I grew up in an extremely religious household. It's not my intent to discuss religion here; I only bring up the subject so that I can properly contextualize my state of mind such as it was when I was first introduced to the writing of H.P. Lovecraft.
Before Lovecraft, the only worldview I'd been exposed to was one in which humans were, aside from God and his angels, the most important beings in all of creation. Men were given dominion over everything that walked upon the face of the earth, over the fish in the sea, and our souls were the ultimate currency in a timeless war between angels and demons. At the age of 8 (give or take a year), this is what was real to me. And then Lovecraft came along like a wrecking ball.
This was rural, white bread America in the late 80's / early 90's. There was no internet. Orwell was the next writer that would shape my worldview, and that was still several years off. Kafka was more than a decade away.
I was always kind of a strange kid. I was obsessed with Halloween. I spent my weekends watching old black and white horror films, and I drew little cartoons of monsters and skeletons during church service. The first time I saw an H.P. Lovecraft anthology on the shelf I knew absolutely nothing about the author, it was the artwork on the cover that I found appealing. There were images of dark figures shrouded in robes with their rib cages visible, monstrous, blood covered faces leering through windows, and corpses trapped in the webs of prickly, metallic spiders with thousands of eyes. (I would later see this same artwork on the cover of a Meatloaf cassette for his hit single "Objects In The Rear-view Mirror...". Unfamiliar with Meatloaf I wrongly assumed that, based on the cover art, his music must be awesome; and hastily purchased the tape, to my eternal regret.)
In the span of two months I tore through three collections of Lovecraft's work. Once I dug in to the stories I found it wasn't the ghastly monsters that were most appealing to me about his work, nor was it Lovecraft's knack for suspense. It was the fact that Lovecraft's worldview was the complete opposite of everything I'd been exposed to in my life up to that point. I'd always believed that the counterpoint to a kind and loving God was Satan; but after reading these stories I realized that the true opposite of God was entropy, nothingness. Cosmic indifference.
To monsters like Lovecraft's Cthulhu, mankind was no different than any other animal. We were ants beneath their notice; occasionally given the slightly greater significance of serving as livestock for these ancient gods when they would awaken from their centuries long torpor with a most terrible hunger. And then there were creatures like Azathoth, the blind idiot god to whom mankind may as well not have existed at all.
The mythology in these tales was so dense, even complete with it's own (un)holy book in the Necronomicon, that to my young mind there didn't seem to be much difference between Lovecraft's stories and the tales that I'd been raised on, of talking donkeys and men living in the bellies of whales. Back then, it didn't seem any less real.
Having been involved in several fiction anthologies and other Lovecraft themed projects, I've found myself recently giving much thought to what makes the man's tales so enduring in popular culture. His worldview is bleak, his stories lack diverse characters (and in many cases even a relatable protagonist); and of course there's the ever present and not so subtle racism, that, while simply a product of the times he lived in, is still horribly offensive.
So why do people keep coming back?
In my estimation, it's because there's just something in the notion that the universe simply does not give a damn about you that rings true for each of us. Now, I'm not trying to suggest that that's the truth of the matter; but this is horror fiction. By design, it's meant to be an exploration of the darker side of human thought. And I'm sure most of us, at some point or another, have experienced that moment of feeling completely insignificant.
Anyway, for fans, or for those of you who've never read Lovecraft and would rather read a pale imitation instead of going directly to the source, you can check out the Whispers From The Abyss anthology from 01publishing, which features my story "The Neon Morgue", here:
Whispers From The Abyss
Just kidding about that pale imitation part. It's really quite good, I promise.
Happy reading, and have a very eldritch new year!
Update: Whispers From The Abyss was successful enough in ebook format that 01publishing have released a print version, available here:
http://www.amazon.com/Whispers-Abyss-Greg-Stolze/dp/0983923051/ref=sr_1_1_twi_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1414712363&sr=8-1&keywords=whispers+from+the+abyss
Also in the works, Whispers... Volume 2:
http://01publishing.com/2014/10/20/for-immediate-release-open-call-for-submissions/
Guess it's time to start writing...
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