H. P. Lovecraft on Inspiration

What Lovecraft defined as horror, today is defined as dark fantasy. The violence in Lovecraft was more subdued and took place either off stage or, more effectively, in the reader's imagination that made the mental picture far more terrifying. His quest was for atmosphere and using words as tools to impact the imagination with a mixture of dread and fascination.

Personally, my best ideas come from wandering tiny odd streets, strolling through first-growth forests, exploring eccentric little bookstores, or walking through an old country lane under a darkening slate-gray sky.

H. P. Lovecraft on Libraries

It appears the Old Gentleman From Providence and I have something very much in common.

My Vacation Tickets Just Arrived Today

That's not a lamp behind me. It's the sheer power of the novels shining through. Really! ;-)

Way too poor to take a traditional vacation, James Stoddard's new editions of The High House and The False House arrived in the post today and they will act as a perfect substitute. Together, the two novels make up the award-winning Evenmere series and are part of my list of Top Five fantasy novels.

If you can't find me for the next week, I'm taking a well deserved vacation.

Here is my review of The High House that I posted back in 2007:

I do not yet know what book has been kicked out of my Top Five list, but one has in order to make room for James Stoddard's The High House (Aspect Fantasy: 1998).

Imagine if you will, a huge mansion that within its walls and halls and rooms holds worlds upon worlds, mysteries upon mysteries, with no end in sight. Imagine a Master of the House with three main responsibilities: maintain order within the House's myriad realms; protect all of this creation against the Anarchists, a group of people dedicated to overthrowing the house; and maintain a balance between Old Man Chaos and Lady Order, two archetypes that dwell within the house and in their absoluteness are creatures of surprising horror. Also, imagine a house where the Last Dinosaur, untamed and hungry, lives in the attic and the basement is filled with man-eating creatures that disguise themselves as furniture.

And there is still much, much more.

The High House is not a Christian allegory per se. It is a powerfully written novel set in a fantasy world that just happens to take place within a Christian worldview:

" ... like all of Creation, the High House is a Parable. As for who built it, some say God is the Great Architect; some say the Grand Engineer." Brittle gave his wry smile. "And some say He once was a carpenter as well. I can explain no better."

Yet, the message of the book is not beaten into you with a crowbar, but explained gently within the relationships of those who have been given the responsibility of caring for the High House.

I have always been an avid fan of supernatural houses and The High House now forms part of my mental neighborhood sharing property lines with Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves, William Hope Hodgson's The House on the Borderland, Richard Forsythe's Bishop's Landing, and Charles de Lint's Tamson House (Moonheart).

The High House is a nice place to visit and you just might want to live there.

• The High House (Amazon US)
• The High House (Amazon Canada)
• The High House (Amazon UK)
• The High House (Amazon Australia) 
• The High House (Amazon Russia)

(No, I get no perks or benefits by providing links so you can buy your own copies. I just want people to read some very excellent fantasy.)

"Have you found the Yellow Sign?"

When I moved my parents two months ago, my father gave me a box of brick-a-brac that contained two of these very small, yet curious lapel pins.

Either my father was a member of a secret society and my life is now measured in hours or somehow, I have found the Yellow Sign.

"a curious symbol or letter in gold. It was neither Arabic or Chinese, nor as I found afterwards did it belong to any human script". ~ Robert Chambers, The King in Yellow

And if the latter, my ending shall not be a pleasant one, for when one receives the Yellow Sign, the Phantom of Truth is summoned to claim it accompanied by the sound of creaking hearse wheels. I shall listen for it tonight.

In Praise of Old Books

Contrary to what I wrote on Monday, November 9th, it was not until this morning I was able to crack open my latest treasure, an old 1961 edition of Sax Rohmer's The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu.

Carefully, I took the book from its protective cover and when I opened it, from its slightly yellowed pages came that aroma that one finds only from old paperbacks. To me, it is the alchemical essence that foreshadows a journey to another world.

With the opening sentence, I was immediately transported to London in the year 1916 to an England oddly ignorant of the first World War, but involved in another terrible conflict with an evil mastermind.

It opens in the study of Dr. James Petrie entertaining the Rev. J. D. Eltham:

The refined and sensitive face of the clergy-man offered no indication of the truculent character of the man. His scanty fair hair, already gray over the temples, was silken and soft-looking; in appearance he was indeed a typical English churchman; but in China he had been known as "the fighting missionary," and had fully deserved the title. In fact, this peaceful-looking gentleman had directly brought about the Boxer Risings!

Within 16 pages, I am running with Petrie and Commissioner Nayland Smith as they race to free the good Reverend from the clutches of kidnappers working for Dr. Fu-Manchu! Commandeering a car, they end up in a fog-enshrouded cul de sac along the Thames contemplating how they are going to free the clergyman before he is murdered.

