I was just about to ask about this on here (It was recommended to me several times, by people who's opinions I trust about as much as I'd trust a very hungry tiger to sleep at the foot of my bed), you saved me a post. Thank you, I'll make a happy point of not reading.
I like H.P. Lovecraft, but I see how exactly its not everyone's bag. If you want to see someone spoof Cthuhlu type in Calls for Cthuhlu in youtube. Its hilarious.
I read some of his short stories (the only one whose title I remember is "In the Mountains of Madness") and remember not being very impressed or even horrified by them.
Then I was talking to my friend about something unrelated and it occurred to me that whatever we were talking about (I can't even remember) were like the monsters in "In the Mountains of Madness", and all of a sudden I was freaked out.
That aside, I basically agree that I was, overall, unimpressed with Lovecraft's work. Won't disparage anyone who likes it, but it's not my cup of tea.
I think Lovecraft holds his place in the canon for his delvings into madness and the idea of humans being miniscule, unimportant beings in the scheme of the Elder Gods. Of course, his writing is all purple prose (even for the time, his style is overly ornate), and a couple of his contemporaries lambasted him: http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=blog&id=58481
But his mythos is remarkable, and I think that places him with Tolkien, in my mind: amazing world and ideas, but some writing issues.
But I have some idea of how the orks looked, how they differed from the Uruk-hai, what Gollum looked like, and the topography of the land of Mordor, some images of which were surprisingly shared by Jackson's interpretation and some of which really weren't at all. I still don't know what a single monster from HP Lovecraft's mythos is supposed to actually look like. I agree that the two have their separate writing problems, but I'll take Tolkein's lengthy discussions into mythological minutia over Lovecraft's vague twists anytime.
You can find out what they're meant to look like on Wikipedia, it's how I got my band's name lol! Which is Nyogtha and Nyogtha appears as a huge, engulfing shadow. We were like "THAT RULES!" and decided on that.
I really like H.P Lovecraft, I read his stories on occasion rather than all of them all at once and I think I like the concepts a lot more than what he actually writes.
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Then I was talking to my friend about something unrelated and it occurred to me that whatever we were talking about (I can't even remember) were like the monsters in "In the Mountains of Madness", and all of a sudden I was freaked out.
That aside, I basically agree that I was, overall, unimpressed with Lovecraft's work. Won't disparage anyone who likes it, but it's not my cup of tea.
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But his mythos is remarkable, and I think that places him with Tolkien, in my mind: amazing world and ideas, but some writing issues.
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--PolarisDiB
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Which is Nyogtha and Nyogtha appears as a huge, engulfing shadow. We were like "THAT RULES!" and decided on that.
I really like H.P Lovecraft, I read his stories on occasion rather than all of them all at once and I think I like the concepts a lot more than what he actually writes.
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