Lovecraftian Thing a Day No.366: Blind Idiot God

Last night I was presaged a vision of what lurks beyond that ultimate Gate that lies in fearful Kadath in the Cold Waste and is as one with Yog-Sothoth. Through that Gate I saw a dark, shrouded figure stalking towards me out of a tumultuous gulf of unimaginable angles and crazed geometry. Seeing that figure, I knew Who it was: Nyarlathotep! He who in taking a thousand forms is thus rendered formless! Grave-looting Spawn of the Stars! Nyarlathotep, whose hideous secret shall soon be revealed to me!

He who is the soul, will and messenger of the Many-Angled Ones, and servant to That which I now know awaits for me - and awaits ravenous for us all - at the end of all things.

Tonight I expect to be taken bodily through the Gate, from whence the Strange Dark One, acting as ny guide, will lead me on the back of a great Shantak bird to the nighted throne upon which is seated that bubbling, blasphemous Thing which writhes mindlessly and eternally to the atonal piping of nameless flautists. Beyond time and the angles, in that chaotic abyss hidden at centre of all creation, I will be presented at the Imbecilic Court to the nuclear chaos, daemon sultan, Lord of All, blind idiot god - Azathoth!

Thus I go now to meet my He Who is the Author of all things, and from which all things flow. I cannot imagine what awful transmutations my body and soul shall endure at the end of my voyagings, but this is not a journey from which I expect to return.

Lovecraftian Thing a Day No.365: The Guardian of the Threshold

Last night I was taken once again to that city of alien and Antarctic horror, only to be lifted upon the icy winds and born further southward. It was then that I Grasped what was to be my ultimate destination: that space of unreal geography which lay beyond a second range of gargantuan mountains to which the inhabitants of the ruined city had on occasion made terrified obeisance. Not only was I familiar with the hints about that place found in the works of Alhazred and Von Juntz, but I had also intimated much from Fredrick Mulder’s guarded comments regarding the contents of the Ghorl Nigral - particularly with regard to what that dread tome had to say of the Plateau of Leng, and of Kadath in the Cold Waste. What I had garnered from those vague allusions was that whatever lay beyond that second range of unfathomably vast mountains had fallen from the stars close to 500 million years ago, and that the inhabitants of the alien city which had stood in all-too close proximity to that place had refused to visit it, fearful of what was portended by sinister bluish and purple auroras that flickered about the summits of those mountains - whose immeasurable geologic mass thankfully hid whatever was beyond. I was also reminded of what Lovecraft – inspired by a dream (and who knows what other sources) - wrote regarding the Elder Pharos.

I will not – indeed cannot – recount what was revealed to me as my brain, imprisoned within that cold canister of alien metal, was lifted above and beyond those monstrous peaks. There is truth in the claim that some things are, by their alien nature and condition, utterly unspeakable and wholly incomprehensible to earthly minds. Indeed, any attempt to describe what was revealed to me would Resemble, at best, some virtually meaningless jumble of abstract modernist bizarrerie. But that would fail to convey the full horror of what my vision encompassed: a zone that failed in all particulars to conform to the normative geography of the terrestrial realm; indeed, it was questionable whether such a region could properly be said in any way to inhabit the sane, wholesome and orderly geometries that frame a typically human perception of things. What I will say is that my experience of the previous night now made a sense of sorts - I realised that it was somehow preparatory to the next stage in what I now believe to be my terminal transition from this world, via That which is Key, Gate and Guardian of the Gate, thence leading to my ultimate transfiguration into…That Which Lies Beyond.

Indeed, words cannot describe what I saw; but I understand that you, good reader, will not be satisfied with what, to you, seems such a facile claim. There is one thing, then, that I can show to mitigate your scepticism: the product of a human artist who, I now believe, underwent the same transition as myself - but who went mad as a result. This is his rendition – albeit given expression in a form that thankfully only hints (and in the most vague and abstract manner) at the final shape of that transdimensional monstrosity that was revealed to me. For in that desolate zone beyond the alien city, and hitherto hidden from human sight by those vast mountains, I bore witness to the true form of Yog-Sothoth.

