I watched this documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvNUywMPDaM
It's what introduced me to his works.
It's Like Arguing on the Internet
Barnes & Noble is selling an 1100+ page book which includes nearly all of Lovecraft's fiction (basically everything except most of his collaborations), put into more-or-less chronological order, plus his essay Supernatural Horror in Literature, for only $20. It's quite nice. The first printing is filled with a rather inexcusable amount of typos though, so I suggest trying to find the second printing (which I've heard is definitely the version you get by ordering from their website).
edited 27th Sep '11 4:33:13 PM by MasterInferno
Somehow you know that the time is right.
Oh My
The story rtl mentioned sounds to me like From Beyond. Unless he wrote another story that is exactly the same in that regard. It was a fun thing to read. I find his work to be quite readable. Enjoyably so. But then I have a great love of purple prose and think that over detail of random shit makes for amusing writing.
None of it's really scary though which is disappointing. It's still some of the most amusing and engaging stuff I've read, but it's not terrifying. That depresses me...I feel I am getting hard to frighten with media which is a sad thing to think about.
If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah
I want to give my two-cents as a guy who finds Lovecraft's work simultaneously interesting and terrible. Lovecraft created a lot of now commonly used tropes and is considered the founder of the "Cosmic Horror" genre but that doesn't make his work any less impenetrable to me with it's use of archaic language and outright over use of adjectives.
Still, from a literary stand point I like to examine his stories to see how they tick even if they seem over-written and melodramatic to a modern reader.
Instead, I suggest trying out the adaptations of Lovecraft's work by the HP Lovecraft Historical Society who have turned four of his most famous stories into very well done radio dramas and even two movies. It's a good compromise for someone who wants to get into Lovecraft but doesn't want to necessarily read Lovecraft.
I like Lovecraft's stuff, but it is way too overexposed in geek culture.