Lovecraft's Peers

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[@H-HWJvN]

The saddest thing is that Chaosium stopped publishing their Mythos Cycle series. I own a few of them. The series deserve a hardcover treatment and a new edition!

[@SandyofCthulhu]

I think they didn't want to sell to bookstores any more.

[@Skullkan6]

Just from Tales of the Deep Ones, they are VERY good

[@maximilianobartomucci6044]

My personal favorite horror writer that isn't Lovecraft, is Algernon Blackwood, but I love Frank Belknap Long, William Hope Hodgson, and M. R. James (and I like Ramsey Campbell tho not as much as the others). I had never heard of Aickman until now, so I'll have to check him out as soon as I can!

[@SandyofCthulhu]

Blackwood is perfectly fine.

[@fredrickvillalobos9621]

Thank you for all of the insight Sandy!

[@alankelly1001]

Four more authors to add to my "to read" list... along with the usual suspects represented in the old Chaosium line (I loved that series, particularly the volumes dedicated to a single author like Robert Bloch or Henry Kuttner)

[@maximilianobartomucci6044]

Kuttner's "The Graveyard Rats" is one of the few horror stories that managed to creep me out for real, a great author indeed.

[@SandyofCthulhu]

@@maximilianobartomucci6044 I do like Kuttner. I just like Long, James, and Hodgson more.

[@maximilianobartomucci6044]

@@SandyofCthulhu yeah, I like some of them more too. It's just that most of the horror authors and stories I love, I tend to enjoy them far more than they manage to actually unsettle me.

[@chevalierdulys]

REally enjoy your videos and this as much. I have dozens of dozens of Lovecraftian novels. There's been talks here of Arthur Machen, Brian Lumley it's also a good lovecraftian writer, more oldies Robert Bloch, CL Moore, August Derleth, Robert E Howard and of course Clark Ashton Smith. More modern we've got T.E.D. Klein, Michael Shea, John Langan, Tim Curran, Laird Bairdon. An universe... The only one I didn't knew was Aickman but Amazon it's bringing me some books just after your video :)

[@itnaklipse1669]

Thanks, Sandy. Will check out each of these unfamiliar authors. i'd recommend Lovecraft's personal friend's Robert E. Howard's horror-stories, which often are better than his more famous Conan-stuff.

[@MrWarlord396]

Thanks for the tips, chief. I've been looking for some more stuff to round out my reading list. "Night Land" is now at the top

[@SandyofCthulhu]

It's pretty crazy.

[@samwagner7837]

Winter is a very creepy time in general. More so then fall. Just think about the fact that it was the time when most people died due to starvation. Night is coming closer and the solstice is drawing near. All the plants outside are dead and animals are no where near. The rhyming was only half intentional

[@SandyofCthulhu]

SOMETHING made it rhyme. You are falling under Ithaqua's sway.

[@WarDogMadness]

the great god pan Arthur Machen and The Place Called Dagon Herbert Gorman . i was aware of all those writer except Ramsey campbell.

[@SandyofCthulhu]

so ... the most recent one? You are old-school, friend. I salute you.

[@WarDogMadness]

@@SandyofCthulhu i tend not to read much pulp past the 1970ds. i mostly ready the 1910 to 1960 sorry if i stated a argument in the other thred for you.

[@bartekkucharski3880]

Hi. Just binge watching your stuff for last 2 days. Really like it. BTW. If you see names like Carnacki or names ending at CKI, its pronounced like TZKI... Carnatzki. Its eastern european-ish name.

[@Zenoflame]

Thank you for this video, many of the authors you've mentioned I was aware of but over the years I would forget about them and rediscover them again after some time. So with this video I have them all collected in one place to read at my leisure and not forget about them. Thanks again and keep up the vids.

[@mandilarator]

I went straight to my library after watching this video to find out that I already owned the "The Boats of Glen Carrig" book. It seems that I was very young when I first read it and never touched it again because it gave me the creeps! I'll definitely read it again now since grown up men are not scared of old tales. Or do they?! That for the very informative video Sandy!

