Tag: Pete Rawlik

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January is Cosmic Horror and Cthulhu Mythos Month

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The bright lights of the high holidays have turned to ash. Those of us who live in climates with winter brace for long, cold nights and dreary days. We’re all a little down. That makes January the perfect month to embrace the inherent bleakness of the season by celebrating Cosmic Horror and the Cthulhu Mythos!

Okay, hear me out. I’m someone who loves reveling in my fandoms. When I was deeply into reading H.P. Lovecraft, I trekked to Providence to visit the city that fueled his fiction. I read Michael Shea’s The Color Out of Time at a local reservoir because the story took place at a reservoir. When I play Cthulhu Mythos-themed games, I dress in 1920s finery and serve period drinks. Doing these kinds of things helps immerse me, and my friends, in whatever fandom we happen to be celebrating. Making January Cosmic Horror and Cthulhu Mythos month is just an extrapolation of that idea. Celebrating works whose fundamental goal is to make us realize our own insignificance is best done in the month where we already feel most insignificant.

If you’re still reading, I assume you’re interested in hearing how to celebrate Cosmic Horror and Cthulhu Mythos month.

Readings

Cosmic Horror and the Cthulhu Mythos were birthed in print, so that’s where our festivities must begin. This is a perfect, solitary endeavor to keep your mind occupied on bitter January nights. Review the classics beginning with The Call of Cthulhu, the tale from which the Cthulhu Mythos takes its name. Buy works from your favorite modern masters. Might I recommend John Langan, Pete Rawlik, and Lucy A. Snyder for a start? There’s also Ramsey Campbell, Laird Barron, Caitlin R. Kiernan, the Arkham Horror Files Novels, and many, many more. In the interest of time, I’m not listing them all, but you should absolutely investigate the amazing writers in this subgenre. You don’t have to stick to single author works either, there are plenty of stellar anthologies, such as New Cthulhu, Children of Lovecraft, and The Book of Cthulhu. There is even a great Cthulhu Mythos anthology wiki tracking all these. Just don’t read aloud from the Necronomicon. You’ve been warned.

 

Movie Viewings

This is a great way for you to gather friends to join together for the dreadful festivities of January. Simply pick your favorite Cosmic Horror and Cthulhu Mythos films and watch them with your chosen acolytes in the order of your choosing. The Lovecraft eZine has a great list of movies to choose from here. If you need a little more structure, here’s my personal schedule for your use.

  • January 9th to 13th
    • Stuart Gordon Week! – Viewings of From Beyond, Dagon, and Dreams in the Witch House.
  • January 16th to 20th
    • Monsters and Madness Week! – Viewings of Alien, Necronomicon, The Mist, and The Lighthouse.
  • January 23rd to 27th
    • John Carpenter Week! – Viewings of The Thing, Prince of Darkness, In the Mouth of Madness, and Cigarette Burns.

 

Podcasts

Just search Cosmic Horror or the Cthulhu Mythos on your audio platform of choice and listen to the horrors you find. I highly recommend lending your ears to The Lovecraft eZine, a fine program discussing Cosmic Horror, Cthulhu, and modern horror books of all kinds. You should also seek out the many fantastic productions of Dark Adventure Radio Theatre (DART). DART adapts Lovecraft’s works into radio dramas. Listening is a good activity to fit into car rides, mindless times at work, or whenever else you aren’t consumed by Cosmic Horror and the Cthulhu Mythos.

 

Themed Snacks

Calamari is an obvious snack for most Cthulhu Mythos themed celebrations. I think sushi is an equally solid food that fits the month’s themes. You could also focus on 1920s era cocktails, spirits, or desserts. Pictured below is a delicious “human sacrifice” my wife made out of a blondie, fruit, and gummy worms. If you’re struggling with inspiration, check out this article for ideas. No matter what you decide on, don’t forget to keep some “cheese crackers” handy, like the protagonist from The Shadow over Innsmouth.

