In search of cosmic/eldritch horror

[GolemsVoice]

The title says it. I've now read almost everything Lovecraft had to ofer, and realy love him, but now I'm asking: what else is there? Are his followers, Campbell for example, worth a read? I'm very much a purist, so, how close are they to him? At the moment, I'm trying Stephen King, what of his works can you recommend? (not only purely cosmic horror, but in this vain?)

Are there other good works, completely unrelated to Lovecraft, that feature cosmic or eldritch horror?
Or maybe movies, animes?

[chiasaur11]

Well, if you don't mind mankind sometimes successfully fighting back, Hellboy and BPRD would be good.

Lots of Lovecraftian nasties, in addition to the demons, fairies, witches, aliens, and Nazis.

[GolemsVoice]

I'm itching to see Hellboy (are the comics any good?), but what's BPRD?

[chiasaur11]

I'm itching to see Hellboy (are the comics any good?), but what's BPRD?

A spin off of the comics.

Hellboy's old gang gets their own solo series.

And I was mainly talking about the comics, which are excellence personified.

[GolemsVoice]

I thought you were talking about the comics, don't know why I started with the movies, must be the time. (Rather late round these here parts)

[Decoy Lockbox]

How do you feel about manga? Berserk (http://www.thespectrum.net/manga_scans/berserk/) has quite a bit of cosmic horror, and is a thrilling read to boot.

[LurkerInPlayground]

How do you feel about manga? Berserk (http://www.thespectrum.net/manga_scans/berserk/) has quite a bit of cosmic horror, and is a thrilling read to boot.
I'm not sure it's Lovecraftian "cosmic" horror in its strictest sense. I like to think of it as a more gothic form of horror, since it tends to focus more on the human element.

Lovecraft basically is all about how the human notions of evil are meaningless to universe. Bad things happen to good people because the universe is impartial and disinterested. Lovecraft is influential because he was the early precursor to a more modernistic sensibility being applied to horror.

Whereas in Berserk, the focus is more on how the evil tends to be more self-inflicted. The demons merely form as a result of this psychic buildup of anguish, despair, malevolence and etcetera. The worst villains in the story are or were humans.

Hellboy pays loving tribute to the idiosyncrasies of Lovecraftian horror, but I'd hardly it down as the main focus of the story. It's still about a big tough guy who shoots at supernatural things for a living.

[Gorgondantess]

Hmmm...
While Hellboy doesn't have much of a focus on the Eldritch Horror thing, it definitely appeals to the same crowd and even with its fae and demons gives a very eldritch horror kind of vibe. And the art is awesome. Highly recommended.
Anyhow... I may just be a snob, but I've always found the Lovecraft knockoffs, and even his friends who wrote with him, to be rather apalling. Noone really "got" the true thing that makes Lovecraftian Horror Lovecraftian Horror.
Also, Steven King is a good writer- some of his works are really, really good (and, well, some of them are crap), but he's not good in the Eldritch Horror arena, he's good in the characters and characterization arena. I'd advise it, but not as an unspeakable evil kind of book.
Anyhow, are you sure you've read all of Lovecraft? The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, Dreamquest, everything? Other than that, I honestly can't advise much. He was truly the master, and none have even come close.

[chiasaur11]

I'm not sure it's Lovecraftian "cosmic" horror in its strictest sense. I like to think of it as a more gothic form of horror, since it tends to focus more on the human element.

Lovecraft basically is all about how the human notions of evil are meaningless to universe. Bad things happen to good people because the universe is impartial and disinterested. Lovecraft is influential because he was the early precursor to a more modernistic sensibility being applied to horror.

Whereas in Berserk, the focus is more on how the evil tends to be more self-inflicted. The demons merely form as a result of this psychic buildup of anguish, despair, malevolence and etcetera. The worst villains in the story are or were humans.

Hellboy pays loving tribute to the idiosyncrasies of Lovecraftian horror, but I'd hardly it down as the main focus of the story. It's still about a big tough guy who shoots at supernatural things for a living.

I disagree good sir!

Hellboy can't shoot for crap. He PUNCHES things.

[LurkerInPlayground]

I disagree good sir!

Hellboy can't shoot for crap. He PUNCHES things.
He doesn't really need to shoot well when he's close to most of things he shoots and his gun is really big.

