--- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, <funkmasterj@...> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I really enjoyed reading Kim Newman's The Big Fish - which is a combination 30s hardboiled and HP Lovecraft story. I also really enjoyed the movie Cast a Deadly Spell for the same reason. I am looking for more of the same - I know CJ Henderson's work as well as the anthology Hardboiled Cthulhu. Any recommendations?
--Well, along with Chesbro for an agreeable closeness (and I'd recommend Ron Goulart's GHOST BREAKER for similar reasons), you also should look into Newman's THE NIGHT MAYOR, even though that one isn't Lovecraftian, and perhaps the following:
Among Lovecraft's young disciples, the two best writers to correspond in his circle (as opposed to such peers as Clark Ashton Smith) were Robert Bloch and Fritz Leiber...most of Bloch's most Lovecraftian work is pleasant pastiche at best, but when he found his own voice...well, one early mature work that carries the echoes of blatant Lovecraftianism is THE DEAD DON'T DIE!, collected in THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF ZOMBIES edited by Stephen Jones; the novella was also filmed.
Fritz Leiber's "Smoke Ghost" likewise is signal early work incorporating what he learned from HPL with a decidedly noirish outlook. His early novel CONJURE WIFE (and his later ones YOU'RE ALL ALONE/THE SINFUL ONES and OUR LADY OF DARKNESS) will probably cheer you.
Richard Lupoff, with LOVECRAFT'S BOOK and at least two of the stories in CLAREMONT TALES II offers something very like what you're asking for...and then there's Mike Mignola's HELLBOY comics...although I gather Mignola likes Bloch better than he likes HPL...
Todd Mason
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 30 Jul 2010 EDT