My review of Brian Lumley's nifty s&s collection The House of Cthulhu went up over at Black Gate the other day. What a cool find at this point in the blogging game. Figure I'll pick up the other two collections soon.
When I was a kid I read some of Lumley's early Mythos stories. I read "The Sister City" and "Cement Surroundings" in Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos Vol. 2 (in the Ballantine edition with the nutzoid John Holmes cover) and did not like them and it was enough to put me off him for years. They were too derivative and not very suspenseful. Even today, as a fan of his, I greatly prefer his non-Mythos horror. I have a tremendous fear of heights and I could literally not read much of his story "The Viaduct." He is one of the best.
Three things changed that. First, I read his "Spaghetti" in Singer of Strange Songs and really enjoyed it. Second, my friend strongly recommended The House of Doors and loved it. Third, the same friend also recommended Necroscope and I really dug that. After those encounters I was sold.
If you're interested in these guys, the easiest place to start is with "The Boys Are Back in Town" including Jailbreak. If you like it go to Fighting or Bad Reputation which I think are even better.
Blue Öyster Cult cut some amazing, proggy bits of rock back in the seventies. Their first three albums, Blue Öyster Cult, Tyranny and Mutation and Secret Treaties haven't dated to my ears.
I love Thin Lizzy.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely a band to go back in time to see. Specifically in front of their hometown crowd in Dublin
DeleteI'm surprised there wasn't more of a discussion going over on Black Gate. Maybe more people like us need to read more of Lumley's sword-&-sorcery with Mythos flare.
ReplyDeleteSometimes I wonder about revisiting much earlier reads in my life, but there is so much new to read.
I do remember picking up Howard's Baen book Cthulhu: The Mythos and Kindred Horrors during my Lovecraft phase and not being very moved by it. It took me another 10 years to finally get hooked on Howard the second time around via his sword-&-sorcery. And, I appreciate the calibre of his horror now, too.
I was a already a Howard fan when I picked that one up and it put me off his horror for years. Like Lumley, I think he often lacks a certain, shall I say, subtlety when it comes to Mythos writing. The original horror of both is so much better than their HPL-derived stuff.
DeleteYeah, I expected a little more discussion if only because ten or fifteen years ago you couldn't swing a cat without hitting a Lumley book or fan.
I have rose colored glasses as far as the 70s go, but then again I was only a kid. Some of my favorite bands came out of the 70s. The Ramones, Thin Lizzy, T-Rex, New York Dolls, The Saints, Big Star, I could go on and on.
ReplyDeleteNot to mention tv shows like The Six Million Dollar Man, Land of the Lost, Space 1999, Incredible Hulk.
Yeah, there was disco, easy listening music, Maude, Jimmy Carter etc. but there were some good things too.
Thank you! All those bands and more were products of the weird warped times that were the seventies.Same with TV. Some of the best American movies come from the same period - the Seven Ups, High Plains Drifter. Good times, indeed!
DeleteNice to see a shout out to BOC. Those three albums are still great. Have you tried Imaginos? It returns to a lot of the themes from those early albums. They had created a great dark mythology but didn't really ever solidify it. 'It's the nexus of the crisis andthe origin of storms...'
ReplyDeleteNo. I've always meant to. Did you know KEW used those lines for chapter titles in one of the Kane books?
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