[LurkerInPlayground]

Robert E. Howard has some Lovecraftian influences in his writing. Conan stories tend to be very human-centric, but not so much so that Conan can ever really hope to defeat eldritch horrors without some luck. Even then, his triumph against such things tend to be of a more existential victory than anything else.

The cosmos may be uncaring and civilization may be corrupt, but a man can still hold his head high by struggling against corruption. It's almost Sisyphean.

Also, bit of trivia:
Robert E. Howard was a chronic depressive who then went out like a rock star, as all the brilliant but unstable artists seem to do.

A cursory perusal of Wikipedia confirms that Lovecraft is Howard's contemporary and were probably very close correspondents.

[Gorgondantess]

Robert E. Howard has some Lovecraftian influences in his writing. Conan stories tend to be very human-centric, but not so much so that Conan can ever really hope to defeat eldritch horrors without some luck. Even then, his triumph against such things tend to be of a more existential victory than anything else.

The cosmos may be uncaring and civilization may be corrupt, but a man can still hold his head high by struggling against corruption. It's almost Sisyphean.

Also, bit of trivia:
Robert E. Howard was a chronic depressive who then went out like a rock star, as all the brilliant but unstable artists seem to do.

A cursory perusal of Wikipedia confirms that Lovecraft is Howard's contemporary and were probably very close correspondents.

Well, yeah, they were good friends, and Howard is quite a good writer. However, when he tries to do Lovecraft, I happen to think it's a travesty.

And Lovecraft was incredibly brilliant and very, very unstable. He went out by cancer and malnutrition.

[LurkerInPlayground]

Well, yeah, they were good friends, and Howard is quite a good writer. However, when he tries to do Lovecraft, I happen to think it's a travesty.

And Lovecraft was incredibly brilliant and very, very unstable. He went out by cancer and malnutrition.
I really don't agree.

Conan isn't some epic hero. He's a scoundrel. And he knows quite well that punching the eldritch horror very hard isn't likely to impress it very much. The same basic story of a man fighting the good fight in spite of not actually being able to really beat the horrors that beset man is still there.

No, Conan isn't going to reel from insanity from encountering eldritch horrors but frankly, it was always a bit silly when that happened to Lovecraft's protagonists. People who have good lives and coping skills aren't going to fall into despondency or trauma as easily, much less full-on gibbering insanity -- although such things are still deeply disturbing.

Besides, I'm a person who is more in love with Lovecraft's idea of horror than I am at his execution of it.

[JonestheSpy]

Colin Wilson's 1969 short novel The Return of the Lloigor is a pretty amazing piece of existential horror. Nothing in it directly references Lovecraft, the word 'lloigor' is lifted from an August Derleth story, though Wilson pretty much reinvented the Lloigor for his own purpose. Lots of folks who've written Chthulu mythos stories since then have conflated the Lloigor with the Great Old Ones, from Robert Anton Wilson to Alan Moore.

[WalkingTarget]

There are some decent anthologies out there collecting various stories by Lovecraft's contemporaries. I think a lot of them are hit-or-miss, but I largely enjoyed R. E. Howard's and Robert Bloch's additions.

Sadly, I haven't read much Ramsey Campbell, so I can't say much about him. I've heard good things, though.

August Derleth put out quite a bit "Lovecraftian" stuff over the years. I feel that he tried too hard to write in Lovecraft's style without utilizing the same themes and is the worse for it in my opinion, but your mileage may vary. A lot of this was marketed as "posthumous collaborations" where Derleth would take a story fragment (sometimes as little as a single sentence) by Lovecraft and would flesh it out into a full story. I've actually read quite a bit of his stuff, despite not being a huge fan, but he has a few decent stories and his take on the Mythos wound up being fairly influential for a long time (partly due to those stories he wrote but attached Lovecraft's name to).

Brian Lumley's books about Titus Crow are also ok (they've got a strong Derleth vibe to them, but I think that Lumley's a better writer). He's said of these that "My guys fight back. Also, they like to have a laugh along the way," which distances him from Lovecraft's pessimism quite a bit.

