Lovecraft Pastiches

[𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr]

Please suggest the best Lovecraft Pastiches, as I've found a lot of almost unreadable ones in my browsing.

[enoch]

I've never come across a good Lovecraft pastiche, either.  I'm not sure they exist.  There are, however, many good stories that use Lovecraft's ideas, and many more that use cosmic horror or are otherwise "Lovecraftian" without being what I'd call a pastiche.  If you want recommendations for those, I can help.

[Jojo Lapin X]

Jan 18, 2024 16:52:44 GMT enoch said:

I've never come across a good Lovecraft pastiche, either.

I asked ChatGPT-4, as one does, to write a story in the style of Lovecraft. This is the result:


The Thing in the Cellar

I had always been fascinated by the old house on the hill, the one that belonged to my great-uncle Arthur. He was a reclusive scholar who had devoted his life to studying ancient and occult lore, and he had amassed a vast collection of books and artifacts in his basement. He had died mysteriously a few years ago, leaving the house to me in his will. I had never met him, but I felt a strange connection to him, as if we shared a secret bond.

I decided to visit the house one day, hoping to explore its secrets and perhaps learn more about my ancestor. I drove up the winding road that led to the house, feeling a chill in the air as I approached the imposing structure. The house was old and decrepit, with boarded-up windows and a sagging roof. It looked like it had not been inhabited for decades, and I wondered what horrors lurked within its walls.

I parked my car in front of the house and got out, carrying a flashlight and a crowbar. I walked up to the front door and tried to open it, but it was locked. I used the crowbar to pry it open, and entered the dark and dusty foyer. I felt a wave of uneasiness wash over me, as if I was trespassing on forbidden ground. I shook off the feeling and proceeded to explore the house, looking for the entrance to the basement.

I found it in the kitchen, behind a wooden door that had a large padlock on it. I smashed the lock with the crowbar and opened the door, revealing a narrow staircase that descended into the darkness. I turned on my flashlight and began to descend, feeling a growing sense of dread as I went deeper into the house. I reached the bottom of the stairs and saw a large metal door that had a sign on it that read: "Do not enter. Danger."

I ignored the warning and opened the door, curious to see what my great-uncle had hidden in his cellar. I stepped into a large room that was filled with shelves and cabinets that contained books, scrolls, manuscripts, and various objects of unknown origin and purpose. I was amazed by the sight, and felt a surge of excitement as I realized that I had stumbled upon a treasure trove of arcane knowledge. I walked around the room, examining the items with awe and wonder.

I came across a book that caught my eye. It was bound in black leather and had a title that read: "Necronomicon." I had heard of this book before, as it was reputed to be the most evil and powerful book ever written, containing the secrets of the cosmos and the ancient gods that dwelled beyond the stars. I felt a strange attraction to the book, and decided to open it and read a few pages.

I opened the book and saw that it was written in a strange and incomprehensible language, full of symbols and diagrams that made no sense to me. I tried to decipher the meaning of the text, but it only gave me a headache. I was about to close the book and put it back, when I noticed a bookmark that marked a page near the end of the book. I turned to the page and saw that it had a title that read: "The Ritual of the Gate."

I read the page and saw that it described a ritual that could open a portal to another dimension, where the ancient gods awaited. It said that the ritual required a human sacrifice, and that the blood of the victim would activate the gate. It also said that the ritual had to be performed at a certain time and place, and that the stars had to be aligned in a certain way. It said that the next opportunity to perform the ritual would be tonight, at midnight, in the cellar of this house.

I felt a chill run down my spine as I realized that my great-uncle had planned to perform this ritual, and that he had probably killed himself as the sacrifice. I wondered what he had hoped to achieve by doing this, and what he had seen beyond the gate. I also wondered if the gate was still open, and if something had come through.

I looked around the room and saw that there was a large circle drawn on the floor, with candles and symbols around it. I realized that this was the gate, and that it was still active. I felt a sudden urge to step into the circle and see what lay beyond, but I also felt a primal fear that warned me not to do it. I was torn between curiosity and terror, and I did not know what to do.

