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What's next?
I want to flesh out Generation 1 for a while before we go up or down the spectrum.
For purposes of this dynasty, we will be using my own language for discussing the Cthulhu Mythos. I am not a scholar, but just someone who loves reading this stuff!
Generation 0 - The foundational pre-Lovecraftian works that were later added to the Mythos, or which have mood, tone and details in common with the Mythos, and inspired Lovecraft and others. This is where you will find stories by Arthur Machen, Robert W Chambers and more.
Generation 1 - HP Lovecraft, and his immediate circle of friends and protegees. These are the first stories, coming out in the late 20s through roughly 1940 a few years after Lovecraft's death. Stories here are in all sorts of genres and feature writers we are about to explore.
Generation 2 - Robert Barlow was given Lovecraft's estate by his will, and was one of his protegees Lovecraft tutored in the craft of writing. August Derleth was another protegee who refused to allow Lovecraft's works to die out. Together, they pushed Lovecraft's works into the public. This gen ends around, roughly, the mid 1960s. It's a time of much change in the Mythos, as we will discus later
Generation 3 - Lin Carter and other writers appear on the scene in the mid 1960s. Too young to have read Lovecraft when he was alive, these new writers had been introduced to him via the collections published by Derleth and others, ans well as Gen 2 stories. Many of them move the Mythos forward in significant ways. Carter sort of takes over the Mythos from Derleth, editing many magazines and collections. He also uses his job s editor at Ballentine Books to bring back several Mythos writers such as Arthur Machen and Clark Ashton Smith. This lasts until, roughly, the mid 80s.
Generation 4 - The modern era. The RPG based on the Mythos put the stories into many more hands. Printing of stories explodes as people demand stories old and new. Many writers set stories in the Mythos as a way of telling art or adding to the story. With greater exposure through publishers like DelRey Books and Chaosian, many writers push the Mythos into many new places, while keeping essential elements. Even as recently as 2004, the Hugo award was given to Neil Gaiman for a short story set in the Cthulhu Mythos (and the Sherlock Holmes one as well - it's just a perfect short story, btw.)
So, those are my views of the various generations and the Mythos.
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