Neil Gaiman's "A Study in Emerald" is a wonderful Lovecraft/Sherlock Holmes mashup. You can find a pdf copy on Gaiman's website (http://www.neilgaiman.com/p/Cool_Stuff/Short_Stories) (along with a journal dictated by the big C in "I Cthulhu" on that same page, he's also got a pretty funny one titled "Shoggoth's Old Peculiar" which I can't seem to find online, but is included in Gaiman's Smoke and Mirrors anthology).

Robert W. Chambers' The King in Yellow has some pretty good weird stories that pre-date Lovecraft in it (well, the first four stories at least, the back end are more generic romance stories, which honestly I haven't read, my collection of Chambers omits them, but they're not in the same vein as the rest from what I understand).

My favorite non-Lovecraft Mythos stuff, honestly, is Pagan Publishing's Delta Green (both the RPG rulebooks and their original fiction). Not as hopeless as Lovecraft, but I like their interpretations of most of it anyway.

Edit - Oh, and while not based on any particular Lovecraft story, John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness is the most Lovecraftian film I've ever seen.

[bosssmiley]

The title says it. I've now read almost everything Lovecraft had to offer, and really love him, but now I'm asking: what else is there?

Less talk; more Clark Ashton Smith (http://grognardia.blogspot.com/search?q=ashton)

(In terms of "if you liked [foo], you'll love [bar]"; when the first name is Lovecraft, the second is CAS)

Also: R.E.Howard
Karl Edward Wagner
Lord Dunsany
William Hope Hodgeson, and
C.L.Moore

[GolemsVoice]

Well, I think just focusing on strict lovecraftian horror would be pretty limiting, and, as many people in this thread already pointed out, it won't get you many satisfying results, so let's just say horror where the protagonist(s) can't hope for an easy victory, horror in forms that are much bigger than we humans are, and totally alien to us. It doesn't matter if the heroes are able to overcome the threat in the end, because I love a happy end as much as the next person does, if it's implemented well, but they have to struggle, and the reader/viewer must sense that humanity as we know it is <, while the outside world is >. So far, many of the suggestions seem very good, and I'll go check out Clark Ashton Smith, and probably Hellboy.

@Gorgondantess:
Allthough I surely have not read ALL Lovecraft, including his collaborations and ghostwritings, but I have the Necronomcon Lovecraft Omnibus, and quite some literature about the guy, and read more or less every story I could get my hands on, so I think I can safely say I've exhausted Lovecraft. I also DM CoC games, and am the local authority when it comes to cosmic horror.

[JonestheSpy]

DEFINITELY check out Clark Ashton Smith, you cannot go wrong.

Also, in a more modern vein, read World War Z if you haven't already. Dawn of the Dead style zombies might not seem in Lovecraft's vein, but it's frickin' scary, especially in the first part where the world is just figuring out what's going on. And there's a real thread of existential dread and horror in there, definitely reminiscent of ol' Howard Phillips.

[Seonor]

Neil Gaiman's "A Study in Emerald" is a wonderful Lovecraft/Sherlock Holmes mashup. You can find a pdf copy on Gaiman's website (http://www.neilgaiman.com/p/Cool_Stuff/Short_Stories) (along with a journal dictated by the big C in "I Cthulhu" on that same page, he's also got a pretty funny one titled "Shoggoth's Old Peculiar" which I can't seem to find online, but is included in Gaiman's Smoke and Mirrors anthology).


He also did "Only the End of the world again" and "Bay Wolf". Both deal with lovecraftian Horrors. "Snow, Glass, Apples", "Foreign Parts" "Babycakes" and others are probably what you are looking for. All of them are in Smoke and Mirrors. Fragile Things has also a few gems.

[Zanaril]

Some of Stephen King's work, maybe?

[GolemsVoice]

Stupid thing is, decent English writers, especially in their native language, are hard to get here in Germany, or at least not the usual stock of bookshops. Especially if they are not mainstream enough to sell in a different language, but hey, I recently found out that you still can oder almost anything.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Edgar Alan Poe? Not really the same themes but Lovecraft was essentially a Poe wannabe.

[chiasaur11]

Also, in a more modern vein, read World War Z if you haven't already. Dawn of the Dead style zombies might not seem in Lovecraft's vein, but it's frickin' scary, especially in the first part where the world is just figuring out what's going on. And there's a real thread of existential dread and horror in there, definitely reminiscent of ol' Howard Phillips.

