10/24/2023
Day Twenty One - Favorite Horror Author
While the world of horror is usually thought of through movies and television, there’s a sizable amount of horror related fiction in the world of literature. Some of the most memorable characters in horror comes from literature from Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein to Bram Stroker’s Dracula to recent characters such Pennywise from Stephen King’s It. There’s been also a plethora of prolific writers over the years from classic writers such as Edgar Allen Poe, Mary Shelly, and Bram Stroker to later famous writers such as Stephen King and Dean Koontz. However for me, there’s two authors in particular that are my favorite and they’re none other than the legendary H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard.
Howard Phillips Lovecraft was born on August 20th, 1890 in Providence, Rhode Island. Lovecraft’s writing would deal with how insignificant we are in grand scheme of things in our universe as his stories would deal with many cosmic horrors and terrors of the night. He would develop his own mythology known as Lovecraftian Horror and would create many a cosmic horror, with his most memorable and famous creation being the great old one himself and resident of the sunken city of R'lyeh, the great Cthulhu. Cthulhu would often be the face of Lovecraft’s work, especially in recent years thanks to the internet and the character being in the Public Domain. Lovecraft’s creations would bowed many a scary trait, with a common theme being that these creatures were so horrifying, the mere sight of them would drive you mad and insane. Not only this, but some of Lovecraft’s creations such as the great old ones would control such grand and cosmic power, they were deemed as gods and could level anything from a city to a planet. Now Lovecraft wouldn’t publish his stories in a series of books but rather through Pulp Magazines, with some later stories being long enough to become their own novel/novella.
Admittedly I haven’t read a lot of Lovecraft’s works but I have read a number of comic adaptions of it. Sometime long ago during my teens, I read the Fall of Cthulhu from Boom Studios as I was interested in the Cthulhu character and how his downfall would play out. While I don’t really recall the character being prominently featured in the comic, I was introduced to the world of lovecraft and loved how weird and different it was and the ideas that were featured in it. I would later get a collection of Lovecraft’s stories called “The Call of Cthulhu and other weird stories” from Penguin Books. I would attempt to read a story but couldn’t get into the mood to read it. Then I read one of the two BIG Lovecraft stories and it’s the one that has been in movie development-hell for a decade now, the legendary “At Mountains of Madness”. Now I didn’t read the original texts but instead a comic book adaptation published by SelfMadeHero. So this was my first time reading an actual story of Lovecraft’s, not just taking his mythos and doing your own thing with them but his actual story and after reading the adaptation, I IMMEDIATELY became a fan of his. I love the art style in the book as it reminds me of Tintin but the story itself was so good and engaging that I couldn’t put it down. Lovecraft’s story was used perfectly for this adaptation as I got this feeling of dread and tension while reading it and the horrors we were about to witness. While not featured in this collection to my knowledge, I’ll always remember the Pulp magazine cover for At Mountains of Madness with it’s weird and creepy image of a green creature trying to grab our main characters.
After reading that, I decided I had to get all of Lovecraft’s work and after researching what was the best collection to get, I found The H. P. Lovecraft Collection: Deluxe 6-Book Hardcover Boxed Set published by Sirius. I LOVE the old classic book design it has and while it doesn’t feature any of the classic pulp covers, I love with what little they’ve done with it’s stylized font. I would then search my local Half Price Books to see if they had it and they did, so I had them put it to the side for me. Then I forgot about it, went to see if they had anymore but sadly they were out. Then one day after exploring a Half Price Books I rarely go to, not only did I find the final Tarzan Novel I need as well as my long sought after copy of H.G. Welles’ “The Island of Doctor Moreau”, I not only came across the Lovecraft Box Set I was looking for, I managed to get it new for FIFTEEN DOLLARS which was a major steal! It was a good day for books and I was so happy to get that box set, I’ve yet to open it up and read it yet. 😅😅😅
Then after one night of insomnia and being unable to go back to sleep, I decided to pick up my old paperback collection and read the first story of the collection, Dagon. I read the story and it immediately inspired me to read the next story as I LOVED Dagon. I remember there being a Sci-fi Channel movie adapting the story but I remember not liking it. But the actual Dagon story itself was a phenomenal suspenseful story and Lovecraft’s descriptive writing helped paint an image in my mind. I loved the story and it’s concepts and that unforgettable ending.