Lovecraftian Thing a Day No.364: Yog-Sothoth Is The Key And The Gate

Last night I was taken again - on this occasion to a new (and frankly unexpected) destination. However, as we came toward the end of our flight, I was surprised to discern a number of features amongst the landscape below with which I was familiar: at one point, we coasted across the night sky above the fine city of Providence; later we followed for a period what I believe to be the Pawtuxet River, before setting down next to an abandoned and dilapidated farmhouse in a remote, rustic area.  Thence I was carried through a trap door in the floor of that building down a series of stone steps into a complex maze of basements and sub-basements of antique construction - many of which were filled with items and equipment which I readily identified as typically requisite to the alchemical arts. Eventually we came to a roughly-hewn tunnel that led further downward into the darkness.

After a period of traversing this tunnel, we finally happened upon a wide, cavernous room, in the centre of which sat a squat altar. Upon the altar rested a small bronze effigy of grotesque and disturbing design. Surrounding the altar were a number of large ceramic jars, grimy with age. On the wall behind the alter was inscribed the following formula:

Y'AI 'NG'NGAH

YOG-SOTHOTH

H'EE-L'GEB

F'AI THRODOG

UAAAH

This I recognised of old: an incantation notorious amongst alchemists and cabalists, and which supposedly calls upon the power of dread Yog-Sothoth, Who is both Key and Gate to the Outside, and Who possesses the power to bend time and space to Its will. It is rumoured that this formula has been used by certain necromancers to abjure the remains of the dead, so that they might once more be forced to take on the semblance of the living; but who, it is said, may take on other, less fathomable forms should their remains be incomplete.

Then that monstrous emissary - who over the past nights had been responsible for exposing me to these abject zones of horror - raised its horribly buzzing, droning voice, and began chanting the formula.

Grayish-blue smoke billowed from out those ceramic jars arranged around the central altar. Through that smoke I witnessed that which should not have been witnessed, as those who had once been clothed in solid flesh were given shape yet again. But the remains from which they had been called up must have been incomplete, so that rather than observing the natural, sane contours of the human form I instead discerned a blasphemous coterie of unwholesome abominations. Yet before the madness of this scene drove me to a state of oblivious insensibility, that impossible sodality of half-finished things - which were even something less than a bizarre charicature of twisted human morphology - began chanting in unison: 'Yog-Sothoth Neblod Zin! Yog-Sothoth Neblod Zin!'

On awakening fully-clothed upon my bed this morning, the shutters of my open window clattering in the chill breeze, I discovered that once again a momento of the previous night's frightful sojourn had been left for my deliberation: the shockingly incongruous bronze effigy which had sat, incomprehending, on the altar beneath Pawtuxet - that graven image wherein a vague approximation of the bulbous and misshapen semblance of that Outer Monstrousity which is veiled beneath the name of 'Yog-Sothoth' has been made incarnate.

Lovecraftian Thing a Day No.363: Star-Headed Idol

Last night I found myself being carried over a great, needle-peaked range of mountains to a further realm of glacial horror: a tractless, icy plateau upon which squatted a vast, ruined city of alien design. I will not deign to set down here all of what I saw as I was carried through the interior of that place, but I will say that therein I was exposed to the secrets of the aeons, and to the unspeakable truth regarding the origins of humanity. Furthermore, I witnessed material evidence of an untold and hidden history of our world - one that long predates the appearance or our first hominid ancestors, and which includes an ancient war between the long-dead inhabitants of that place and the monstrous builders of the corpse-city of R'lyeh, to which I now believe I was taken in person two nights ago.

Awakening in my bed this morning, I discovered the above idol resting upon my bedside table as additional proof of the fact that these nocturnal voyagings are more than the disorderly imaginings of a disturbed mind. The item is a worn and ancient statuette representing one of the starfish-headed inhabitants of the alien city to which I was taken that night - and whose duplicates I regularly saw strewn about the ruins of that aeons-old place.

