I had planned a series of posts on Ligotti this week; however, tomorrow marks my full return to work as the new academic year begins, and frankly the thought of having to deal with Ligotti on a daily basis at the same time is just a little too much to bear! Instead, I present what will be my reading material for the next few days: Robert Bloch's novel-length homage to Lovecraft, Strange Eons (which I think may also be a sequel to the now famous Lovecraft-Bloch murder trilogy). I first read this in a hardback edition my local library. As I've mentioned previously, back in the late 70s-early 80s my local public library seemed full of weird Lovecraftian and occult stuff - probably on account of that fine institution being run by hippy librarians (the very best sort, of corse). In any case, I recall that the hardback edition of Strange Eons also contained a number of rather nice pen-and-ink illustrations.
Strange Eons was, I think, something of a rarity back in the Lovecraft revival of the 1970s, in being one of only a few novel-length Cthulhu Mythos tales (most of the others apparently having been written by Brian Lumley!). indeed, it seems that the penchant for creating long-form Mythos fiction didn't take off until the 1990s.
Strange Eons is currently out if print (but available relatively cheaply as a paperback - the edition shown here - on the second hand market). This also reminds me that, despite the digital revolution - which appears to have facilitated a veritable explosion of contemporary Cthulhu Mythos fiction - there remain as yet a good number of older tales unavaible in ebook format or republished hardcopy.
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