History LovecraftLite / Literature

* Creator/JRRTolkien's works, and particularly ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'', feature demons of immense power whose only goal is to enslave and destroy all in their path. Be it [[TheDarkLord Sauron]], [[PredecessorVillain Morgoth]], [[KillItWithFire the Balrog]], [[TheStarscream Saruman of Many Colors]], [[FallenHero the Witch King]] or even [[ArtifactOfDoom the Ring itself]], each is powerful enough to smite entire armies. Their insidious ability to sap their opponents' will to fight is a recurring theme--a creeping hopelessness that takes over and weakens any defense. Additionally, The Ring inspires some to [[BadPowersGoodPeople try to use it for good]] until learning too late that it's PowerAtAPrice. On the other hand, [[spoiler:the forces of good have equally spectacular heroes on their side, whose willpower can easily withstand even the worst psychological onslaught. And in the end, even Sauron is defeated by nothing more than a couple of hobbits. Sauron et al. are more like fallen angels than eldritch abominations. But Tolkien also includes Ungoliant, a light-devouring spider who seems to not fit into his own creation myth, and nameless things beneath the Misty Mountains, of which Gandalf says "even Sauron knows not". Plus the tentacled Watcher outside Moria.

* Creator/JRRTolkien's works, and particularly ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'', feature demons of immense power whose only goal is to enslave and destroy all in their path. Be it [[TheDarkLord Sauron]], [[PredecessorVillain Morgoth]], [[KillItWithFire the Balrog]], [[TheStarscream Saruman of Many Colors]], [[FallenHero the Witch King]] or even [[ArtifactOfDoom the Ring itself]], each is powerful enough to smite entire armies. Their insidious ability to sap their opponents' will to fight is a recurring theme--a creeping hopelessness that takes over and weakens any defense. Additionally, The Ring inspires some to [[BadPowersGoodPeople try to use it for good]] until learning too late that it's PowerAtAPrice. On the other hand, [[spoiler:the forces of good have equally spectacular heroes on their side, whose willpower can easily withstand even the worst psychological onslaught. And in the end, even Sauron is defeated by nothing more than a couple of hobbits. This is even more evident in the books, compared to the films, given that the motif of reluctant heroes who are more susceptible to the Enemy's influence was [[RuleOfDrama added for extra drama]] on the big screen. Tolkien's original heroes were extremely resolute]]. Sauron et al. are more like fallen angels than eldritch abominations. But Tolkien also includes Ungoliant, a light-devouring spider who seems to not fit into his own creation myth, and nameless things beneath the Misty Mountains, of which Gandalf says "even Sauron knows not". Plus the tentacled Watcher outside Moria.

** ''Literature/TheShadowOverInnsmouth'' starts out like a typically-bleak Lovecraftian story, before the final chapter [[TheEndingChangesEverything throws a new, oddly accepting light on everything that came before it.]] The hero faces a startling truth - [[spoiler: that [[TomatoInTheMirror he is one]] of the HalfHumanHybrids of Innsmouth]] - but rather than GoMadFromTheRevelation, he is able to come to terms with it and ends the story excited to [[spoiler: join the FishPeople and live forever in their rad UnderwaterCity.]] This ending is so uncharacteristic to what we expect from Lovecraft that a lot of readers don't even process it, interpreting it as yet another Lovecraft protagonist losing his mind - even though it's written in a completely different style from the almost stream-of-consciousness technique he would typically adopt for that type of ending.

*** The simplest explanation is that the character isn't "losing his mind" by going mad, but that [[TheMindIsAPlaythingOfTheBody his transformation is overwriting his emotional attachments and altering him cognitively as well as physically.]] Given the obsession of people in his era and Lovecraft specifically with the idea that "blood inheritance" defines identity, any other explanation is difficult to justify.

** "The Shunned House", which features [[KillItWithFire flamethrowers]]. Of course the flamethrowers don't do much good, [[spoiler:but some sulfuric acid deals with the situation perfectly.]]

* In [[Literature/ShadowsOfTheApt Seal of the Worm]] the titular Worm has an impressive list of eldritch powers. It can corrupt the children of its enemies into puppet soldiers and warp the geometry of its city so all caves in the world lead to (and from) there. Anything in its presence or the presence of its minions loses the ability to comprehend either technology or magic, making war machines and great magicians equally helpless against it. [[spoiler: What makes it qualify for this trope is that behind the veil of choking darkness is a flesh-and-blood giant centipede, and that removing someone's ability to comprehend grenades doesn't make them any less explosive.]]

