Is there anybody like Lovecraft? Any books written like his books?
August Derelth was Lovecraft's close personal friend, as well as being a writer. After H. P. died, August published several works that were supposedly lovecraft's unfinished manuscripts, which Derelth credited as being written by the both of them.
My opinion? He tries very hard to imitate that Lovecraft "atmosphere" and succeeds to some degree, but its just not as good as the real thing. And also he got lots of people pissed because apparently he falsely put Lovecraft's name on some works that were purely written by Derelth.
>>17598190
Like, a shit ton.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weird_fiction
>>17598230
Me again, it's probably hard to know where to start, a good way to go is a collection like this if your looking for something contemporary.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6505011-lovecraft-unbound
>>17598190
Look to those he was inspired by and those he inspired.
I would check out August Derleth, Clark Ashton Smith, Edgar Allan Poe, and Robert W. Chambers.
You know he's started something.
Another guy like him would be -and it is- weird, because he'll live in the shadow of Lovecraft.
Why is Lovecraft special?
Did he just write some spoopy stories, or did he discover/know something he wasn't meant to?
>>17598386
Best author alive.
>>17598401
>Best author alive.
Lovecraft died in 1937
>>17598378
This is good advice, a lot of his stories are closely based on others. This anthology is one of the best out there, it contains a lot of his favorite authors.
https://books.google.com/books/about/Great_Tales_of_Terror_and_the_Supernatur.html?id=s6QHQAAACAAJ&source=kp_cover&hl=en
>>17598436
That's what they want you to think.
>>17598386
He just really nailed the zeitgeist of modern horror, unfortunately for him about 50 years to early.
>>17598448
This is what he was all about.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmicism
Here's a pdf of “The Great God Pan" by Arthur Machen. This story influenced the Dunwich Horror and was one of Lovecraft's favorites.
https://www.goodreads.com/ebooks/download/774846.The_Great_God_Pan
Revival, by Stephen King, is a 2015 attempt at the genre. Very good IMHO
>>17598524
>stephen king
>not garbage
pick 1
Robert Howard is great like Lovecraft
Look up Richard Braughtigan
>CTRL+F Thomas Ligotti
>No Results
Shamefur
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxZpEFJhO6k
Look up the Cycle books from Chaosium Press. They're anthologies of stories based on single entities created by Lovecraft and mainly his scions like Derleth, Howard and Smith. Follow an author you really liked from them and start enjoying.
Also, there's actually a lot of DnD novels with Lovecraftian vibes. Warhammer ones too.
Some Conan the Barbarian stories have hints of existential dread and cosmicism in them.
>>17599527
Ligotti is GOAT
>>17598190
When you say "like Lovecraft" how exactly do you mean?
One one hand you have the author's voice, which would include the anglophile spellings (colour) and atmospheric word choice (cyclopean, batrachian, rugose)? So someone who writes in a style like HPL's, but not necessarily on the same topics.
On the other hand you have his themes: cosmic horror and the insignificance of humanity, genetic corruption / degradation, horrible ancient secrets better left buried and things which cannot be known by the sane. So someone who writes about these sorts of things but not necessarily in Lovecraft's style.
Brian McNaughton's The Throne of Bones is somewhat similar in vibe to the non-mythos bits of HPL, but there's a fair bit of sex.
Now you've got me wanting to play some Necronomicon. Here's a link.
http://img.4plebs.org/boards/f/image/1404/36/1404365841018.swf
>>17598386
His writings mirror actual occult beliefs and practices in more than a few ways.
I'm still sad that he isn't a trophy anymore.
>dere wuz a racis man in mah home
>>17598190
Borges while not necessarily capturing the same existential dread, has his own structured sense of surreal madness and mythology in his short stories.
https://archive.org/details/TheCompleteWorksOfSheridanLeFanu
Arthur Machen and Thomas Ligotti (depending on what you mean by "like"). Read them anyway.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7qQ7A4rWM8
Poe. If you ever delve into the astral realm, his poetry is beyond his epoch.
>>17598567
The Mist, The breathing method, Crouch End and the short story Beachworld have some lovecraftian reminiscences. You should check them out, they're all awesome and totally not garbage. And I even concede you that 50% of what SK writes is pleb tier, but the other half has all kinds of treasures
Ramsey Campbell
I didn't see anyone mention Algernon Blackwood.