[@SandyofCthulhu]

I am old and still get scared reading good enough stories.

[@stevencali3539]

Politicians who's children are pterodactyls... Does that mean politicians are lizard people? 😂

[@michaelmayr1990]

Ramsey Campbell is awesome. I think Yogolanac is my favorite Great Old One.

[@thomassynths]

I actually might give some of these a read. Thanks!

[@marekjurko4548]

The Nightland is incredible. Very good video.

[@boris2342]

just read "a voice in the night" by Hodgeson... it was also featured on psudopod podcast

[@ProfBoggs]

Is it me or is this video in lower resolution than usual? Nevermind, around 1:30 we get to see Sandy's awesome whiskers in high detail. Are the rest of William Hope Hodgson's works as stilted as _The Night Land_? I love me some purple prose, but wow, that man laid it on too thick for my tastes. I still like the world-building in the _The Night Land_. While it is not the oldest far future post-apocolyptic tale I have read (I think H.G. Well's _The Time Machine_ takes that prize, but it is not as bleak or desperate a _The Night Land_). I think what I really liked about _The Night Land_ was how alien in style and setting it was compared to everything I have ever read since. Perhaps more importantly, did anyone ever design a game in the world of _The Night Land_? I'll have to give Ramsey Campbell a try again. Maybe I read too much of his earlier stuff, but it struck me as too derivative. His Mythos tales were sometims a fun romp, but rarely strayed outside of Lovecraft's sandbox. His tales about those mortals trapped in the Dreamlands were probably the tales I liked the most. Anyway, thanks for the content. I still think it is so cool that the guy who decades ago designed _The Call of Cthhulhu_ game I loved to play when I was 13 or so is on KZbin, still making content.

[@SandyofCthulhu]

Hodgson's work is not all as purposely archaic as The Night Land but it is old-fashioned. I think my love for Lovecraft helped "prep" me for Hodgson. Campbell's early stuff IS super-derivative, but it does have little notes that set it apart in my opinion.

[@ProfBoggs]

@@SandyofCthulhu Ah, ok. I'll give his other works a try.

[@tenchuu007]

Great list, thank you!

[@attentionspanlabs]

For public domain authors, I would add: Robert W. Chambers (The King in Yellow, of course, and The Harbormaster) , Arthur Machen (Great God Pan, The White People), Algernon Blackwood (esp. The Willows, but also the John Silence stories), and Manly Wade Wellman, much of whose weird fiction is in the public domain but can be difficult to find. The Flaxman Low stories by Hesketh-Prichard are also very good, though the first couple are somewhat tedious and unimaginative and you may give up before you get to the real gems in the middle.

[@SandyofCthulhu]

I couldn't list everyone.

[@jimwalton8973]

how come you didn't mention Clark Ashton smith in the video? His double shadow story and the return of the sorcerer are some of my absoulute favourites!

[@simonfernandes6809]

Yeah, Clark Ashton Smith is superb. And (I believe) the creator of Tsathoggua.

[@rolandkatsuragi]

Makes sense that a cleric would be good at telling ghosts stories

[@SandyofCthulhu]

It's interesting how often the villain in M. R. James stories are also clerics.

[@sgtearache5303]

Have to agree with the Aickman recommendation. Well, I agree with all of the recs but Aickman I think is a special breed. His stuff isn't nearly as "on the nose" as the other authors mentioned. His stories really are "weird fiction." They have vampires and ghosts and zombies in them, but often those elements are in the background or completely off-stage until the very end. Usually, I'll finish reading an Aickman tale and I'll know two things - I'm quite unsettled and unnerved, and I'm not exactly sure what the story was actually about! He has an incredible gift for getting under the readers skin. The Hospice is a great example...

[@nicholaswoollhead6830]

Hey Sandy. Its hardly likely that you read these comments, but in case you should: this video inspired me to listen to all the Carnegie Ghost-finder stories on audio-book. Thank you foe the recommendation, those stories are both scary and antiquely quaint. Cheers, mate!

[@chrisbaum121]

Next video will be about Lovecrafts friends who are authors too, like Robert E. Howard ?

