Literary Sources for COC

[gregweller]

I finally got my copy of CoC today, and I was happy to see that in the Recommended Reading list they included a number of stories by Jorge Luis Borges (although I was puzzled as to why they didn't mention 'There Are More Things' which is actually dedicated 'to the memory of H.P. Lovecraft). I've always loved his story 'Tlon, Uqbar and Orbis Tertius' , which has one of the great opening lines of all time: 'I owe the discovery of Uqbar to the conjunction of a mirror and an encyclopedia'.

I've been starting to think about what other literary sources could be mined for Mythos inspiration, even if the works are not explicitily part of the Mythos 'canon'. As a starting point, I'll suggest William S. Burroughs, especially his novel sequence 'Naked Lunch', 'The Soft Machine', 'Nova Express', 'The Ticket that Exploded', and 'The Wild Boys'. It's always seemed to me that he owes a lot to Lovecraft. His whole idea of the 'Nova Mob' that appears throughout these novels is cut from the same cloth as the Great Old Ones. For people looking for a place to start, I'd especially recommend the passage about 'Bradley the Buyer' and the sections 'The Black Meat' and 'The Market' from Naked Lunch. (Cronenberg's movie of the novel is also a good place to start, as well as the Duran Duran video of 'the Wild Boys').


Other writers?

 

[trancejeremy]

I hope that list had the works of Robert Chambers in it. (Don't have d20 CoC yet, it's next on my list after Freeport...)

For a fantasy implementation of the Cthulhu mythos (or some of them), try Karl Wagner's Kane series. He's also written at least one normal story dealing with it (or Robert Chamber's stuff).

It's not really cthulhu at all, but some of the best pulp horror I've read from the 20s/30s is by Hugh Cave. Really does a good job of setting the mood. His novella "Murgenstrum" is one of the creepiest things I've ever read.

 

[mmadsen]

I'd recommend any compilation of stories from Weird Tales, the pulp magazine that published most of Lovecrafts work (and Robert E. Howard's, and Clark Ashton Smith's, etc.). I have a few compilations published by Barnes & Noble.

 

[Sunglar]

Latin American Geniuses

Another Latin American genius whose work serves as inspiration for CoC is Julio Cortázar.

Check out this site to find more:

http://www.trill-home.com/cortazar/#bio

 

[Kafka]

I would suggest reading Cormac McCarthy's brilliant work "Blood Meredian". It is one of the finest books I have ever read and although it is considered serious fiction it is more horrifying than anything I have ever read in the horror genre.

Kafka

 

[hellbender]

The Burroughs reference is rather poignant, and there is nothing wrong with utilizing elements of William S. Burrough's work into a Call of Cthulhu game. (Note, some of Burroughs work has some extremely explicit and disturbing sexual content, not for the easily offended). The Black Meat and the iconic-type characters, the mugwamps, all make for excellent campaign components. In one of Burroughs audio releases he even quotes Lovecraft with "Death needs time for what it kills to grow in", a reference to the three gods of time, life and death. Even William Gibson uses the influence, try 'The Belonging Kind' in the Burning Chrome anthology for a spooky modern horror that could be applied to any era of a CoC game.
In addition to the Robert E. Howard story referred to in the back of the D20 CoC game, there was a series of Howard's short stories called: Cthulhu: the Mythos and Kindred Horrors released in the late 80's that contains excellent Mythos material, and is just as spooky as any of Lovecraft's work.
In case you are in any old bookshops looking for these books, look for the reprints of old catalogs. I found a reprint of a 1919 Sears catalog that has prices for everything you can imagine, from horse shoes to cars, it is an indispensible addition to my campaign and I am thinking of putting an extended price list on a website for CoC players and keepers to find accurate prices for the 1920's era.


hellbender