Love of Lovecraft

In order to fully understand one of the new gods in my novella mythology I had to read a little HP Lovecraft. Admittedly I didn't enjoy "The case of Charles Dexter Ward" which I found dry and dull. The overwhelming brilliance of the other stuff I read in "The Thing on the Doorstep and other stories" collection made me love his work. Here's a rundown of stories I read in that collection.

1. The Temple: This short story was great because it explored nautical madness and was very implicit about the horror that lay within.

2. Beyond the wall of sleep: The appeal of this short story for me came from its mixture of human repulsiveness and cosmic horror.

3. The Tomb: I liked this story because it dealt with how obsession can make one monstrous.

4. The White Ship: This was a very good story due to its interesting mix of gorgeous fantasy and a sense of tragic loss at the end.

5. The Quest of Iranon: This was probably my favourite story of the anthology. It combined fantasy, a naval journey but a sense of doom and foreboding.

6. The Music of Erich Zann: I enjoyed this one, it was quite disturbing. It reminded me of a description of the manga Adolf where a Jew who played a violin next to a Nazi officer was shot by the Nazi (called Adolf). Subsequently Adolf was haunted by the violin music in regular nightmares of guilt. OK Erich Zann was dealing with a sense of demonic in music rather than nightmares in music.

7. Under the Pyramids: Beautifully grotesque and macabre in the night time parts but interestingly historical in the daytime parts.

8. Pickman's model: Oddly I didn't mind the genealogical parts despite usually being bored by that kind of thing. The grotesqueness of the art and the hellishness was a good reflection of Pickman's trafficking with demonic forces.

9. At the Mountains of Madness: I skimmed or skipped the parts concerning geological detail because I have no interest in geology. Overall I loved this story though. It was especially interesting in my opinion due to the excellent explanation of the different abomination races/ sets of gods.

Now for our regular guest speaker/ proclaimer of approvals: Norman Osborn!

Thank you Geordie Green Lantern. Today I approve of: Eldritch Abominations.