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ITT: I read the sekrit

Started by Dysnomia, January 10, 2010, 10:41:36 PM

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Triple Zero

try to get an annotated version, it helped me greatly in enjoying and understanding some of the more obscure cross-references in the stories, the mythology and some old fashioned words and things [although once it spoiled the plot for me, though friends told me I could have seen that coming myself as well].
Ex-Soviet Bloc Sexual Attack Swede of Tomorrow™
e-prime disclaimer: let it seem fairly unclear I understand the apparent subjectivity of the above statements. maybe.

INFORMATION SO POWERFUL, YOU ACTUALLY NEED LESS.

Cainad (dec.)

Quote from: Triple Zero on January 23, 2010, 12:25:12 PM
try to get an annotated version, it helped me greatly in enjoying and understanding some of the more obscure cross-references in the stories, the mythology and some old fashioned words and things [although once it spoiled the plot for me, though friends told me I could have seen that coming myself as well].

This. The Penguin Classics versions (there are three volumes, afaik) are very well annotated and true to Lovecraft's original writings. I had two bookmarks whenever I read them: one for the story, another for the annotations in the back.

Cain

It was the Penguin Classic which I saw.

President Television

Is Lovecraft as bad at writing dialogue as I hear?
My shit list: Stephen Harper, anarchists that complain about taxes instead of institutionalized torture, those people walking, anyone who lets a single aspect of themselves define their entire personality, salesmen that don't smoke pipes, Fredericton New Brunswick, bigots, philosophy majors, my nemesis, pirates that don't do anything, criminals without class, sociopaths, narcissists, furries, juggalos, foes.

Triple Zero

Quote from: Shrunkenheadspace on January 23, 2010, 04:35:41 PM
Is Lovecraft as bad at writing dialogue as I hear?

No idea, I can't remember. Dialogue is not the important part anyway. It's all the gloomy descriptions of eldritchness and nameless horror from beyond space that makes it fun to read.
Ex-Soviet Bloc Sexual Attack Swede of Tomorrow™
e-prime disclaimer: let it seem fairly unclear I understand the apparent subjectivity of the above statements. maybe.

INFORMATION SO POWERFUL, YOU ACTUALLY NEED LESS.

Cain

His dialogue isn't wonderful, its true (especially in his earlier stories, he is very much a product of his period).  But like trip says, its the nameless horrors that drive man insane and live beyond this dimension where he excels.  Especially if you know how derivative horror was at the time, you can truly appreciate the break he made.

President Television

Quote from: Cain on January 23, 2010, 07:30:38 PM
His dialogue isn't wonderful, its true (especially in his earlier stories, he is very much a product of his period).  But like trip says, its the nameless horrors that drive man insane and live beyond this dimension where he excels.  Especially if you know how derivative horror was at the time, you can truly appreciate the break he made.

It was a dark and stormy night outside the spooky Victorian mansion as the mysterious Chinese man lured his victim to her doom.
My shit list: Stephen Harper, anarchists that complain about taxes instead of institutionalized torture, those people walking, anyone who lets a single aspect of themselves define their entire personality, salesmen that don't smoke pipes, Fredericton New Brunswick, bigots, philosophy majors, my nemesis, pirates that don't do anything, criminals without class, sociopaths, narcissists, furries, juggalos, foes.

P3nT4gR4m

How to write like Lovecraft 101:

Make sure not to use any descriptive words, evar. Especially when describing things. Like the old horror movies cliche - it's better if it's left to the imagination. Therefore every horrific thing which you write about should be "unimaginable", "Unspeakable", "horrific beyond description" even "unnameable" that way, if someone reads it and thinks it sucks you can blame their lack of imagination.

I'm up to my arse in Brexit Numpties, but I want more.  Target-rich environments are the new sexy.
Not actually a meat product.
Ass-Kicking & Foot-Stomping Ancient Master of SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK
Awful and Bent Behemothic Results of Last Night's Painful Squat.
High Altitude Haggis-Filled Sex Bucket From Beyond Time and Space.
Internet Monkey Person of Filthy and Immoral Pygmy-Porn Wart Contagion
Octomom Auxillary Heat Exchanger Repairman
walking the fine line line between genius and batshit fucking crazy

"computation is a pattern in the spacetime arrangement of particles, and it's not the particles but the pattern that really matters! Matter doesn't matter." -- Max Tegmark

Triple Zero

what if it's unimaginable suckings from behind the walls that are no walls?
Ex-Soviet Bloc Sexual Attack Swede of Tomorrow™
e-prime disclaimer: let it seem fairly unclear I understand the apparent subjectivity of the above statements. maybe.

INFORMATION SO POWERFUL, YOU ACTUALLY NEED LESS.

P3nT4gR4m

Q and E to the motherfuckin D

I'm up to my arse in Brexit Numpties, but I want more.  Target-rich environments are the new sexy.
Not actually a meat product.
Ass-Kicking & Foot-Stomping Ancient Master of SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK
Awful and Bent Behemothic Results of Last Night's Painful Squat.
High Altitude Haggis-Filled Sex Bucket From Beyond Time and Space.
Internet Monkey Person of Filthy and Immoral Pygmy-Porn Wart Contagion
Octomom Auxillary Heat Exchanger Repairman
walking the fine line line between genius and batshit fucking crazy

"computation is a pattern in the spacetime arrangement of particles, and it's not the particles but the pattern that really matters! Matter doesn't matter." -- Max Tegmark

Jasper

Quote from: LovecraftWhen age fell upon the world, and wonder went out of the minds of men; when grey cities reared to smoky skies tall towers grim and ugly, in whose shadow none might dream of the sun or of spring's flowering meads; when learning stripped earth of her mantle of beauty, and poets sang no more save of twisted phantoms seen with bleared and inward-looking eyes; when these things had come to pass, and childish hopes had gone away forever, there was a man who travelled out of life on a quest into the spaces whither the world's dreams had fled.

TELL ME IT FUCKING SUCKS.  SAY IT.

Brotep

 :lulz:

That's what I love about Lovecraft--the horror is so much more psychological.

It's not just "oh shit, things with tentacles".
Ultimately he's not writing about monsters--he's writing about nightmares.

Quote from: HPLThe most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.
Most of us have probably seen this quote a bajillion times, but you know what?  That's because it's awesome.