* Creator/StephenKing dips into this quite a bit, most notably in ''{{Literature/It}}''. His characters often run into supernatural enemies that verge on EldritchAbomination status, but an undercurrent of faith in basic human goodness and occasional glimpses of a possible BigGood keep the majority of his work from full-on CosmicHorrorStory territory. Endings tend to be [[BittersweetEnding bittersweet]] and usually [[EarnYourHappyEnding hard-fought]], but true {{Downer Ending}}s are few and far between.].

* And another contributor to the original Cthulhu mythos, Creator/RobertEHoward often wrote in the same way as well. The universe is ultimately hostile in his works, and mind-melting horrors that contaminate everything they touch are plentiful in his works. The difference is, characters often are badass enough to look them straight into the eyes and, rather than GoMadFromTheRevelation, stab them in the face. And the [[Literature/ConanTheBarbarian Conan]] stories generally follow the example Creator/RobertEHoward set as Conan's creator -- they are on the line between Lovecraft Lite and CosmicHorrorStory. Conan regularly battles eldritch things and always comes out of it okay, although they are still treated as freakishly terrifying. "Literature/TheTowerOfTheElephant" even has an EldritchAbomination (of sorts) who is basically the tragic victim of the story's ''human'' villain. [[spoiler: With Conan's help, [[TheDogBitesBack he can finally get even with his tormentor]].]]

* Creator/DeanKoontz just falls way too far on the [[SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism Idealistic Side]] to avoid this trope. The alien invasion in ''The Taking'' has all the trappings of CosmicHorrorStory complete with a couple of Lovecraftian references. Except it turns out to have been [[spoiler: an Apocalypse (sort of)in which humanity's wickedness is punished (cue Koontz's {{Anvilicious}} rants about the downfall of Western Civilization) and all children and sufficiently virtuous (i.e. [[AuthorFilibuster conservative-ish]]) adults are spared. The subsequent new world actually seems rather utopian]]. The EldritchAbomination in ''Winter Moon'' is defeated by [[spoiler: an everyday American nuclear family]].

* ''[[Literature/HcSvntDracones Blood in the Mist]]'' is set centuries after humanity is wiped out in a nuclear war and Earth was covered in blood-colored crystal, but the Solar system has been populated by human-animal hybrid "Vectors". The story follows a corporate police officer on Venus as she investigates a bloodthirsty cult dedicated to an extradimensional entity, guided by her own less xenocidal entity.

* Creator/ClarkAshtonSmith's stories often fall into this, not because of actual content, but because of attitude. Yes, there are horrors beyond imagination lurking just beyond humanity's sight, and the universe does not give a crap about whether a primitive race of two-legged apes lives or dies, but this is usually no reason to GoMadFromTheRevelation. And "strange and inhuman" means "malevolent" considerably less often. Also, humanity as a whole manages to outlive all the {{Eldritch Abomination}}s plaguing its past and present, and survive until the Sun starts dimming (by the way, note, that Clark Ashton Smith's and Lovecraft's work were supposed to happen in a shared verse).

* The short collaborative story [[https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Challenge_from_Beyond "The Challenge from Beyond"]] ends up like this because Creator/{{Robert E Howard}}'s part comes after Lovecraft's. (There are other writers too, but these two dominate the story.) Lovecraft leaves the protagonist in terror trapped in the body of a StarfishAlien who exchanged minds with him; Howard [[HumansAreWarriors has him go kick ass in the alien world in it]]. Creator/FrankBelknapLong finishes things off by showing how the alien that took over the human's body meets an embarrassing end, thus saving the world.
* Literature/{{Discworld}} has plenty of examples of abominations -- the things from the Dungeon Dimensions, the Hiver, etc. But ultimately, none of them succeeds in causing permanent damage, and the heroes always win in the end. It helps that they're defined, somewhat; they're explicitly less "real" than everything else, which makes them simultaneously more magically and psychically potent, and much more vulnerable physically. Rincewind once took one out with camera flash, and held several off with a sock containing half a brick.
** Yob-Soddoth deserves special mention for the name alone.
** Note, too, that occasionally the Discworld version of an EldritchAbomination will turn out to be deserving of some pity.
** The Auditors of Reality give a bit of a Lovecraft vibe whenever they show up. Not least because their stories tend to center around [[AC:Death.]]Though it should be noted that Death is about as far from this as an AnthropomorphicPersonification can possibly be and in fact [[spoiler: teams up with the other HorsemenOfTheApocalypse in order to fight them]].
--> [[AC:...while it is true we have to ride out,]] Death added, drawing his sword, [[AC:[[ProphecyTwist it doesn't say anywhere]] against ''whom''.]]
* Several of the ''Franchise/DoctorWho'' [[Franchise/DoctorWhoExpandedUniverse Expanded Universe]] novels use Lovecraftian elements, and they're all inevitably Lovecraft Lite. One of the more self-aware is the Literature/DoctorWhoNewAdventures novel ''[[Recap/DoctorWhoNewAdventuresAllConsumingFire All-Consuming Fire]]'' by Andy Lane, which alternates the narration between a PublicDomainCharacter [[Franchise/SherlockHolmes 19th-century guest]], who finds the experience full of incomprehensible strangeness and mind-scarring horror in classic Lovecraft fashion, and the Doctor's companion, who's much more blasé about the whole thing. ("Rugose alien monstrosities? What, again?") ''All-Consuming Fire'' is so self-aware about being Lovecraft Lite that [[spoiler:the monster turns out to be a moderately powerful StarfishAlien ''pretending'' to be an EldritchAbomination]].

