Tentacord

The latest phone charger accessory for the twitterati…

Madness in the Nucleus

Gallery Nucleus will be putting its new Lovecraft exhibition, At the Mountains of Madness: A Tribute to the Writings of Lovecraft, online on 16th October 2010 (12 midnight, USA time) — for those of us who can’t afford to jet out to California.

Some of the work is still being made. Artist Justin Gerard talks us through his production process…

(Above: not the final image).

The treatment of media in H.P. Lovecraft’s cosmic horror

A new online essay on Lovecraft, which originally appeared in the print edition of Monocrom, Imperfect Vessels: the treatment of media in H.P. Lovecraft’s cosmic horror…

“a slightly modified version of a final paper for a media theory class”

Creative Commons photo by terrycheah168

Werewolves in Literature: twelve classic stories

Werewolves in Literature: twelve classic stories. New ebook anthology on the Amazon Kindle, on a special introductory offer at $0.99. 112,000-word uniform-style ebook, with linked table-of-contents.

Saki (two stories).
Harold Warner Munn.
Frederick Marryat.
Rudyard Kipling.
Gerald Biss.
Eugene Field.
Guy de Maupassant.
Algernon Blackwood.
Marie de France.
Joseph Jacobs.
William Baldwin.

It’s interesting that Lovecraft, shortly before his death, told someone that he was planning a werewolf epic (Ernest A. Edkins, “Idiosyncrasies of H.P.L.” In Lovecraft Remembered. Edited by Peter Cannon. (Arkham House, 1998). Pages 94-95.)

Lovecraft in comic books – convention report

Josie Campbell’s useful blow-by-blow report on a recent discussion of Lovecraft in comic books…

“A dedicated crowd braved the heat at the West Hollywood Book Fair to hear Steve Niles, Mike Mignola and Hans Rodionoff talk about the influence of H.P. Lovecraft on horror comic books. Packed elbow to elbow, the audience was made up of Lovecraft fans, comic fans…and a fish-man from “The Shadow Over Innsmouth.” ”

Cover from Jason Thompson‘s 5-issue graphic novel of The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath.

Salon Futura #2 published

Issue 2 of Salon Futura fiction magazine is out, and available for download as an .epub file.

If you need it for the Kindle (which doesn’t support .epub) convert it. Just download the excellent freeware Calibre. Then it’s a simple four-step conversion process…

1. Locate and load your .epub file.

2. Select Convert | Convert Individually.

3. Select Convert to .mobi format. No need to configure this, a straight conversion should be fine.

4. Now connect your Kindle’s USB lead to the desktop, then send your converted file as a .mobi file to the Kindle.

It’s done!

Lovecraft on the Kindle

So, now that the Amazon Kindle ebook reader seems to a mature platform with the Kindle 3, what ebooks are available from the Kindle store in the run-up to Christmas 2010? Not a bad basic selection…

An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia by S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz

The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories (Penguin Classics)

The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories (Penguin Classics)

The Dreams in the Witch House and other Weird Stories (Penguin Classics)

Those who can’t afford the definitive Penguin editions can still get the $2.29 bundle of 67 of the stories, presumably taken from public-domain sources online, and presumably (I would hope) specially formatted for the Kindle. If you look around online you may also find a .mobi formatted ebook (which Kindles can read) of all the stories, for free.

Keep in mind that the Penguin Classics editions are the ‘final cut’ versions, carefully edited and corrected from original sources by the leading Lovecraft scholar. The free versions are taken from sources that are littered with errors and omissions that crept in over the decades.

del Toro talks new Lovecraftian videogames

Mountains of Madness director Guillermo del Toro has said that he’s working with videogames publisher THQ to craft a “Lovecraftian” horror videogame. That’s certainly to be expected, as many big Hollywood movies come with (usually mediocre, often dire) videogames. He’s reported as saying…

“It’s horror … but it’s a very different type of horror game. It’s not survival horror. It’s truly a strange, geeky mix. It’s a Lovecraftian thing. Let’s leave it at that. … we are talking about huge games, huge world creation and long deadlines. With THQ we’re looking at around a three year developing deadline for each game. Big games. More details forthcoming, but we are truly exploring them in a serious manner. Expect the first game, best-case scenario, 2013.”

Image from the game Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth.

Andrea Bonazzi interviewed

Swords Against the Outer Dark has a new illustrated interview with Andrea Bonazzi, artist and Cthulhu Mythos prop maker.