 

Games

There is a wealth of options to choose from here. My Cthulhu Mythos game of choice is Mansions of Madness, but I love the Call of Cthulhu Role Playing Game, Arkham Horror, Eldritch Horror, etc. While I prefer games that put me around a table with friends, you don’t have to be bound to the physical realm. There are also a wide variety of Cthulhu Mythos themed or inspired video games to choose from.

 

Those are my ideas for celebrating Cosmic Horror and Cthulhu Mythos month, but I’d love to read any ideas you have in the comments below or on social media. You can find me most easily on Twitter, @JeremiahCook1. And don’t forget, Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl!

 

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The Weird Company by Pete Rawlik

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I greatly enjoyed Pete Rawlik’s Reanimators. That novel followed Dr. Stuart Hartwell as he attempted to perfect his re-agent, a serum to cure death, while competing with H.P. Lovecraft’s Herbert West. Hartwell’s adventures gave readers new perspectives from which to view some of Lovecraft’s work. For instance, Hartwell plays a small part in the creation of the titular Dunwich Horror. I talked about my enjoyment of Reanimators in my Summer Reading Roundup last year, but now I’m ready to discuss the sequel, The Weird Company: The Secret History of H.P. Lovecraft’s Twentieth Century.

I should think it goes without saying, but if you want to truly enjoy Reanimators and The Weird Company, you’ll need to be familiar with the works of H.P. Lovecraft. Whereas Reanimators primarily drew on Lovecraft’s schlocky Frankenstein tale, Reanimator, The Weird Company takes most of its major inspiration from At the Mountains of Madness. Rawlik doesn’t just draw from At the Mountains of Madness though. Characters and references from The Shadow Over Innsmouth, The Thing on the Doorstep, Dreams in the Witch House, The Hounds of Tindalos, The Blob, John Carpenter’s The Fog, The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath, Through the Gates of the Silver Key, and The Strange High House in the Mist appear within the pages of the Weird Company. And those are just the characters and references I identified, and remembered, while writing my review.

Minor Spoilers Below

In The Weird Company, Shoggoths, protoplasmic monsters, are working to abscond from their icy solitude in Antarctica. Their escape from the frozen continent will spell doom for humanity. The only force standing in the Shoggoths’ path is the Weird Company, a group of unlikely heroes who I think of as The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen if Alan Moore drew from Lovecraft stories instead of classic fiction. The narrative is relayed via diary entries from several members of the Weird Company, mostly from Robert Olmstead, the protagonist from The Shadow Over Innsmouth. Together the group travels to Antarctica and battles to keep the Shoggoths from escaping.

Rawlik adds several new twists and connections into Lovecraft’s existing canon. Some purists might be skeptical of these, but I liked all of the fresh inclusions. One fascinating link Rawlik makes is between the blood of the Elder Things, creatures from At the Mountains of Madness, and the re-agent created by Herbert West and Dr. Stuart Hartwell. The Elder Things can enter stasis and effectively live forever, and the re-agent preserves and revives, so it makes sense the two substances would be similar. Rawlik also manages to make the Elder Things rather terrifying in their locomotion, a feat infinitely impressive considering Lovecraft’s original descriptions of their alien forms. At the end of the book, there’s also a ghoulish twist to the Elder Sign, which is traditionally portrayed as a protective ward.

My review is quickly devolving into a lunatic’s raving, and I’d prefer to avoid being committed to the Arkham Sanitarium, but I have a few last thoughts before I end. The climax of the story is a ton of fun, if like me, you’re a fan of cats, specifically The Cats of Ulthar. Oliver Wyman does an outstanding job narrating The Weird Company on Audible. He did the same for Reanimators. Lastly, don’t forget to check out Pete Rawlik’s latest Lovecraftian installment, The Miskatonic University Spiritualism Club. The book is now available for pre-order from Jackanapes Press.

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Summer Reading Roundup

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I tend to read a lot in the summer and slow down in the fall. The extra sunlight fuels my desire to escape, and books provide the easiest way to slip off to another place for a little while. There’s also no football in the summer. Without further ado, here is a roundup of some of the books I enjoyed this past season.

