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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Desdichado" data-source="post: 6257529" data-attributes="member: 2205">Which, sadly, I don't think are the best writers in the group.  Although they are often more remembered because they articulated philosophies, which are often seen as as memorable as their stories.  REH actually wrote a whole series of stories that were even more overtly Lovecraftian than his Conan stories (although for some reason, "The Black Stone" is the only one who's title I can think of off the top of my head.)  Some writers like Henry Kuttner, E. Hoffmann Price, Frank Belknap Long or especially Robert Bloch went on to bigger and better things after they stopped dabbling in Lovecraftian style horror.  August Derleth is nothing but derivative, although he added a number of new elements to the tone of the ouvre.But the best writer of the group is almost certainly Clark Ashton Smith.  He was already a successful and widely renowned poet before the market for his poetry kind of dried up and he turned to pulps to pay the bills.  But he could write circles around Lovecraft or REH, easily.  And he should be familiar to old-timey D&D players, since some of his work was specifically pastiched (if that's a verb) in the X2 - Castle Amber module.Which you could arguably say has happened, although I think it's more fair to say that as our total knowledge base as humanity continues to grow, it just grows beyond the ability of any single person to really follow in all fields very well.Although the notion that our knowledge of the scope of the cosmos will cause us to retreat in fear to anti-intellectualism seems... quaint, at best.Here, I'm talking more about tone than theme.  I'd agree that Lovecraftian themes are frequent in Conan stories, but the tone of the stories is totally different, which was really my point in bringing them up in the first place.  Fighting Cthulhu as high level D&D characters isn't inherently anti-Lovecraftian, because the themes can certainly be there, if the monsters are.  I've also argued that fighting them isn't necessarily anti-Lovecraftian in tone either, but it certainly isn't if you look at REH's Mythos stories, for example.  As you say; that's exactly what REH's characters do to them!Then I don't see how that could be a failure of imagination.  I can imagine Lovecraft's point of view.  I can understand it.  But that doesn't I mean I don't think it's a load of rubbish.  Being frightened of non-Euclidean geometry is complete rubbish, unless someone were to put some problems in front of me and demand that I show that I remember how to solve them.  If anything, the scope of the cosmos as we now understand it is so much vaster and more complex than even Lovecraft could possibly have imagined.In fact, it's not too out there to say that the notion of being afraid of the true knowledge of the cosmos is a highly traditionalist, and even unimaginitive point of view--the inability to imagine grappling with knowledge that now, after nearly a century of rapid scientific discovery, seems so routine.Although that's not really fair to him, because it's much easier to say that with the benefit of decades of hindsight.Right; didn't mean to inadvertenty seem to mischaracterize you.  Rather, I meant that there are different approaches in tone to dealing with the Lovecraftian.  Even within Lovecraft's own body of work.  Once you add to that the other authors in the ouvre, you get significant differences.  The approach of a character of REH's or Brian Lumley to a Lovecraftian monster is going to be very different than some fictional tweedy New England intellectual.Considering that neither REH nor Lovecraft served in the military, nor lived in an area that was occupied or otherwise directly influenced by the war, I'd find that interpretation a bit sketchy.  If they were utilizing the concept of trauma, it was the kind of everyday exposure to change that has happened to everyone who's ever lived at any point of time in our world, more or less.One could argue that both of them were ill-equipped personally to deal with trauma, and therefore "everyday" trauma affected them more than most, I suppose (actually, that argument would be quite easy to make for both of them.  They both greatly feared and loathed the notion of change, in many ways.)  But that interpretation of their writing requires building speculation on assumptions on a foundation of speciousness.  It sounds logical, but it's ultimately completely undemonstrateable.Howard's approach to barbarism was more complicated than that, especially since the barbarians are probably best represented by exactly those rough and tumble oil field blue collar workers you're referencing.  While the Picts are never presented as positive in any sense whatsoever, other barbarians such as the Cimmerians (obviously), the Aesir and the Vanir are portrayed as romanticized noble savages, not unlike the frequent 19th century romanticization of the Gauls, the Goths, and the other noble savages who brought down the corrupt and decadant Roman Empire.  In any case, I think the trauma of the oil business coming to town is a way too simplistic interpretation of Howard's approach to the Mythos horror.  Besides, the oil boom started when he was just an extremely young boy.  It's unlikely that he even had any significant memories of a way of life prior to the oil boom.  If he'd lived even five years later, he'd have seen the end of the oil boom, and then he might have been able to write about the completely different trauma of work and livelihood drying up for people all around him. But that's neither here nor there.And I've been to Cross Plains and other areas around Abilene.  It ain't no beautiful wilderness!  Even back then, it was more empty ranchland and farmland than wilderness anyway.Nor REH, for that matter.  There's a strong element of romanticism inherent in Howard's work too--especially if you look beyond the Conan stories.  Even Lovecraft wasn't immune to it.That's a perfect example of the way in which Lovecraft's stories haven't necessarily aged well.  While he thought that phrase might have been vaguely threatening or disquieting, "a nautical-looking negro" just makes me want to chuckle.Lovecraft's philosophy might have been influential in its time, but I think it was more his approach to writing and his introduction of new themes that made him influential in literature.  His philosophy is merely a window view into a very odd-sounding and short-lived approach to the world that can't possibly have much currency in a world in which secular humanism is relatively common--and which embraces almost the entirety of Lovecraft's philosophy without being afraid of it.Rather, his approach to alien life as truly alien was a remarkable insight that has influenced horror and science fiction writers for decades (although it too has its predecessors like Arthur Machen or David Lindsay.)  His approach of ancient secret histories of the world has been a lasting influence that has informed all kinds of work and can be seen as the foundation of stuff like The X-files and more.  His influence was more about what he brought to the genre of horror writing in particular; taking it beyond the Gothic and into the modern, than it was about his philosophy.</blockquote>

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