The Cthulhu Mythos Isn't

I hate the concept of "The Cthulhu Mythos." There, I've said it. And I'm not taking it back. This might seem a little backwards, because anyone who knows me is well aware of the fact that I'm in love with H. P. Lovecraft and his work. I have my reasons, though, and I think they are sensible ones... so I'm going to tell them to you (it's a blog, after all.)  Follow me through the gates of the silver key and meet me at the mountains of madness.


For the Un-Initiated


Howard Phillips Lovecraft was an American horror/science fiction writer who toiled in obscurity during his life but gained a cult following after his death. The ideas and devices in his stories have been borrowed, adapted and built upon almost to the point of becoming cliche, and modern horror owes him a tremendous creative debt. That's the short biography.

In H. P. Lovecraft's fictitious New England, characters discover information concerning dark truths about the world we live in. Humankind lives in comfortable, blind ignorance of the true horror that existence belies. There are ancient alien monsters (the "great old ones") buried beneath the sea, waiting to be awakened, and hordes of depraved, daemonic cultists who use dark rites and rituals to attempt necromancy and the resurrection of their evil gods. There are ominous mountains, sinister dark woods and brooding abandoned houses always seeming to contain crypts locked away below them, hidden. Often, knowledge of these nightmarish realities alone is enough to drive most of our protagonists insane, and the few who actually encounter some trace of the horrors that exist in this world perish, or turn out much worse for wear.