Chris
asked
Matt Ruff:
What are some of your other favorite examples of stories from the Lovecraftian universe?
Matt Ruff
My three favorites of Lovecraft’s own work are “At the Mountains of Madness,” “The Call of Cthulhu,” and “The Shadow Over Innsmouth.” “Innsmouth,” to me, is the perfect example of Lovecraft at his best and worst, simultaneously. The whole bit about the Innsmouth residents interbreeding with the Deep Ones is a not-very-subtle expression of Lovecraft’s fear of race-mixing; but at the same time, the story is one of the most effective depictions of attempted lynching that I’ve ever read, and it’s incredibly tense.
T.E.D. Klein’s Dark Gods, a collection of four Lovecraft-inspired novellas, is another old favorite of mine (I especially like “Petey” and “Nadelman’s God”), and I was always disappointed that Klein didn’t publish more.
And of course I’m a fan of Victor LaValle’s “The Ballad of Black Tom,” which was published on the same day as Lovecraft Country. I’d also recommend Paul La Farge’s The Night Ocean, Ruthanna Emrys’s Innsmouth Legacy series, and Nick Mamatas’s I Am Providence.
As for Lovecraft-inspired films, I’m a longtime fan of the Stuart Gordon/Brian Yuzna movies (especially Re-Animator, Dagon, and From Beyond), though their campy humor probably wouldn’t have appealed to Lovecraft himself. I’d also recommend Huan Vu’s Die Farbe (aka The Color Out of Space), Andrew Leman and Sean Branney’s silent-film version of The Call of Cthulhu, Jeremy Gillespie and Steven Kostanski’s The Void, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead’s Spring (a Lovecraftian romance!), and John Carpenter’s “Cigarette Burns,” though that one is technically more of a Robert W. Chambers homage.
T.E.D. Klein’s Dark Gods, a collection of four Lovecraft-inspired novellas, is another old favorite of mine (I especially like “Petey” and “Nadelman’s God”), and I was always disappointed that Klein didn’t publish more.
And of course I’m a fan of Victor LaValle’s “The Ballad of Black Tom,” which was published on the same day as Lovecraft Country. I’d also recommend Paul La Farge’s The Night Ocean, Ruthanna Emrys’s Innsmouth Legacy series, and Nick Mamatas’s I Am Providence.
As for Lovecraft-inspired films, I’m a longtime fan of the Stuart Gordon/Brian Yuzna movies (especially Re-Animator, Dagon, and From Beyond), though their campy humor probably wouldn’t have appealed to Lovecraft himself. I’d also recommend Huan Vu’s Die Farbe (aka The Color Out of Space), Andrew Leman and Sean Branney’s silent-film version of The Call of Cthulhu, Jeremy Gillespie and Steven Kostanski’s The Void, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead’s Spring (a Lovecraftian romance!), and John Carpenter’s “Cigarette Burns,” though that one is technically more of a Robert W. Chambers homage.
More Answered Questions
About Goodreads Q&A
Ask and answer questions about books!
You can pose questions to the Goodreads community with Reader Q&A, or ask your favorite author a question with Ask the Author.
See Featured Authors Answering Questions
Learn more