[@0neDoomedSpaceMarine]

It'd be interesting to hear about the strange myths which were built up around him, like the idea that he regularly hallucinated that Conan the Barbarian would force him to write stories about him, something which turned out to be false and made up by the man who held the rights to his works.

[@kylenetherwood8734]

I think he excluded him because of how well known he is. Along with Clark Ashton Smith.

[@SandyofCthulhu]

I'm not all about Lovecraft's personal life. I leave that in S. T. Joshi's capable hands.

[@andrasmolnar8867]

One thing that occurred to me in connection with HPL's contemporaries who looked up to him as their mentor and asked his advice is that many of them either didn't become acclaimed writers in horror, or they ended up pursuing an outstanding career other than writing. Like, Robert Bloch is best known for Psycho, a piece of crime fiction. Fritz Leiber is perhaps mostly known for Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. Robert H. Barlow became a noted archeologist in his tragically short lifetime, and Kenneth Sterling became a pioneering researcher in medicine. So Lovecraft in fact didn't "raise" followers in horror, and his influence in the genre prevailed posthumously. Also, I don't know if you're into metal, but if if you are, check out German doom metal band Ahab who devoted an album to Hodson's The Boats of the Glen Carrig. Fine music, and the album graphics are stunning.

[@PowertipBrushhead]

Clark Ashton Smith is good too

[@unperson5713]

Thank you.

[@janholtzhausser3262]

Dear Sandy, thank you for this great video! How would you recommend using Robert Aickman’s techniques, themes or stories to create a memorable CoC scenario? Thanks again! Jan

[@toddellner5283]

To which we have to add Klarkash Ton and Algernon Blackwood who were, may Yog Sothoth not strike me down, better writers than HPL.

[@SandyofCthulhu]

I disagree about being better, but they were excellent. I wouldn't count Clark as a horror author though.

[@toddellner5283]

@@SandyofCthulhu Germany was *FORCED* to invade France. It was Great Britain's *DUTY* to ignore its allies for the sake of Hodgson. I'll bet they secretly armed Gavrilo Princip and arranged the marriages that led to Kaiser Wilhelm and ARchduke Ferdinand being related. Nope. Not seeing it, especially not to the degree needed to lay the blame for the war on Britain or give them oracular powers to see what would happen. And especially not letting Germany off the hook for its part.

[@dubuyajay9964]

What about the author's that existed before Lovecraft that influenced him and are referenced to in his stories such as Machen?

[@troyagarcia7709]

Hey Sandy, would you say that there is anything in the Graphic Novel or Japanese Manga that you would call Lovecraftian or partially influenced? I know that Junji Ito comes to mind, but i'm curious if you have anything to add

[@nyankers]

I don't know manga in particular, but I know Lovecraftian works are pretty popular in Japan in general. I'm a particular fan of Gen Urobuchi who (I've heard) considers himself a Lovecraftian writer.

[@JaketheCultist]

I have that red copy of, "Horror from the Hills" and also, "Cold Print" by Campbell. I noticed their value is slowly climbing. Why are mythos collections so pricy? I've seen one from Robert Bloch go up $500, and even a copy of, "The Inhabitant of the Lake..." Run for about a thousand! What gives? Also, what do you think of Thomas Ligotti?

[@SandyofCthulhu]

I think they're costly because they are super desired by the horror crowd, and perennially out of print. I own and have read many of Ligotti's books. I like him, but he doesn't seem as distinctive as, say, Clive Barker or Graham Masterton.

[@Xorron-Arkham-Dreams]

so no REH ?

[@WarDogMadness]

hes one of the fathers of sword and sorcery so not as unknown as these guys

[@Xorron-Arkham-Dreams]

@@WarDogMadness isnt peers soemthing like a colleague?...anyhow reat ideas ill try one or two of them via ebook

[@WarDogMadness]

@@Xorron-Arkham-Dreams or friends or people in the same field as you.

[@WarDogMadness]

@@Xorron-Arkham-Dreams don't get me wrong i love howards work in depression rob us of more great tales of the hyperborean age.