You should consider growing up with your literary tastes.
>>17601302
Like what? Fifty shades of Grey and Stephen King?
>>17601269
this. no single author had a greater influence on lovecraft than algernon blackwood.
here, go read "the willows"
http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/11438/pg11438.txt
if you're looking for more stuff that feels like Lovecraft, there are many good suggestions already in the thread. there is an older "cosmic horror" writer, William Hope Hodgeson, who did a few stories like House on the Borderland. they're very old and very slow and honestly kind of dull and confusing at times... but they're also obviously a huge influence on later writers who were getting into this stuff like Chambers and Lovecraft.
on the other hand if you want stuff that lives in the Lovecraft mythos universe but doesn't necessarily feel like his writing, there's people like Derleth (i can't stand him) or the Boojumverse by Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette (awesome sci-fi).
the Boojumverse is set in the solar system in the future, humans are space-faring, but space sucks and is full of awful monsters and things trying to get in from other dimensions. oddly, most of those monsters are named after nonsense from Lewis Carrol like Boojums and Bandersnatches and Toves, which makes it feel a little more light-hearted. there are three stories and they're all relatively easy to find on the internet, e.g. the Wreck of the Charles Dexter Ward is an audiobook available for free at Drabblecast.
>>17600341
I'm fascinated and deeply disgusted by that picture.
Are those bugs trying to scape the flood?
>>17599861
i know shuma gorath apparently showed up around that time period
>>17598190
Literally Stephen King, he lists Lovecraft as his major influence. Most people have only seen the shitty It movie but in the novel, It is actually an Eldritch god who fell to prehistoric Maine countless years ago.
>>17600609
>Beach World
My nigga. If you've read that anthology, "Gramma" is also semi-Lovecraftian.
Can't forget "The Jaunt".
inspired lovecraft quite a bit
>>17602323
Have you seen the yellow sign?
>>17599527
Best three horror writers. It follows a progression.
Poe ----> Lovecraft ----> Ligotti
>>17602323
chambers was also inspired by a short story by ambrose bierce, funny how it goes on like that
>>17602489
Ligotti? I tried reading some of his stuff but it was so boring. All I was able to find was a collection of his short stories on TPB. Maybe some of his other stuff is better.
Laird Barron is Lovecraft with testes. Ligotti is Lovecraft with severe depression.
Both are fucking great.
>>17602489
Reverse the order and you'll have it right.
Clark Ashton Smith! I actually think some of Smith's stories are better than Lovecraft. He also has a lot of really interesting female characters, which Lovecraft always stayed away from from writing. /lit/ talks about him every once in a while.
>>17598190
Kafkaesque isn't a word OP.
>>17603692
Maybe if you talk about how scary they actually write but if you talk about the true quality of their writings than Poe definitely outstands the other two.
>>17603345
+1. IMO, these two are Lovecraft's most accomplished heirs, and both have a fully developed mythos and style all their own. Though personally I'd say "depression" is too confining a description. What Ligotti infuses into his work as more of an existential dread of a meaningless and often malicious universe.
Many recent anthologies have tapped into the new wave of weird or Lovecratian fiction being produced. Black Wings of Cthulu is probably the best. Also, if you like podcasts, check out pseudopod.org. Not all of the tales are outright Lovecraftian, they are all top quality and really speak to the breadth of the genre as it exists now.
Among the best of recent episodes is "20 Simple Steps to Ventriloquism" by Jon Padgett, the guy who runs Litgotti's forum. It requires some patience and attention span, but it pays off with some really unsettling spooks.
http://pseudopod.org/2015/04/09/pseudopod-433-20-simple-steps-to-ventriloquism/
>>17598190
Ray Bradbury's Martian was a great book
>>17598436
Wake up. Lovecraft lives. 215 was an inside job.
>>17598386
Of all the horror stories, he has a distinct way of writing and his fiction is always a weird tale with creatures and situations that are hard to describe.
That's why it's Lovecraftian Horror.
>>17598386
I'd say Lovecraft was one of the first to write "dry" or "realistic" horror. By that I mean his protagonists are always rational men of science; their approach is analytical and dismissive of superstition or religion. His tales are often accounts of previous events, giving a false air of authenticity to them. And his tales usually don't deal with ghosts or demons, but aliens and "ancient knowledge" - things that "might actually be out there."