I decided to leave the room and get out of the house, before I did something I would regret. I turned to the door and walked towards it, but as I did, I heard a sound that made me freeze in horror. It was a low and guttural growl, coming from behind me. I turned around and saw a thing that defied description. It was a mass of tentacles, eyes, mouths, and claws, that writhed and twisted in the air. It was the thing that had come through the gate, and it was hungry.

I screamed and ran to the door, but it was too late. The thing lunged at me and grabbed me with its tentacles, pulling me towards its mouths. I felt its teeth and fangs tear into my flesh, and its eyes bore into my soul. I felt a pain that was beyond anything I had ever experienced, and a terror that was beyond anything I had ever imagined. I knew that I was going to die, and that I would be devoured by this abomination.

As I felt my life slip away, I had one last thought. I wished that I had never come to this house, and that I had never opened that book. I wished that I had never learned the truth about my great-uncle, and the thing in the cellar.

[helrunar]

There's one occasionally that does something unexpected with the themes and the aesthetics. "Harold's Blues" by Glen Singer was one I read about a year ago. Two good ones by Derleth (whose work is usually only amusing as camp, and I don't think you like or perhaps even comprehend the point of camp) are "The Fisherman of Falcon Point" and "Innsmouth Clay"--Derleth seems to have had a thing for the Innsmouth idea, and where he went with it may or may not strike a novel chord for you.

An author whose name I forget wrote a whole series on the theme "Cthulhu Cuts Up Rough in Yorkshire." I read one of them but recall nothing about it.

Hel.

[ramseycampbell]

The late Jim Turner thought Martin S. Warnes brought it off, and Lin Carter championed Gary Myers.

[𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr]

I do like cosmic horror. I suppose the idea of being a tiny speck in a vast universe is the main reason. It's a bit like why sea horror stories work so well, a tiny ship adrift on a vast ocean. It reminds me of Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot.




"From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam."

Carl Sagan

[𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr]

Jan 18, 2024 18:59:24 GMT helrunar said:

There's one occasionally that does something unexpected with the themes and the aesthetics. "Harold's Blues" by Glen Singer was one I read about a year ago. Two good ones by Derleth (whose work is usually only amusing as camp, and I don't think you like or perhaps even comprehend the point of camp) are "The Fisherman of Falcon Point" and "Innsmouth Clay"--Derleth seems to have had a thing for the Innsmouth idea, and where he went with it may or may not strike a novel chord for you.

An author whose name I forget wrote a whole series on the theme "Cthulhu Cuts Up Rough in Yorkshire." I read one of them but recall nothing about it.

Hel.

I'm curious how you define camp. Maybe you regard it like Susan Sontag, or Christopher Isherwood, but the latters Low Camp has always been an element in British culture, like in pantomime. Would you say what we regard as camp has changed over the decades?

[enoch]

That AI-generated story failed to be a  Lovecraft pastiche in one crucial aspect:  The last sentence did not end in italics!

[toff]

When I'd read them years ago, I had enjoyed the stories in Scream for Jeeves: A Parody by Peter H. Cannon: "Cats, Rats, and Bertie Wooster"; "Something Foetid"; "The Rummy Affair of Young Charlie."  I own it but it can be borrowed online. Side note: library "discarded" stickers on works that I've enjoyed make me a little bit sad.  archive.org/details/screamforjeevesp0000cann

Cannon's written numerous others that I've not seen but nonetheless suspect would entertain: www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?295970

I also liked "The Smoker from the Shadows" by Hal S. Robins in Three-Fisted Tales of "Bob," something I also own in print but that the editor's made available online: www.subgenius.com/bigfist/classic/classictales/ShadowSmoker.html. It ends in italics!

