Lovecraft’s stuff has that reputation, but on a listen through his works, he had a tendency to actually be properly descriptive when it was appropriate. I think it’s a case of later, lesser writers gloming onto to making things indescribable as a lazy crutch that made the reputation of the mythos like that.
I think only ‘The Unnamable’ by Lovecraft really goes incredibly vague at a point where it should be describing the creature, but that story feels like a joke about this exact topic.
Michael Shea’s mythos stuff is pretty good I think. ‘Demiurge’ is a book collecting all his stories. He updates them to the then contemporary 1980s, keeping the elements of cosmic horror but putting them in more modern and relatable situations rather than attempting to make them period pieces.
My problem with that is that it’s always the same descriptors for that unimaginable horror. Makes them boring if it’s always the same.
Lovecraft’s stuff has that reputation, but on a listen through his works, he had a tendency to actually be properly descriptive when it was appropriate. I think it’s a case of later, lesser writers gloming onto to making things indescribable as a lazy crutch that made the reputation of the mythos like that.
I think only ‘The Unnamable’ by Lovecraft really goes incredibly vague at a point where it should be describing the creature, but that story feels like a joke about this exact topic.
Also, I feel like both Howard and Lovecraft were prone to incredibly lengthy descriptions of things
Yep, which for them it was fine cause they pioneered the genres but modern writers can’t coast on that.
What’s a good modern text to approach the genre?
Ada Hoffmann’s The Outside. Autistic lesbian theoretical physicist meets Lovecraftian horror.
Michael Shea’s mythos stuff is pretty good I think. ‘Demiurge’ is a book collecting all his stories. He updates them to the then contemporary 1980s, keeping the elements of cosmic horror but putting them in more modern and relatable situations rather than attempting to make them period pieces.