Countdown to Cthulhu: On Manly Men
H. P. Lovecraft's protagonists aren't exactly the manliest bunch of heroes. Prone to passing out at the first sign of eldritch terror, the archetypal Lovecraftian hero/victim is more of an academic, shrinking-violet-type, reflecting the author's own reclusive and bookish tendencies. Not exactly John Milius material. Sure, there are exceptions: the tavern-destroying bum in the comedic temperance parable "Old Bugs", the German U-boat Lieutenant Commander of "The Temple", and "The Call of Cthulhu"'s tough-as-nails detective, Inspector Legrasse, but more often than not, Lovecraftian leads tend toward decadent dreamers or effete aesthetes. Not that there's anything wrong with being a Baudelaire- and Poe-reading effete aesthete, but sometimes facing down cosmic horrors requires a tough-guy approach...
Good thing there's Laird Barron, whose novelette "The Men from Porlock" will be appearing in The Book of Cthulhu (in fact, it was the first story I contracted for the anthology), and who recently posted a number of images (that's one of them above) evocative of the mood and 1920s logging camp setting of the novelette to his blog. Nobody writes two-fisted cosmic horror quite like Laird Barron. If you don't already have Laird's collections, The Imago Sequence and Occultation on your bookshelves, you need to.
Here's a recent interview with Laird, conducted by Charles Tan for the Shirley Jackson Awards:
http://www.shirleyjacksonawards.org/blog/2011/07/11/charles-tan-interviews-laird-barron/
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And speaking of tough guys, happy birthday to The Book of Cthulhu contributor (and creator of Imaro, one of the toughest guys in fantasy fiction) Charles R. Saunders. I'm a big fan of Charles Saunders' work, so I was really honored to be able to include his short story, "Jeroboam Henley's Debt" in The Book of Cthulhu. Do yourself a favor and go read "Jeroboam Henley's Debt" over at Innsmouth Free Press. And check out the Imaro books (NSB has published two, Imaro, and Imaro 2: The Quest for Cush). And really, anything else by Charles you can lay your hands on.
Meanwhile, I'm going to sit here and contemplate purchasing this copy of Dark Fantasy 14, which not only includes an Imaro story, but also has--according to a rather extensive Cthulhu Mythos bibliography--a poem by William Fulwiler called "R'lyeh Rises". Hey, it's a work-related expense, right?
Good thing there's Laird Barron, whose novelette "The Men from Porlock" will be appearing in The Book of Cthulhu (in fact, it was the first story I contracted for the anthology), and who recently posted a number of images (that's one of them above) evocative of the mood and 1920s logging camp setting of the novelette to his blog. Nobody writes two-fisted cosmic horror quite like Laird Barron. If you don't already have Laird's collections, The Imago Sequence and Occultation on your bookshelves, you need to.
Here's a recent interview with Laird, conducted by Charles Tan for the Shirley Jackson Awards:
http://www.shirleyjacksonawards.org/blog/2011/07/11/charles-tan-interviews-laird-barron/
---
And speaking of tough guys, happy birthday to The Book of Cthulhu contributor (and creator of Imaro, one of the toughest guys in fantasy fiction) Charles R. Saunders. I'm a big fan of Charles Saunders' work, so I was really honored to be able to include his short story, "Jeroboam Henley's Debt" in The Book of Cthulhu. Do yourself a favor and go read "Jeroboam Henley's Debt" over at Innsmouth Free Press. And check out the Imaro books (NSB has published two, Imaro, and Imaro 2: The Quest for Cush). And really, anything else by Charles you can lay your hands on.
Meanwhile, I'm going to sit here and contemplate purchasing this copy of Dark Fantasy 14, which not only includes an Imaro story, but also has--according to a rather extensive Cthulhu Mythos bibliography--a poem by William Fulwiler called "R'lyeh Rises". Hey, it's a work-related expense, right?
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