Gghkjle lived in a tree of twisted wood, whose low prodigious oaks twine groping boughs and shine dim with the phosphorescence of strange fungi, dwell the furtive and secretive zoogs. :) |
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