 

The Invention of Ghosts by Gwendolyn Kiste

Gwendolyn Kiste is one of my favorite writers, and I was delighted to have gotten the 100th copy of The Invention of Ghosts. The proceeds for this chapbook went to the National Aviary, and the book has fantastic illustrations throughout. Like the previous work I’ve read by Kiste (And Her Smile Will Untether the Universe and The Rust Maidens), the prose is imbued with poetic beauty, and the story contains a moving emotional core. Anyone who has ever had a friend they’ve lost touch with will be wanting to call that person after reading this. It will also get Donovan’s Season of the Witch stuck in your head.

 

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

By pure chance I happened to watch Deer Woman, an episode of Showtime’s Masters of Horror, not long ago. I was writing a werewolf short story, and I had revisited An American Werewolf in London and happened across Deer Woman as a result. Both works share John Landis as a director, and I should note that Deer Woman is set in the same universe as An American Werewolf in London because the protagonist of Deer Woman references the events of An American Werewolf in London. Anyway, Deer Woman was at least part of the reason why I decided to check out The Only Good Indians, which focuses on similar mythological elements. This novel by Stephen Graham Jones is a lovely, weird romp. Basketball, Native American Reservations, and youth’s sins all factor into why this book is so good. The point of view changes a lot in here, and you even get some chapters from the monster’s perspective. This keeps you feeling uncomfortable and stops you from being able to blindly root for the monster’s demise. These choices by Jones make this book unique.

 

Reanimators by Pete Rawlik

For a while, I’d been thinking, why hasn’t anyone done a story that pulls together a bunch of Lovecraft’s connected mythos into a singular tale? Well, I had somehow foolishly missed out on Reanimators existence until recently. The novel weaves the tale of Dr. Stuart Hartwell, a contemporary of Herbert West, as he moves through the years in and around Arkham. In the narrative, Hartwell encounters several of Lovecraft’s most famous characters and even intersects with several of Lovecraft’s best tales. This was a ton of fun to read, and I can’t wait to dive into the sequel. Maybe one day I’ll do a post trying to diagram out all the references and Easter eggs. Indiana Jones even pops up in the text.

 

Sefira and Other Betrayals by John Langan

I’ve already written pieces on two of John Langan’s previous works, The Fisherman, and The Wide Carnivorous Sky. I loved both of those, and I also enjoyed Sefira. In this collection, some of my favorites were In Paris, in the Mouth of Kronos, The Third Always Beside You, and At Home in the House of the Devil. At Home in the House of Devil was particularly fun because I happened to be writing a paper about Young Goodman Brown while I read it, and there are connections to be made between the two tales. I should also say I’m currently reading John’s latest collection, Children of the Fang and Other Genealogies, which was recently released from Word Horde.

 

The Croning

Laird Barron weaves an interesting tale of dark fantasy and horror here. I especially loved the opening, which is a retelling of the Rumpelstiltskin story in cosmic horror fashion. The protagonist in this novel has memory problems, to say the least, and that makes the narrative intentionally disjointed, but when the ending comes, it makes all the reader’s disorientation serve a ghoulishly good finale where the secrets are revealed, and the debts must be paid.

 

Cycle of the Werewolf by Stephen King

Silver Bullet is one of my favorite horror films of all time. A big part of why I love this movie so much is tied to the fact that I saw it at a young age, but I also think it’s a brilliant gem. The way the movie builds dread as it slowly progresses toward the climax, the excellent performances, and the way the werewolf’s killings impact the small town of Tarker’s Mill combine to make Silver Bullet special. So, it was only a matter of time until I read Cycle of the Werewolf. While I enjoyed the novella, I felt the story worked better as a screenplay. The close bonds between Marty and his sister, and Marty and his uncle, weren’t present in Cycle of the Werewolf, and they’re a major reason why I love Silver Bullet. The story felt hollow without them. Although, the movie didn’t have the stellar art by Bernie Wrightson.

 

Three other books I read this summer were The Color Out of Time, The Ancestor, and A Cosmology of Monsters, but you can find my thoughts on those tales by checking out the links above. It was an excellent summer for horror. Now here’s to the spooky season.

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