%%* Most of Creator/SimonRGreen's novels feature some flavour of Lovecraft Lite, most evident in his Forest Kingdom series.
* ''Every single'' Creator/BrianLumley attempt at a CosmicHorrorStory ends up like this. Great Old One Ithaqua rules supreme on an alien planet, but his HalfHumanHybrid daughter leads LaResistance. Cthulhu [[GoodCounterpart has a good brother named Kthanid]]. His most famous contribution to the mythos, the Cthonians, who cause massive earthquakes, drive people insane through prolonged psychic contact, and burrow through bedrock and magma like a hot knife through butter... [[WeaksauceWeakness can be killed by contact with water]]. The same story that introduces them features a secret society whose ''modus operandi'' is locating sleeping eldritch abominations and '''blowing them up''' with bombs and an enormous drill.

* Most of ''Literature/TheTrailOfCthulhu'' by Creator/AugustDerleth falls under this [[spoiler:until the very end of the book subverts it, going out on a very bleak and appropriately Lovecraftian note, much closer to a CosmicHorrorStory]].
** Derleth did this quite a bit. He came up with a number of higher and benevolent powers to side against the monstrousities of Lovecraft's canon. He also associated each of the beings with an element, meaning they could also be beaten by properly summoning the opposite elemental (as in "The Dweller in Darkness"). He was pretty much the father of Lovecraft Lite.
** Whether intentional or not, at least some of Derleth's stories actually feature "horrors" that come across as {{designated villain}}s more than anything else. Take the human-masked aliens in "The Dark Brotherhood", who for all their weirdness converse with the human narrator easily and openly enough -- ''really'' monstrous infiltrators plotting to take over human society in the long run, or more [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation victims of human misunderstanding and xenophobia]]?

* Creator/StephenKing dips into this quite a bit, most notably in ''{{Literature/It}}''. His characters often run into supernatural enemies that verge on EldritchAbomination status, but an undercurrent of faith in basic human goodness and occasional glimpses of a possible BigGood keep the majority of his work from full-on CosmicHorrorStory territory. Endings tend to be [[BittersweetEnding bittersweet]] and usually [[EarnYourHappyEnding hard-fought]], but true {{Downer Ending}}s are few and far between.
%%** Notable exception: [[spoiler: ''Pet Sematary'']].
* Creator/DeanKoontz just falls way too far on the [[SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism Idealistic Side]] to avoid this trope. The alien invasion in ''The Taking'' has all the trappings of CosmicHorrorStory complete with a couple of Lovecraftian references. Except it turns out to have been [[spoiler: an Apocalypse (sort of)in which humanity's wickedness is punished (cue Koontz's {{Anvilicious}} rants about the downfall of Western Civilization) and all children and sufficiently virtuous (i.e. [[AuthorFilibuster conservative-ish]]) adults are spared. The subsequent new world actually seems rather utopian]]. The EldritchAbomination in ''Winter Moon'' is defeated by [[spoiler: an everyday American nuclear family]].

