When the first cool, post-August day breezed in, I began to turn my attention to thoughts of Autumn reading, which of course means Halloween and horror stories. I have a hankering to return to the Cthulthu mythos, which I haven't read deeply for some years. I am hoping to get through one if not two of Brian Lumley's Titus Crow novels, as I enjoyed his stories last year - one of which was a Crow tale.
I saw mention of some of Lumley's potential influences on the character of Titus Crow, including H. P. Lovecraft's character of Randolph Carter. The Clock of Dreams, in fact, is the same strange clock featured in "Through the Gates of the Silver Key." That spurred me to re-read the Randolph Carter tales before October arrives. I'm through "The Unnamable", "The Silver Key", and "Through the Gates of the Silver Key." I still have "The Statement of Randolph Carter" and "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath" to read.
Being on a Mythos kick lately, I investigated the availability of the Chaosium Call of Cthulhu Fiction series, which I missed the first time around. The first entries in the series are long out-of-print, of course, and I'll need to monitor eBay and ABEBooks. But, it turns out that Chaosium have a large selection of "Boo-boo Books" - books that have wandered between stores and warehouses and have some scuffing or slight crumpling of cover corners - and they sell them at half-price. While none of the classic ones seem available (shopworn or not) - e.g.; The Book of Iod - I couldn't resist expanding my Mythos library a little.
I could have gotten some e'books, but sometimes you just want print. Plus, I have some new bookcases on order. :) (Hey, I am also moving some books along, really I am.)
It feels creepily good to wander the haunted hills of the surrounding countryside and walk through the darkened streets of gambrel-roofed houses of timeworn Arkham again.
Here, a cool post-August day is one where the high temp only reaches the upper 80s. Still, I know what you mean. I've been in the mood for something spooky all week.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to be reviewing more horror until the end of October. I've never read a great deal of Lovecraft, certainly not to the extent I've read Howard, but I have enjoyed most of what I've read by him. I need to check out the Randolph Carter stories. The most recent Lovecraft I read was "The Haunter of the Dark", which Charles Rutledge had on his list the other day.
If you want horror, I'd go with "The Statement of Randolph Carter." The others are enjoyable, but trend more toward dark fantasy. "The Unnamable" is horror, but has bit of philosophical nattering before it gets to the punch line.
Delete"The statement of Randolph Carter" is pretty darn good in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteYes, and as I just replied to Keith, probably the most "horror" of the Carter tales.
DeleteBTW, I really liked The Book of Iod. I recommend it if you can find a reasonably priced copy. Most of the stories in it are by Henry Kuttner, and the bulk of those are available in the Haffner Press collection Terror in the House.
ReplyDeleteI have Terror in the House, so I am glad to learn of the overlaps with The Book of Iod. BTW, do we know if Haffner still has plans for an eventual volume 2 of Kuttner's horror writing? (Assuming if there was a vol 1, there would be more.)
DeleteThat Chaosium Necronomicon volume has a lot of good stuff in it. Some nice additions to your collection.
ReplyDelete