There is another Lovecraft story I read before I put off reading the rest of Lovecraft’s work again but that’s a post for another day.
We now move on to my other favorite writer of horror as well as one of my all time favorite authors, the creator of the Sword and Sorcery genre himself, Robert E. Howard.
Born on January 22, 1906 in Peaster Texas, Robert E. Howard much like Lovecraft would get his work published not through books but through Pulp Magazines. Howard is most famous for as previously mentioned by creating the sword and sorcery genre along with his iconic creation Conan The Barbarian but he would work with a number of other genres and create other characters as well. Conan is my favorite creation of Howard’s but ironically enough, I have yet to read one of his original stories outside of comic book adaptations. That said however, back in 2016 after waiting for someone, I decided to read some of Howard’s second most famous character, Solomon Kane. Solomon Kane is a Puritan type character who would have numerous journeys exploring the world and trying to rid the evil in it. While Kane’s stories are Dark Fantasy based, there have been a number of horror stories too. I don’t remember much of the details of the first story I read but much like Lovecraft’s writing, Howard’s writing would help paint the image of his world in your mind and I loved every detail of it. I would later read one of Howard’s other Solomon Kane stories involving a Spider-Like Hand that really creeped me out but much like Lovecraft’s stories, I would put off reading the rest of them.
Then inspired by a friend’s reading challenge of reading a random page of the nearest book by you, I would start reading another Robert E Howard book that collects all of his horror stories, The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard. I’ve only read a few stories in this collection and I don’t remember much about them but I remember them not only being good but also being really chilling too. I knew Howard was a good writer, but I never realized he was a great horror writer as well. Much like with Solomon Kane, he paints this spooky world but it keeps you guessing with what will happen next and what horrors you’ll encounter. Not only that but he actually introduced me to some cool and interesting new concepts to the werewolf mythology.
Lovecraft’s and Howard’s works I highly recommend to those who like to read and are fans of horror as they write such wonderful horrifying stories and create such interesting characters and not only that but I’ll tell you a cool fact about the two:
Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft were actually good friends with one another and would write stories that would be included in their respective mythologies. Not only that but the two were actually apart of the Lovecraft Circle, a collection of Author’s who would add to Lovecraft’s world and put in their own ideas. Howard for example would have some Lovecraftian elements crawl into his Kull The Conqueror stories and possibly his Conan Stories as well.
I highly recommend reading both of their works, whether it be through comic form, book form, or any other medium, as long as they respect the source material, you’re in for a good time for either author’s work. As an added bonus, I’ll post links to the collections I recommend people buying.
So who’s your favorite Horror author? What’s your favorite Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard Horror story and what’s your favorite creation from the two?
Let me know in the comments and as always, don’t forget to like and share this post and like and follow the page as well as check my other posts for the month of October, in which I do a post for each day in preparation for Halloween.
Lovecraft Collection
https://www.amazon.com/H-P-Lovecraft-Collection-Slip-cased/dp/1784288608/ref=sr_1_4?crid=1VUTOP8PQM9Q1&keywords=Lovecraft+collection&qid=1698174109&sprefix=lovecraft+collection%2Caps%2C111&sr=8-4
Solomon Kane Collection
https://www.amazon.com/Savage-Tales-Solomon-Kane/dp/0345461509/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2GJG9K7L4A6N8&keywords=savage+tales+of+solomon+kane+paperback&qid=1698174144&sprefix=solomon+kane+savage%2Caps%2C99&sr=8-1
Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard
https://www.amazon.com/Horror-Stories-Robert-Howard/dp/0345490207/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1WCGHD27Z4SSB&keywords=robert+e+howard+horror&qid=1698174173&sprefix=Robert+e+Howard+horror%2Caps%2C95&sr=8-1
