Strange Kevin - Strange Versus Lovecraft

My first encounter with H.P. Lovecraft was a game changer. I'd grown up with horror movies and books, having a particular affinity for the 90s splatterpunks in my teen years. But it was at the relatively late age of 18 that I was formally introduced to the Cthulhu mythos. The indifference of cosmic alien gods toward the human race was something I had never encountered in my years of reading and watching horror movies.

The cold, calculated way in which Lovecraft wrote the dingy, backwoods occult figures, and the cunning scientific minds of his academic protagonists as they did battle on either side of forces so cosmic that their very implication could drive men mad left me in awe.

It was with delight that some years later I discovered that Lovecraft allowed, and even encouraged others to write about his alien gods, his mythical locations, and his brave, occult fighting heroes.

Brian Lumley's Titus Crow series became a favorite of mine, and the term Lovecraftian Fiction entered my lexicon. Over the years, I've consumed a ton of it. From Lovecraft's own contemporaries like Arkham House founder August Derleth, and Robert Bloch to more modern names like Jeffrey Thomas and Wilum Pugmire, the latter of which was kind enough to lend us a beautifully poetic and haunting tale for this anthology.

One thing has remained consistent over nearly 100 years of Lovecraftian weird fiction: An air of pomposity. A literary snobbery. It's as though one is not allowed inside the Lovecraftian sandbox without the proper password.

Lovecraftian fiction takes itself extremely seriously, even back in the age when only pulp magazines saw it worthy enough to be published.

And let's not get it twisted. I love the pomposity, the snobbery, the feeling of exclusion. No other horror fiction feels like a private clubhouse as much as Lovecraftian fiction. It's part of the genre's charm and mystery.

But I'm here to crash the party.

I come from another club, another gang. I come from the Bizarros. Another, albeit much, much younger gang of horror sub-genre writers. A group that is almost the polar opposite of exclusive, pompous and snobby. We're the kids who take in the malcontents, the freaks and weirdos, the authors other writers just don't understand.

And you know what? We love Lovecraft, too! And we want to play in the sandbox. We have stories about the Elder Gods, of backwoods weirdos living on the outskirts of Arkham, who haunt the halls of Miskatonic University by day and scream wicked chants to unnameable forces in the dead of night.

This is a collection of Lovecraftian Bizarro stories. Without a doubt the weirdest Cthulhu Mythos stories you're ever likely to read. Throw out cannon, don't expect complete and total adherence to the rules set forth by nearly 100 years worth of brilliant Lovecraftian Fiction.

Anything goes in this book. Don't be surprised if the purist in you gets a little upset by the direction our authors have taken your beloved Genre. But give us a little slack, we're still young. We're the new kids on the block, and we want to tell you our version of Uncle Lovecraft's beautiful nightmares.

-Kevin Strange 6:46pm 6/24/2013

Editor's Note

S.T. Joshi, the leading Lovecraft historian, has called Willum Pugmire the greatest living Lovecraftian writer, and I couldn't agree more. It is nothing short of a tremendous honor to have him in my collection of mythos fiction.

Please consider the following story to be a sort of primer for what comes after. An example of all of the wonder and beauty that is modern mythos fiction.

Everything after this is all downhill. We bizarros take everything honorable and pure about Lovecraftian fiction and drag it down into the unfathomable depths, violently snogging it while it slowly suffocates. Its dying thought:

How? How could such vile, unwashed beasts do this to the most sacred form of genre fiction?

We'll show you how. Just keep reading....