I am currently reading Lovecraft, and I am loving learning about

When, long ago, the gods created Earth
In Jove's fair image Man was shaped at birth.
The beasts for lesser parts were next designed;
Yet were they too remote from humankind.
To fill the gap, and join the rest to Man,
Th'Olympian host conceiv'd a clever plan.
A beast they wrought, in semi-human figure,
Filled it with vice, and called the thing a Nigger.

>>9907453
Honestly, a lot of people on here have a hate on for Lovecraft. You'll get a lot of people responding to this thread with things like "hurr durr, y u read HP" and "blah blah, he was an aspie with a terrible writing style, nothing deep to say, and no understanding of human nature" etc. Then you'll also get the people who chirp him based on his social life, based on his prejudices, based on his looks, etc. At the end of the day, it is obviously up to you what you take from all this. But if I could tell you one thing that I think you should take from it, it is this: Lovecraft might be an autist, his prose style might be shit, but at the end of the day, shit readers like shit writers, autists like autists. Ultimately, he was a dud, and will not even outlast Steven King.

r.w. chambers' "the king in yellow" influenced lovecraft and the rest of the weird fiction authors.

"the hounds of tindalos" was a nice little weird story by someone or other

>>9907453
Wouldn't say it particularly expands the mythos but Neil Gaiman's short story, Shoggoth's Old Peculiar, was a terrific read as a Lovecraft fan. Can't say I was the biggest fan of his other Lovecraft mythos-set 'A Study in Emerald' or whatever; it was average.

>>9907453
I just started reading Call of Cthulhu short story collection. So far I think it is passably interesting. His narrative style seems a little clumsy though

>>9907453
Honestly you've probably read it but if not definitely read "the shadow over innsmouth." It's his best short by far in my opinion, certainly the most iconic. I see people posting here about how he was a writer of trash sci fi pulp and a nativist, all of that is true but the guy had a real imagination. Vivid stuff. The Color out of space is also good, imo.

>>9907647
Actually he only read TKIY much later in his career and was super surprised. He'd only ever known Chambers for his shit romance novels.

As for some similar dudes: Clark Ashton Smith, Machen (Great God Pan, which was an influence), Robert E Howard,...
Dunsany and Poe were his bigger influences.
Here is a short lift of some authors he liked:
http://www.hplovecraft.com/life/interest/authors.aspx

Also, if you like his Dream Cycle:
Literally Greek myth. It's similar in scope and insanity.

>>9907453
D U N S A N Y
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>>9907819
It's antiquated. If you are going chronologically: He needs time to shake the Poe influence.

As for narrative style: He doesn't give a shit about plot. He will hand you the ending/twist waaay before it happens. You, the reader know, and just watch the protagonist run into it.
He only cared about imagery and emotion. That's why he hyphenates the living fuck out of those adjectives. It's difficult to do that and most writing teachers will tell you NEVER to do it.
More often than not, he pulls it off.

Still, even if you don't like it, it's fun to look for stuff he basically invented. Like the cannibal zombie.

>>9907925
Yeah my main motivation in reading it is to have fun with the settings and the imagery. I was expecting there to be a bit more allegory and human condition reflections rather than fantasy/world building.
In my edition so far I've read through Dagon, Randolph Carter, Arthur Jermyn, and Celephais, in that order.

>>9907983
I went chronologically and followed along the HPPodcraft podcast, who discuss the stories.
It was quite rewarding and made a bunch of stuff clearer.

>>9907983
>I was expecting there to be a bit more allegory and human condition reflections
There is some. Most of it is just racism and xenophobia.

The only clear "moral" is in the cosmological perspective and what he wrote in the intro of Call of Cthulhu.
And when you read enough of him, you quickly learn the cardinal rule of surviving a Lovecraftian universe: don't study, never do research and neeever correlate things.
Also avoid eerily good artists.

>>9907453
-if you want something short, the Polaris one was pretty cool and had the usual "deep twist".
-If you like Lovecraft but want a change from the usual occult, then The Color of Outer Space is a good because it is very far removed from the rest of the mythos and can even be considered realistic fiction due to the nature of its "antagonist"

i liked it until every story became

>Oh the unimaginable thing, it was too horrrible for the mind to understand, only my soul could understand its terror!

At the Mountains of Madness is the best imo. Feels like spoopy heart of darkness type of adventure but not such a boring read. I'd like to see it as a movie

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>>9907634
>King fag