It seems that I have delved too deeply into a primordial body of lore which the human mind is not properly prepared to comprehend, and that in doing so I have attracted the attention of certain agencies who, for some unknown and inconceivable reason are now subjecting me to a surfeit of horrifying revelations regarding humanity's tiny and insignificant place in the cosmos.

There are three final things to relate. Firstly, I believe I am being purposely shown those primal forced which lurk about this planet, and whose awakening will precipitate humanity's ultimate and inevitable demise. Secondly, I believe that over the next few nights I will be carried closer to my final destination. During my journeyings through the tunnels below the city, I witnessed the history of that place carved in elaborate bas-relief. Therein was revealed that, further to the south of that place was existed yet another range of mountains, even more titanic that those over which I was carried to the city. Also shown to me was the fact that, during a more degenerate phase of their civilization, the star-headed things had made horrified and awe-struck obeisance to those mountains - or rather to what lurked beyond them. I now believe that to be my ultimate destination, and the realisation terrifies me.

But there is one final thing. Last night I was set down at a certain place in the caverns beneath that city - a place where black amorphous shapes gambol and roll upon the sheeted ice of a frozen subterrenean sea. In the glassy ice on the shore of that sea where I was briefly set down, I glimpsed  a nightmare shape of pinkish hue with a bulbous protuberance covered in tiny glowing feelers for a face, too-many limbs, and vast leathery wings. In two of its claws the thing clutched a smallish, shiny cylinder, to which various objects and wires were attached. In a moment of madenning realisation, I understood that the cyclinder was myself - or rather, it contained that part of my physical presence in which consciousess resides...

The almost-invisible scarring around my hairline makes sense now, and I realise now that I am either to be subjected to the same awful fate that befell Henry Akeley, or to something much, much worse...

Lovecraftian Thing a Day No.362: The Legrasse Idol (Redux) and Other Strange Discoveries

This morning I was presented with proof positive that something far stranger and more horrifying is happening to me than a simple psychic or occult intervention into my dreams. I am now convinced that I have been subjected to nightly physical abductions by something from the Outside, something thence conveying me - or at least some portion of my bodily presence - to zones of abject horror which resonate with or correspond to with various of the items which I have had occasion to add to my collection over the years.

The proof itself I will return to shortly. However, last night I found myself again relayed - by the same buzzing, droning and unseen agency responsible for my previous excursions - from that strangely-angled and weed-covered city of monstrous and geometrically-proposterous aspect which I had vaguely spied during the previous night's journeying, and up again into the star-trewn abyss of the night sky.

After flying across that starry void for what felt like hours, we coasted low over a colourfully-litten city whose contours I recognised as those of New Orleans. A short-time later we alighted on an small island in a clearing of brackish water deep within the swampy, cyprus-filled wetlands of Louisiana. Therein stood arrayed in a circle a number of ominous, moss-covered monoliths, with another of their kind at its centre. Atop this sat a small bronze idol of cephalopodic cast, covered in some dried reddish or rust-coloured substance - the origin of which I dared not contemplate.

Then, through a gap in the thick cyprus barrier that virtually enclosed that unholy place, I spied a great quivering shape, giving off a sickly white glow from its amorphous mass, and stumbling  through the dense marshy flora towards the clearing. Thankfully, before that maddeningly-suggestive shape fully revealed itself, I felt myself lifted from that place. Moments later unconsciousness took me.

On awakening this morning, I discovered the following: a bronze idol - twin to that which I had witnessed atop the medial megalith from my 'dream' - resting upon the compact escritoire that I keep in my bedroom:

This is not an item that I currently or ever have owned; however, the squid-like features of this gaguely anthropoid puece do bear an eerie resemblance to an earlier entry: a statuette that had previously been in the possession of Raymond Legrasse of the New Orleans police force, recovered during his investigations into the notorious Cthulhu cult. Alongside the bronze idol rested another item: one that does form part of my collection, but which had been removed -unknowingly by me - from its sual place of storage. This piece, whilst of unknown provenance, bears a disturbingly suggestive resemblance to the whitely-phosphorescent and monstrously amorphous thing which, in my 'dream', lurked threateningly at the edge of that nightmarish bayou clearing:

I have no comprehension of what any of this means, but I fear that soon madness - or something worse - will take me...