Not having read HPL in some time, I can't remember what percentage of his stories ended that way. Searching Lovecraft and italics, one thing that came up was this, claiming it's more characteristic of Derleth?  Again, I couldn't say. 

I found a second-hand copy of Derleth/Lovecraft’s The Shuttered Room (one of Panther Horror’s superb 1970s Lovecraft series) for a very reasonable 35p, in about 1990 or so. Naively I thought that HPL had written everything except the climax of each story because they all – indeed all of Derleth’s Cthulhu stories – end in italics, to lend a sense of heightened drama!
intothegyre.org/2020/08/13/august-derleth-cthulhu-re-myth/

[enoch]

Oh, Derleth went crazy with the italics.  Whereas HPL would just italicize a sentence or part of a sentence, Derleth would do that to the entire last paragraph (or more) of a story.

I did think of one thing that might qualify as a Lovecraft pastiche that I really enjoyed.  Anyway, that would be Gary Myers' The House of the Worm and it only applies to the Dreamlands stuff.

[helrunar]

Ramsey Campbell's stories with Lovecraftian themes are definitely worth reading. They're not really pastiches, but more like work that takes certain themes or motifs in a new direction. I really enjoyed "The Franklyn Paragraphs" when I read it a couple of years ago (I hope I've got the title right on that one) and there are several more on my to-read list.

T. E. D. Klein's stories are also really unusual. "The Events at Poroth Farm" I'd call a must-read if you're into horror with an indefinable edge of the uncanny. Very creepy.

Hel.

[enoch]

Yes, both Klein and Campbell have written excellent examples of Lovecraftian horror, but I wouldn't call their stuff pastiche, either.  Campbell wrote some very early in his career, but soon found his own voice.

Speaking of Ramsey Campbell though, he is responsible for some excellent Robert E. Howard pastiches -- if you could call them that; they are really continuations of fragmentary Solomon Kane stories that Howard never completed.  I am generally pretty down on such things, as they are usually bad, but Mr. Campbell did a superb job with these and I always recommend them to fellow Howard fans.

[ramseycampbell]

Jan 19, 2024 15:51:48 GMT enoch said:

That AI-generated story failed to be a  Lovecraft pastiche in one crucial aspect:  The last sentence did not end in italics!

Nor did most of Lovecraft's tales. That was a technique Derleth eventually drove into the ground.

[ramseycampbell]

Jan 20, 2024 6:20:53 GMT enoch said:

Yes, both Klein and Campbell have written excellent examples of Lovecraftian horror, but I wouldn't call their stuff pastiche, either.  Campbell wrote some very early in his career, but soon found his own voice.

Speaking of Ramsey Campbell though, he is responsible for some excellent Robert E. Howard pastiches -- if you could call them that; they are really continuations of fragmentary Solomon Kane stories that Howard never completed.  I am generally pretty down on such things, as they are usually bad, but Mr. Campbell did a superb job with these and I always recommend them to fellow Howard fans.

Hey, thank you very much!

[enoch]

Jan 20, 2024 11:56:39 GMT ramseycampbell said:

Jan 20, 2024 6:20:53 GMT enoch said:

Yes, both Klein and Campbell have written excellent examples of Lovecraftian horror, but I wouldn't call their stuff pastiche, either.  Campbell wrote some very early in his career, but soon found his own voice.

Speaking of Ramsey Campbell though, he is responsible for some excellent Robert E. Howard pastiches -- if you could call them that; they are really continuations of fragmentary Solomon Kane stories that Howard never completed.  I am generally pretty down on such things, as they are usually bad, but Mr. Campbell did a superb job with these and I always recommend them to fellow Howard fans.

Hey, thank you very much!

Oh, you're very much welcome!  I meant every word of it, too.  If you hadn't helpfully pointed out exactly where Howard's text ends and yours begins, I would not have been able to tell.  And the historical notes on Kane's weapons were very much appreciated as well.  I'm glad to have the opportunity to tell you just how much I appreciated your finishing those stories and how much I enjoyed them.