* ''Literature/MiskatonicUniversityElderGods101'': The protagonists are all EmpoweredBadassNormal types who are up against the Cult of Cthulhu and manage to emerge ''temporarily'' triumphant. It is notably LighterAndSofter compared to the TwoFistedTales of ''Andrew Doran'' and that was LighterAndSofter compared to HP lovecraft's original stories.
* Creator/JRRTolkien's works, and particularly ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'', feature demons of immense power whose only goal is to enslave and destroy all in their path. Be it [[TheDarkLord Sauron]], [[PredecessorVillain Morgoth]], [[KillItWithFire the Balrog]], [[TheStarscream Saruman of Many Colors]], [[FallenHero the Witch King]] or even [[ArtifactOfDoom the Ring itself]], each is powerful enough to smite entire armies. Their insidious ability to sap their opponents' will to fight is a recurring theme--a creeping hopelessness that takes over and weakens any defense. Additionally, The Ring inspires some to [[BadPowersGoodPeople try to use it for good]] until learning too late that it's PowerAtAPrice. On the other hand, [[spoiler:the forces of good have equally spectacular heroes on their side, whose willpower can easily withstand even the worst psychological onslaught. And in the end, even Sauron is defeated by nothing more than a couple of hobbits. This is even more evident in the books, compared to the films, given that the motif of reluctant heroes who are more susceptible to the Enemy's influence was [[RuleOfDrama added for extra drama]] on the big screen. Tolkien's original heroes were extremely resolute]]. Sauron et al. are more like fallen angels than eldritch abominations. But Tolkien also includes Ungoliant, a light-devouring spider who seems to not fit into his own creation myth, and nameless things beneath the Misty Mountains, of which Gandalf says "even Sauron knows not". Plus the tentacled Watcher outside Moria.

* ''Literature/CthulhuArmageddon'' zig-zags between this and CosmicHorrorStory. The humans race managed to survive the rising of the Great Old Ones and eck out a NewOldWest WeirdWest society [[FromBadToWorse but it got worse]]. [[spoiler: Also, they discover their greatest champion is a HumanoidAbomination.]]

* In [[Literature/ShadowsOfTheApt Seal of the Worm]] the the titular Worm has an impressive list of eldritch powers. It can corrupt the children of its enemies into puppet soldiers and warp the geometry of its city so all caves in the world lead to (and from) there. Anything in its presence or the presence of its minions loses the ability to comprehend either technology or magic, making war machines and great magicians equally helpless against it. [[spoiler: What makes it qualify for this trope is that behind the veil of choking darkness is a flesh-and-blood giant centipede, and that removing someone's ability to comprehend grenades doesn't make them any less explosive.]]

** Emphasis on "temporary". The problem is that CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN ([[WhenThePlanetsAlign AKA, the stars being right]]) is just getting warmed up and still has another seventy years left to run. A ''reduction of Earth's population by 90% through nuclear war'' has been considered as a viable solution to reduce humanity's psychic imprint that may usher forth the local Cthulhu.
** Of course, Charles Stross also wrote "A Colder War", which readers might better describe as ''Lovecraft Dark.''

* Creator/DeanKoontz just falls way too far on the [[SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism Idealistic Side]] to avoid this trope. The alien invasion in ''The Taking'' has all the trappings of CosmicHorrorStory complete with a couple of Lovecraftian references. Except it turns out to have been [[spoiler: an Apocalypse (sort of)in which humanity's wickedness is punished (cue Koontz's {{Anvilicious}} rants about the downfall of Western Civilization) and all children and sufficiently virtuous adults are spared. The subsequent new world actually seems rather utopian]]. The EldritchAbomination in ''Winter Moon'' is defeated by [[spoiler: an everyday American nuclear family]].
* ''Literature/JohnDiesAtTheEnd'', while dipping into how meaningless, cruel, and violent the human world is, notes that the dark forces that eponymous John and protagonist David fight are just as human as they are - [[spoiler:and ''incredibly immature''. The BigBad turns out to be a gigantic, reality-warping organic supercomputer with the voice of a prepubescent boy and tossing out racist, homophobic slurs by the dozen in an attempt to look tough, and the forces it works with aren't any better - one of the BigBad's servants talks like a bratty tween [[PrettyFlyForAWhiteGuy trying to act black.]] In the end, a bomb destroys the BigBad.]]
** The Lovecraftian tone is deconstructed even more in the sequel, Literature/ThisBookIsFullOfSpidersSeriouslyDudeDontTouchIt, where the villains' plot depends on [[InvokedTropes invoking the tropes]] a {{Zombie Apocalypse}} and narrator admits that it only becomes so bad because they from a town of especially incompetent people ([[HeroicSelfDeprecation including the narrator himself]])

* Creator/StephenKing dips into this quite a bit, most notably in ''{{Literature/It}}''. His characters often run into supernatural enemies that verge on EldritchAbomination status, but an undercurrent of faith in basic human goodness and occasional glimpses of a possible BigGood keep the majority of his work from full-on CosmicHorrorStory territory. Endings tend to be [[BittersweetEnding bittersweet]] and usually [[EarnYourHappyEnding hard-fought]], but true {{Downer Ending}}s are few and far between.
%%** Notable exception: [[spoiler: ''Pet Sematary'']].

** Of course, Charles Stross also wrote "A Colder War", which readers might better describe as ''Lovecraft [[UpToEleven Dark]].''