For Rohmer to transport me to 1916 London with its sights and aromas is in itself a miracle. As a writer, dare I hope for less for my own readers?

You can read The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu for free here.

The Fu-Manchu series will never be great literature, but they make for incredible stories. Rohmer's work is neither safe nor sanitized so today's delicate little snowflakes will not be able to handle the politically incorrect worldview of a long-dead England, but for the mature who can overlook the errors of an archaic, unchangeable past, the Fu-Manchu series guarantees a fun ride.

I'm A Starbucks Rebel!

What happens when a member of the ordained clergy imbibes from one of Starbucks' so-called anti-Christmas cups?

Why, absolutely nothing.

Except a little silliness.

Note: You probably can't tell this, but it is increasingly difficult for me to take the Internet all that seriously anymore.

Sub Note: Made with iPad's Photo app and Windows Live Movie Maker. Total time? About 10 to 15 minutes.

My Favorite Literary Villain: Dr. Fu Manchu and Death by Political Correctness

From 1913 to 1959, Sax Rohmer graced us with a witches coven of pulp novels that introduced an eager public to one of the most fascinating and controversial villains of all time: Dr. Fu Manchu:

"Imagine a person, tall, lean and feline, high-shouldered, with a brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan, a close-shaven skull, and long, magnetic eyes of the true cat-green. Invest him with all the cruel cunning of an entire Eastern race, accumulated in one giant intellect, with all the resources of science past and present, with all the resources, if you will, of a wealthy government--which, however, already has denied all knowledge of his existence. Imagine that awful being, and you have a mental picture of Dr. Fu-Manchu, the yellow peril incarnate in one man."-- Nayland Smith to Dr. Petrie, The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu,

I am in the process of collecting the series which follows. The ones that are bold are ones that I have in my collection:

• The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu (1913) (US Title: The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu).
• The Return of Dr Fu-Manchu (1916) (UK Title: The Devil Doctor)
• The Hand of Fu Manchu (1917) (UK Title: The Si-Fan Mysteries)
• Daughter of Fu Manchu (1931)
• The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932)
• The Bride of Fu Manchu (1933) (original US Title: Fu Manchu's Bride)
• The Trail of Fu Manchu (1934)
• President Fu Manchu (1936)
• The Drums of Fu Manchu (1939)
• The Island of Fu Manchu (1941)
• The Shadow of Fu Manchu (1948)
• Re-Enter: Fu Manchu (1957) (UK Title: Re-Enter: Dr. Fu Manchu)
• Emperor Fu Manchu (1959) was Rohmer's last novel.

Today I was fortunate enough to find in a local used bookstore a passable copy of the second book in the series (pictured at left) and I confess I am weak-willed enough that I will drop everything on my reading list to once again run with Inspector Nayland Smith as he effectively puts an end to the Doctor's plans, but completely fails to put an end to Fu Manchu once and for all.

Alas, the series is an acquired taste. Sax Rohmer (real name Arthur Henry Ward) was born in 1883 and died in 1959. A product of his time, he held politically incorrect beliefs that today require even that dead authors be castigated and purged from memory and sight.

Case in point, last weekend's World Fantasy Convention buckled under the pressure of social justice warriors and rid themselves of the World Fantasy Award that was modeled after author H. P. Lovecraft. There is conjecture as to what the new award will look like, but I believe it should be a simple can of generic vanilla pudding.

So why did the WFC remove the "Howard" as it was called, disdaining an author that had been described as "an incalculable influence on succeeding generations of writers of horror fiction" (Joyce Carol Oates), and "the twentieth century's greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale" (Stephen King)?

Like Rohmer, Robert W. Chambers, Robert Howard, and a host of other writers, Lovecraft was a product of his time and held racist beliefs that today people rightfully disagree with. Lovecraft and his peers were racist. I don't deny it. Lovecraft also hated Christians and was an avowed materialist, but why is it that I, a Christian pastor, can still enjoy the man's work and not feel threatened by his beliefs?

I shall withhold comments about my emotional maturity, a belief that pulp fiction does little to impact the worldviews of others, that I recognize racism as an outdated belief whose time has come, and that a man's body of literary work can often transcend the man himself.

So, in protest of the safe and sanitized prose that passes for genre fiction today and stories that must be approved by the thought police before they can see the light of day, I shall spend my nights with Dr. Fu Manchu and ponder the mysteries of the Cthulu Mythos and let my imagination wander the Dreamlands.

Someday, when the stars are right, people can return to the old tales and though the authors were very human with very human failings, the stories of old can still be enjoyed and still inspire another entire generation of readers and writers.

I close with this quote from author Vox Day:

"None of the (Social Justice Warriors) writing today, no matter how many awards they give each other, will have one-tenth the lasting literary impact that Lovecraft did. None of them has his imagination; the very best they have to offer can only offer pallid, perverted imitations of him."

My chair and reading lamp call me. I have a date with the good Doctor.