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<blockquote data-quote="barsoomcore" data-source="post: 2000354" data-attributes="member: 812">Nobody else ever did what Lovecraft did when he was on top of his game. The Rats in the Walls, The Lurker on the Threshold, The Dunwich Horror -- these are tremendous stories that pack a huge emotional wallop.I think the truth is that HP was interested in ideas that are almost IMPOSSIBLE to write about. He's constantly groping for ways to express ideas that cannot be expressed. The WHOLE POINT of half his horrors is that they cannot be described -- which is obviously a bit of a problem when it comes time to describe them. Sometimes he knocked it out of the park and sometimes he swung and he missed. More often he missed, but I think he did better than other writers who have gone after the same thing.When he's bad, he's pretty much unreadable. There's a lot of schlock in there. And I'm always cautious about recommending HP to people who are unfamiliar with his work -- I try to mention a couple of the better stories and let people know what they're in for. Certainly plenty of people don't find him much to their taste.A hack? Yeah, I think so. But then, I'd say he was also a genius. A very focused, narrow sort of genius but within those borders, nobody touches HP.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="barsoomcore, post: 2000354, member: 812"] Nobody else ever did what Lovecraft did when he was on top of his game. [i]The Rats in the Walls[/i], [i]The Lurker on the Threshold[/i], [i]The Dunwich Horror[/i] -- these are tremendous stories that pack a huge emotional wallop. I think the truth is that HP was interested in ideas that are almost IMPOSSIBLE to write about. He's constantly groping for ways to express ideas that cannot be expressed. The WHOLE POINT of half his horrors is that they cannot be described -- which is obviously a bit of a problem when it comes time to describe them. Sometimes he knocked it out of the park and sometimes he swung and he missed. More often he missed, but I think he did better than other writers who have gone after the same thing. When he's bad, he's pretty much unreadable. There's a lot of schlock in there. And I'm always cautious about recommending HP to people who are unfamiliar with his work -- I try to mention a couple of the better stories and let people know what they're in for. Certainly plenty of people don't find him much to their taste. A hack? Yeah, I think so. But then, I'd say he was also a genius. A very focused, narrow sort of genius but within those borders, nobody touches HP. [/QUOTE]

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