[@SandyofCthulhu]

I figured everyone interested already knew about him. Plus he's not primarily a horror author.

[@bonbondurjdr6553]

Actually, Christmas was not associated with baby Jesus for a good long while: Christmas was Pagan/Krampus. Maybe make a video 'bout this? I'm sure that would be an interesting research!

[@kylenetherwood8734]

He was talking about early twentieth century England

[@SandyofCthulhu]

I mean Christmas hasn't been Pagan for over a thousand years. Though Lovecraft did pen "Yule Horror"

[@miscellaneousshadow7452]

Great video needs more views but, one complaint. This weird background ambience is a bit too much. It sounds like MineCraft ambience turned up to nine. Super distracting. Still terrific content.

[@SandyofCthulhu]

I'll tell my editor.

[@wbbartlett]

You're blaming England for WW1? Incredible. (Also, I think you'll find America's 'war culture' enabled them to pile in to the conflict as well :p) Anyway, despite the rant, an enjoyable and informative vid as always!

[@SandyofCthulhu]

Dude I'm not blaming England for starting it. I blame Serbia and von Berchtold for starting it. I'm blaming England for shaming middle aged geniuses like Hodgson into the front lines. America's "war culture"? We were less jingoistic and warlike than England, France, Germany AND Russia of the time. Heck Wilson got elected by promising to keep us OUT of the war. People in Europe who wanted to avoid the war were pilloried as traitors. Look how the peacemongers are portrayed in writings of the time in England.

[@0neDoomedSpaceMarine]

I too, am bitter about Nazism and International Communism. The past is however the past, so we can't do anything about that, though it's rather upsetting that there's people who insist to not let such ideologies *stay* in the past, where they belong.

[@SandyofCthulhu]

On to newer and even more vile ideologies, says I!

[@polishedpebble4111]

Damn Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, Cuba putting their countries in the way of our bombs.

[@0neDoomedSpaceMarine]

@@polishedpebble4111 The various sins of the US state apparatus does not absolve the sins of those of North Korea or Cuba, and however ill advised the Vietnam War was, and for how horrible it turned out, it came about from Vietnam breaking up into two states (due to various fundamental political and social problems, which the US refused to understand and could never reconcile), with the Northern state waging war on the Southern state, which asked a sympathetic United States government for assistance (much like the Northern state was asking the sympathetic Chinese government and sympathetic Eastern Bloc governments for assistance). Two wrongs certainly don't make one right, but don't forget that the first wrong was still wrong.

[@unclecrusty5476]

Why the bitterness towards Britain for world war one?

[@H-HWJvN]

Thought the same thing. There was no one way to deal with the Reich, unfortunately.

[@riobux3018]

I did have a bit of a wild ride in the short chatter about WW1. Like blaming WW1 for millions of Communism deaths is a stretch at best, as many historians have concluded the Tsar was going to be overthrown anyway and the defeat in WW1 was the straw that broke the camel's back (Russians don't like unarmed protestors being shot). Or singling out Britain for WW1, which I get the whole bitterness since I assume the author was from the UK, but there was a draft (so nationalism or no, to the front lines you go) and England sat back until very late in the cascade of diplomatic tragedy and fumbling. Then again, it would have been wild to hear Sandy curse Hungary or Serbia's name all of a sudden for the death of an author. I do consider WW1 a tragic war though, Butcher Haig was an arse and the Treaty of Versailles was just a failure that caused more war than much else due to the economic crippling of Germany as vengeance.

[@WarDogMadness]

well if we want to be whos who its serbia fault start it by killing the only non warmonger Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austrian. and then the domono of allies,but Britain did bully a lot of men into the front lines.

[@unclecrusty5476]

@@WarDogMadness As far as im aware Britain was the last nation to enforce a draft on its population for the war every attempt was made at a volutenteer army first unlike france, prussia or russia who drafted from the start.

[@WarDogMadness]

@@unclecrusty5476 yeah there a well document of social stigma in britain for not volunteering for war. with groups of women assaulting and for pining white feathers on men who didn't go to war.