Front Office Football Central - View Single Post - The Cthulhu Dynasty - "The Nameless City" and "The Hound" by HP Lovecraft

Abe Sargent · 04-14-2012, 11:41 PM

The Colour Out of Space Review

All reviews are spoiler free

This is a piece that's more about mood than plot. It's one of the first where Lovecraft combines science fiction and horror, rather than more traditional things with horror. This was an era of occult in horror, including goblins, witches, magic, ghost, vampires and werewolves. Lovecraft's horror is moving into distinctly non-occult and non-gothic areas.

It's not that long. Just 24 pages in my book. He only managed to sell it for $25 to Amazing Stories. The Editor, famous Hugo Gernsback (after whom The Hugo Awards are named) paid him late and he refused to publish with them again. It was the only story ever published for Amazing Stories to be in a famous annual anthology of short stories of various genres called the best of the year (The Best American Short Stories).

It's considered by many one of the best written stories, and again, Lovecraft felt is was his best short story. It's written and published in 1927, the year after The Call of Cthulhu was written but one year before it was published.

As a story at the front of the Mythos, elements in it are very light. If you have never read a Mythos story, then this won't look like it. However, a few famous Lovecraftian scholars point out that it's more important that a story have the Lovecraft tone and values than details like the Neronomicon or Cthulhu. Using that metric, this is a very important story (although Arkham is a Mythos elements, as a fictional town in Massachusetts where a lot of Mythos stuff happens).

I wanted this to be the sixth story and the last Lovecraft story for a while for several reasons. You can see a Mythos story light on elements, and how nice it is, you have a sci fi story, and you have an early mythos story that is before most of the later stuff. It's well written and well-received by critics ever since it saw print. The mood and tone are great!

I hope you enjoyed it if you read it!

I give it a solid four and a half stars out of five.

04-14-2012, 11:41 PM	#32
Abe Sargent Hall Of Famer Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Catonsville, MD	The Colour Out of Space Review All reviews are spoiler free This is a piece that's more about mood than plot. It's one of the first where Lovecraft combines science fiction and horror, rather than more traditional things with horror. This was an era of occult in horror, including goblins, witches, magic, ghost, vampires and werewolves. Lovecraft's horror is moving into distinctly non-occult and non-gothic areas. It's not that long. Just 24 pages in my book. He only managed to sell it for $25 to Amazing Stories. The Editor, famous Hugo Gernsback (after whom The Hugo Awards are named) paid him late and he refused to publish with them again. It was the only story ever published for Amazing Stories to be in a famous annual anthology of short stories of various genres called the best of the year (The Best American Short Stories). It's considered by many one of the best written stories, and again, Lovecraft felt is was his best short story. It's written and published in 1927, the year after The Call of Cthulhu was written but one year before it was published. As a story at the front of the Mythos, elements in it are very light. If you have never read a Mythos story, then this won't look like it. However, a few famous Lovecraftian scholars point out that it's more important that a story have the Lovecraft tone and values than details like the Neronomicon or Cthulhu. Using that metric, this is a very important story (although Arkham is a Mythos elements, as a fictional town in Massachusetts where a lot of Mythos stuff happens). I wanted this to be the sixth story and the last Lovecraft story for a while for several reasons. You can see a Mythos story light on elements, and how nice it is, you have a sci fi story, and you have an early mythos story that is before most of the later stuff. It's well written and well-received by critics ever since it saw print. The mood and tone are great! I hope you enjoyed it if you read it! I give it a solid four and a half stars out of five. __________________ Check out my two current weekly Magic columns! https://www.coolstuffinc.com/a/?action=search&page=1&author[]=Abe%20Sargent Last edited by Abe Sargent : 04-15-2012 at 12:41 AM.