Basically, Lovecraft did what Texas Chainsaw Massacre did with "based on police files from X" or what The Blair Witch Project did by using "found footage."
>>17602545
>just vanished in mexico
banditos, or did old ones catch up with him?
>>17599520
what
>>17598524
There is a couple of books and short story by King
that are highly influenced by Lovecraft.
Like my personal favorite from the collection of short stories Just After Sunset, the story N.
Another from one of his other short story collections is Crouch End from Nightmares & Dreamscapes. Check out N it's a great story.
>>17598206
I sat in paralysis, encapsulated in that flesh bound gaol. The encroaching sensation washing o'er my soul, heralding that unintelligible message which mine eyes read. Then, catastrophe. The miasma of its implication, the sheer brilliance of what had been howled had rang within me. It was in that moment, I shook; naked and ashamed. For whom had spoke, was a being of my own visage, but with no prisoner within that flesh. A barbarian, a beast that knew naught but the degeneracy of oral sex with same gendered beasts like unto themselves.
In this, I write to you my friend.
OP is a faggot.
>>17607875
A group of us once had a challenge to sit through the entirety of The Blair Witch Project. The first one to turn it off would get blasted with a hose. It wasn't because the movie was scary, but because it was so fucking horrible. We didn't make it through the whole thing.
>>17598190
read junji Ito's comics
>>17598436
That is not dead what can eternal lie
This is probably more of a /tg/ thing but did anyone of you ever get spooped when playing call of cthulhu?
I play with some friends and while its always a fun experience, the atmosphere is never truly spooky.
>>17598190
Have you tried listening to the podcast Tanis? It's kind of Lovecraftian and in my opinion just excellent.
>>17598386
Fuck all the previous answers for being so shit.
Lovecraft was not a very good writer. Things he wrote in 1st person, where the protagonist would end on "oh my god they are coming to my room I can hear their slimy tentacles trying to pry open the door...!!" and then going mad, those tales aren't really what made him so beloved special.
What made Lovecraft good, was that his monsters, his aliens and ancient gods weren't hell-bent on destroying humanity. A lot of other fiction writers have "humans are special" as some sort of trope. Our world is often a "middle world" for others, or some sort of special world that demons and devils want to invade. In Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos, it's very very not like that.
Humanity and earth are insignificant, tiny, useless. We are merely a speck of dust in a giant universe of strange gods and aliens that we do not understand. And when we try to understand it, we go mad. This is a central theme to Lovecrafts writing. He did the "fear of the unknown" so very well. Sure, not all of his stories are scary by modern standards, but they sure as hell make the reader feel the helplessness of the protagonist.
Dunwich Horror is pretty much one of the few stories where the protagonists prevail, and even so it's a pyrrhic victory. Everything else ends badly, or strangely. Lovecraft doesn't try to explain the motivations of his villains or monsters: he doesn't have to do that, in order to make them scary. Instead he casts them as mad gods who work in mysterious ways to achieve goals we tiny humans cannot really understand.
This feeling of helplessness, of being a tiny useless human in a giant scary universe is at least to me (and to many others) what made Lovecraft special, and always relevant. Now if only he know more words than "eldritch" and "cyclopean"...
>>17610865
>There is a couple of books and short story by King
>that are highly influenced by Lovecraft.
>Like my personal favorite from the collection of short stories Just After Sunset, the story N.
>Another from one of his other short story collections is Crouch End from Nightmares & Dreamscapes. Check out N it's a great story.
Fuck that N story was spooky as shit. That whole book by King is great, even if not all the stories are scary.
>>17611029
That's because you're not going out of your way to make it spooky.
An observation from Ravenloft, which applies to anything tabletop RPG, is that things which would be terrifying in person are much less so when being described to a group of people sitting around a card table with cola and chips.
Advice from White Wolf's lines tend to involve trying to create a bit of immersion. Props, appropriate background audio. If the room you're playing in is out of kilter with the tone, hide it (throw some sheets over things or something). Consider dressing in character. You'll feel silly at first, but it helps everyone else stay in character.
Basically, put in more effort, get more return.
If you only do one thing, add audio. It's way easier to pretend you're in the woods at night in summer if you have a recording of peepers and owls. It's easier to pretend you're in a speakeasy if you have some jazz or big band music. It's easier to pretend you're in a factory if you have some repetitive machinery noises.