Lovecraftian Thing a Day No.361: The Angell Box

It seems that the measures employed via the Necronomicon and the Elder Sign have only been partially effective. Whilst last night's sleep was not disturbed by the same kind of vivid nightmares previously documented, nonetheless my dreams were filled with vague portents of a great seaweed-strewn city of geometrically-perverse design rising from beneath the ocean depths, and of some frightful and madness-inducing horror awakening within the strangely angled catacombs of that impossible city.

These dreams, it seems, were an intimation of sorts: this morning I found myself recipient of a curious package purporting to be an archival collection of material, pertaining to a case investigated by Prof. George Gammell Angell (of Providence, Rhode Island) in the late 1920s. There is no return address for the package, so its origin remains a mystery. Specifically, the contents document Angell's interest in global reach of the Cthulhu cult, and includes testimony from various sources regarding the threat which this cult represents to the continued sanity (and indeed existence) of humanity:

Most notable in relation to last night's partially-disturbed sleep are these items, produced by the sculptor Henry Wilcox, whose own dream experiences seem to parallel mine in some measure:

These items in particular bear a striking resemblance to some of the vague visions which plagued my dreams last night - such that I cannot but help wonder if what I saw was something more than just a dream. It is likely that tonight I will find out, for this morning my bedroom window was yet again found to be unlocked and open, and the pages from the Necronomicon and Elder Sign amulets documented in yesterday's post are now all inexplicably missing.

Lovecraftian Thing a Day No.360: Leaves from the Necronomicon and Yuletide Horror

In light of recent events, it clear that I am in need of additional protection against whatever occult force or agency that is evidently seeking to invade my dreams (if, indeed, dreams are all they are). Fortunately I have in my possession two leaves purloined, as it happens, from the copy of the John Dee translation of the Necronomicon that rests in the special collection of the Miskatonic University library. With regard to my current predicament, the pages in question pertain to the use of the Elder Sign as an apotropaic ward against the forces of the Outside. Yesterday evening I made use of the powerful formulae found in these leaves, and I am pleased to report that last night was passed in a relatively peaceful and dreamless sleep.

Of note is the fact that the sign takes two different forms, commonly referred to in occult circles as the Star variant and the Tree variant, both of which can be discerned in the image below. Arrayed alongside the leaves themselves are amulets bearing both versions of the Elder Sign (and which have been the focus of previous entries):

On this festive morning, I cannot but help ponder the cojoined significance of the variant forms of the Elder Sign. The Tree and the Star. Given that these two things form the basic symbolic structure of the typical Christmas tree, I wonder if there might be some hidden and archaic meaning behind its display in many households. Is there some darker reason behind the tradition? Why is it that folk typically decorate the tree with a star during a festival that is meant to celebrate the birth of a hybrid being who was the product of a union between a human mother and a father praeternatural provenance - and heralded by the appearance of a new star? Is the tree less the symbol of celebration of birth and everlasting life, than a sign of protection against what such a birth portends at a time when the Stars are Right?

In any case, I wish you all, dear readers, a Merry Christmas. And if peace and goodwill between all people seems a distant prospect, then I wish you all, at least, the brief respite of peace and oblivion that comes from a dreamless sleep.

Lovecraftian Thing a Day No.359: El Profundo, British Honduras

Yet another troubling dream disturbed my sleep last night - and one which was also a protraction of the previous night's fantastical reverie.