Gotta agree, that is an ace book, and fairly unnerving at times.

Anyone mentioned early Pratchett? Had some Lovecraftian nods of the hat, even if the overall tone of the works is as far from horror as you're likely to find.

[GolemsVoice]

Ah, Pratchett. Well, Lovecraft is here x ----------*--------- x Pratchett is here

I don't think, besides a few nods to Conan and eldritch lore, there is much that connects Lovecraft to Pratchett. But I've already read all of Pratchett's Discworld novels, and enjoyed him tremendously.

And I've heard of World War Z repeatedly, I think I'm going to order it next week, and than work my way through Smith, and Stephen King. I've just finished school, so I should have some time now.

[LurkerInPlayground]

Ah, Pratchett. Well, Lovecraft is here x ----------*--------- x Pratchett is here

I don't think, besides a few nods to Conan and eldritch lore, there is much that connects Lovecraft to Pratchett. But I've already read all of Pratchett's Discworld novels, and enjoyed him tremendously.
Terry Pratchett's Discworld is constitutionally about making nerdy references. As you say, the fact that it gets a nod at all in his works is simply him throwing out an inside joke.

[Bhu]

anything by Junji Ito

Chaosium was also putting out lots of lovecraftian related fiction

[jamroar]

anything by Junji Ito

Seconded. Junji Ito's horror manga (Gyo, Uzumaki, Tomie among others) are very Lovecraftian in their tales of bizarre horror.

[Fri]

Stupid thing is, decent English writers, especially in their native language, are hard to get here in Germany, or at least not the usual stock of bookshops. Especially if they are not mainstream enough to sell in a different language, but hey, I recently found out that you still can oder almost anything.

You're really lucky. At least amazon serve you. Sigh.

[GolemsVoice]

I don't mean to insult you, but where do you live that not even Amazon delivers to your are? That is a shame, really!

[Haven]

Dr. McNinja, technically (http://drmcninja.com/page.php?pageNum=19&issue=8).

[tribble]

I used to have a copy of this one book, but I cant remember the name of it...

Anyway, it takes elements of gothic and cosmic horror, and makes it comedic by putting it in New Mexico. IE: the boring wasteland part of New Mexico. the main characters are a Vampire and a Werewolf, buddies and good ol' boys. the villian is a jailbait sorceress who wants to cause armageddon... pretty much because she's bored. lampoons a lot of lovecraft stuff, such as eldritch names that look like the author punched the keyboard.

[Bhu]

Also, check out Boom comics. Theyre doing some comics kind of sort of set in the Cthulhu Mythos. Kind of.

[GolemsVoice]

Many good suggestions here. Tribble, was your book called Move underground? A friend of mine, who studies American literature, and therefore knows the weirdest books, once told me about it, and it sounded humorous, too.

[Bhu]

http://www.amazon.com/Lovecraft-Unbound-Ellen-Datlow/dp/1595821465

this one looks interesting enough to give a try. Sorry for the Amazon link it's the best one I could find.

[Eerie]

Discworld`s Auditors of Reality are an eldritch cosmic horror all right, and quite distinct from lovecraftian horrors.

The hiver from "A Hat Full of Sky" is another example. Terry Pratchett have some quite scary things in his books.

What else? The Ocean from "Solaris" by Stanislaw Lem, perhaps? Pretty scary in it`s incomprehensibility and what it did to people.

Stephen King`s horrors actually suck. Pennywise the Clown from "It" was good, until you discover it is a giant spider from outer space. Lame.

[GolemsVoice]

I have ordered Chamber's "King in Yellow" and one of the five volumes of CAS' collected stories, let's see how they turn out!

[reorith]

Uzumaki was creepy as all hell. you'll love it.

also, i recommend christopher moore's practical demonkeeping it has a Lovecraftian tribute that will make you lol.

[Brother Oni]

In case you're having trouble finding a copy of Uzumaki:

http://www.onemanga.com/Uzumaki/

[reorith]

In case you're having trouble finding a copy of Uzumaki:

http://www.onemanga.com/Uzumaki/

whoa, that site is awesome!

also, Parasyte (http://www.onemanga.com/Parasyte/). creepy otherworld creepiness with a weird moral/ethical angle and profanity!