On this occasion, I was carried from the island of black rock and ice across tumultuous seas for what seemed an age, finally being set down amongst monolithic limestone ruins on the edge of a lake surrounded by sweltering jungle flora. Still in the same quasi-incapacitated state I experienced in my previous dream, my limited field of vision was forcibly directed (by my still-invisible and nameless emissary) toward a small chipped limestone block etched with a strange design - at which point the lake began to boil and bubble as if from some vast body rising from its depths. Stricken yet again with a sense of premonitionary fright in anticipation of whatever horror I might witness emerging from the lake's turbulent waters, I awoke from the nightmare.

Reflecting on the disturbing content of this latest oneiric excursion, I soon recalled that an an item in my collection was the precise replica of the partially-shattered limestone rock shown to me in the dream. As with the previous two entries, I cannot help but comment on the the fact that this item was also also acquired (through admittedly unconventional means) from the Miskatonic University museum's special collection. Witholding further comment, I note that this piece - of Mayan origin - depicts a figure referred to in the folklore of the (then) local British Honduran populace as El Profundo:

On what might be an unrelated note, my bedroom window was yet again open upon my waking, despite the fact that I made sure to close and lock the offending apperture the night before. I also noticed, whilst examining my haggared visage in tne bathroom mirror during my morning ablutions, what appeared to be a thin - almost microscopically so - scar running along my hairline...

Lovecraftian Thing a Day No.358: South Georgia Island Artefacts

There is still no update on the hacking of my blog, nor on the origin of yesterday's mystery post (as detailed in this Facebook entry). To be honest, I'm currently disinclined to pursue this further given the bad night's sleep I've just had - precipitated by a strange dream in which I was being carried over black, abysmal, boreal seas by something that buzzed and droned as we flew. Curiously, I was completely unaware of my body during the flight, being in some sort of state of complete paralysis. Whilst I was capable of sight and hearing, my field of vision was limited so that I could not even look down to see myself.

Eventually I was brought to an island of black rock, parts of which were covered in thick sheets of ice and snow, and where there stood a crumbling and abandoned installation of antiquitated (but definitely human) construction. I was taken into one of the buildings, which was in a shocking state of disrepair, where my vision was directed to a small idol carved from ivory, and resting on an decrepit wooden table at which set mindless staring the frozen and dessicated body of an old man. The buzzing and droning of the thing which carried me - but which I was never able to see due to my oddly incapacitated state - became more animated at this point in the dream, such that it seemed to be trying to communicate something of importance to me.

The buzzing grew yet more urgent, perhaps as a result of my failure to respond, following which I was carried off yet again, this time from out the building to a nearby outcropping of basaltic rock. At the base of this appeared a wide opening which tunnelled into the nebulous darkness beneath the island. After a space of time travelling through dank, dripping caverns, I was brought by my unseen companion to a cyclopean stairwell hewn into the rock at strange and unexpected angles, leading even to even deeper and darker climes. Strange symbols - some of which I recognised as being of unimaginably vast antiquity -were etched into the wall of the gigantic stairwell in a seemigly random sequence, but one which nonetheless hinted vaguely at cosmic abnormalities hidden below the perceptible surface of things.

As I was about to be carried downward those stairs, I had the horrid intimation that something monstrous lurked in those depths - something neither fully alive nor fully dead, and on the cusp of wakefullness after an aeons-long slumber. Something of which the ivory idol I had been shown earlier was but a crude representation. Thankfully, the state of panicked terror I experienced at this juncture forced me to wakefulness. I was left both chilled and with a throbbing headache, only to realise that I had left my bedroom window open all night (although I don't recall opening it prior to retiring). No doubt the cold breeze coming from without had affected the content of my dream.
In addition to which, other elements of that night's experience can be further rationalised: as a case in point, the small ivory idol that I encountered during my oneiric flight currently forms part of my collection of strange and unearthly ephemera - although suspiciously this item shares with yesterday's  mysterious entry the fact that it forms part of a package of materials taken from the archives of the Miskatonic University. Whilst I only have the vaguest of recollections of having briefly seen yesterday's items, in this instance I have no recollection of receiving the package, nor any idea of who sent it or when. I have the unpleasant feeling that the both these events are intrinsically linked, in a manner which currently I remain unable to discern...

The idol - found at a whaling station on South Georgia Island in the Antarctic - along with details from Miskatonic University museum's catalogue:

A map of the Antarctic region (South Georgia Island is in the top left corner of the map), along with a photos of the idol and the abandoned whaling station:

Finally, this page of script accompanied the idol. It appears to be written in a very archaic form of hieratic Naacal. Whilst I lack fluency in that archaic tongue, The script here relates to what is referred to as 'one of the Great Ancient Ones from the Stars', who rests somewhere beneath 'The Black Island', which is in turn described as 'a distant outposts of strangely-angled 'R'lyeh':

Lovecraftian Thing a Day No.357: The Akeley/Wilmarth Artefacts

Some time back Jason McKittrick of Cryptocurium sent me this package, which he uncovered in the Albert N. Wilmarth archive at the Miskatonic University library:

The package contains two curious artefacts, with accompanying documentation...

...amongst which is a letter from Henry Akeley to Wilmarth regarding the existence of monstrous alien powers supposedly lurking amongst the desolate hills and forests of Vermont. Wilmarth's Miskatonic University ID card is included alongside:

More images of the items found in Vermont pertaining to the Akeley case: a crude representation of the so-called 'Mi-Go' which Akeley claims to have encountered, and a curiously-shaped object made of black stone item (and referred to in one of the documents as the 'Stargazer Stone'):

Also included is this torn page of manuscript - possibly taken from the Miskatonic University's copy of the dreaded Necronomicon. Those familiar with the events surrounding the disappearance of Henry Akeley may recall this ritual liturgy, which Akeley claimed to have heard recited by both human and less-discernable buzzing voices deep in the Vermont woods:
 

Also included in the package is this rather disturbing photograph, taken by Akeley (showing what appears to be some sort of clawed footprint in the vicinty of his property), as well as a drawing by Akeley supposedly depicting one of the Mi-Go or 'Fungi from Yuggoth':

Finally, two telegrams sent to Wilmarth by Akeley - along with a map of the Vermont region - were also found in the package. It was the reception of these telegrams which ultimately led Wilmarth to visit Akeley's property, thus precipitating the purportedly horrifying denounment of the Akeley case:

Needless to say, all of the above should be regarded with a significant degree of suspicion. Akely's claim that monstrous alien beings lurk in and around the dark corners of the earth can be readily dismissed as the ravings of a lunatic - as can his other urgent injunction that humanity needs to closely watch Pluto for signs of anomalous activity. Wilmarth himself later became entangled in a number of other disreputable incidences which call into question the veracity of his claims regarding the Akely affair; again, those familiar with the case may recall Wilmarth's admission of the fact that, during his overnight stay at the Akely homestead, he did not actually view anything resembling concrete, material evidence in support of his outlandish claims regarding what caused him to flee that place. Whilst we may never find out the truth of the matter, I am also convinced that it most certainly is not 'out there'.

 

Lovecraftian Thing a Day No.356: Starr Creek

Having finished John Langan's excellent The Fisherman, I've now moved on to another recent release, Nathan Carson's Starr Creek. Think Stranger Things - complete with D&D-playing adolescents and an extra dose of Lovecraftian horror - but on drugs. Literally. I mean, the cover pretty much says it all. In any case, I'm about 50 pages in and it really is the good stuff. Starr Creek can currently be purchased from Amazon UK for the appropriately devilish price of £6.66.

Lovecraftian Thing a Day No.355: More NecronomiCon Miscellany

These are my pin badges from NecronomiCon 2015 - my Silver Key badge, and also my Guest badge, as I ended up presenting a paper at the Armitage Symposium and appearing on a panel about Lovecraft and the occult (though to be honest I didn't really consider myself as worthy of the honour given some of the luminaries I shared the stage with). I'm pretty busy with work and trying to fit in Xmas shopping, so the entries from the last few days haven't been terribly impressive, but I'm building up to a more interesting selection for the final ten days of this series, starting from Thursday this week.

Lovecraftian Thing a Day No.354: NecronomiCon 2015 Miscellany

As we are approaching the end of the Lovecraftian Thing a Day - at least as far as 2016 is concerned - I have some special treats lined up for the final 10 entries. For now, however, I leave you with some bits and bobs which I picked up during NecronomiCon 2015: The Cthulhu Commune fanzine, and a flyer announcing the S.T. Joshi Endowed Fellowship at Brown University.

Lovecraftian Thing a Day No.353: I Won NecronomiCon 2015!

Today's item is a limited edition print which was awarded to me - by Pete Rawlik of Reanimators and Lovecraft eZine fame - for leading my team to victory at the NecronomiCon 2015 trivia quiz. Whilst it was a team effort, I have no shame in admitting that I provided most of the answers. Below is me celebrating the victory. This was the second Lovecraftian quiz from which I have emerged victorious. That is becase I am awesome.

Lovecraftian Thing a Day No.352: Miscellaneous Postcards

Just a quick entry today, as I am still recovering from last night's unexpected booze-related shennanigans (resulting in the rather vague late posting of yesterday's entry): a miscellany of Lovecraftian postcards, purchased from Lovecraft Arts & Sciences in Providence during NecronomiCon 2015. Nice.

Lovecraftian Thing a Day No.351: Rougarou and Carnevale

Posting this one late due to unexpected pre-Xmas drinks: a Cthulhuvian Christmas treat courtesy of Fantasy Flight Games which appeared on my doorstep this morning.

Lovecraftian Thing a Day No.350: Cthulhu Christmas Card

This Christmas card popped through my door this morning, from Matt Danderson, Scott Dorward and Paul Fricker of The Good Friends of Jackson Elias podcast - one of the rewards of being a patreon of the 'cast. Nice.

Lovecraftian Thing a Day No.349: The Fisherman

John Langan's The Fisherman has been receiving numerous accolades, and for good reason: although I've not yet completed reading it, Langan manages to artfully nest a subtle and sublime sense of cosmic horror within a quieter tale of grief and loss in a manner that makes for a compelling read. In brief, The Fisherman makes for a timely reminder that the default setting for cosmic horror need not be the Cthulhu Mythos. You can get your copy from Amazon, or order direct from Word Horde.

Lovecraftian Thing a Day No.348: A Lonely & Curious Country

More reminisences of NecronomiCons past with today's offering: A Lonely And Curious Country, edited by Matthew Carpenter. I first met Matt at NecronomiCon 2013, and got him to sign this at NecronomiCon 2015, where it debuted. I think we are going to try and meet for lunch at NecronomiCon 2017. Matt is also a regular panelist on the Lovecraft eZine vidcast, so you can catch him there most weeks. A Lonely And Curious Country is an excellent collection which takes Lovecraftian regionalism as its general theme, and can be purchased in vatious formats from Amazon or directly from the publisher, Ulthar Press.

Lovecraftian Thing a Day No.347: Achtung! Cthulhu Skirmish

I picked up Modiphius' Achtung! Cthulhu Skirmish miniatures game at Dragonmeet 2016 the other week. As this is going to appear under the Christmas tree for the Yule festivities, I have yet to survey its contents; regardless, a game that offers the opportunity to kick Cthulhu-worshipping Nazi butt can't be all that bad (although I'm also hoping that it will be easily soloable).

Lovecraftian Thing a Day No.346: Lovecraftian Pewter Pendants

Talented artist, sculpter, and one-time Games Workshop 'Eavy Metal miniature painter Tammy Haye kindly gifted me with these impressive pewter pendants at the Lovecraft Scholars' Yule social event in London yesterday. The three pendants displayed are a Chthonian Yin-Yang pendant (my personal favourite), an Elder Sign pendant, and a Cthulhu pendant. I will be giving these away as prizes at the next Lovecraft Scholars event (hopefully in early 2017), but was so impressed by these that I have already purchased a couple more from Tammy's  Subversive Constructs Etsy page. These are limited editions, so grab them before they are gone!