By G.W. Thomas
Mythos stories have existed largely in the small press. In the beginning, tales of Deep Ones and ghouls were found in the Pulps – in Weird Tales, to be exact. “The Unique Magazine” published Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith, but back in the 1930s, appearing in a Pulp was nothing to brag about. It wasn’t The Atlantic, The Saturday Evening Post, or Smart Set. In relative obscurity it began and, to this day, most Lovecraftian stories appear in minor publications. Karl Edward Wagner won the British Fantasy Award for “Sticks”, but it appeared in the semi-pro-zine, Whispers Magazine. More recently, Brian Lumley was found in Weirdbook more often than Fantasy & Science Fiction. Without doubt, these are well-written tales, but still found within the relative ghetto of Speculative Fiction. Even the Master himself never saw his work in hardcover. It was left to August Derleth and Donald Wandrei to create Arkham House Press, to publish Lovecraft in a more permanent fashion. A major mainstream Mythos title is unlikely. (Exceptions exist, of course: the Clark-Ashton-Smith-style The Ruins by Scott Smith, Stephen King’s occasional Mythos tales, Brian Lumley’s fat paperbacks from the 1990s.)
There are reasons for this. First off, cosmic horror is not going to sell to Aunt Ida, Oprah’s Book Club, or small kids. (See my piece on Robert Munsch for thoughts in that direction.) Readers seeking a happy ending, warm and fuzzy philosophy. or just the status quo need not look to the Lovecraftian school. Genres have limits. Another factor is that many try, but few succeed to produce a tale on par with Michael Shea’s “The Autopsy” or Fred Chappell’s “The Adder”. Many are the young authors who have penned laboured pastiches in the HPL mode. (I know; I was one once.) This hasn’t changed since the days in which Robert Bloch began his career doing just this, giving us minor tales like “The Feast in the Abbey” (Weird Tales, January 1935) and “The Secret in the Tomb” (Weird Tales, May 1935). Before he was done with the Mythos, he gave us some minor classics like “Notebook Found in a Deserted Farmhouse” (Weird Tales, May 1951) and the novel, Strange Eons (1978).
The 21st Century brings a whole new element to the Mythos: digital media. Young authors have a new playground for Lovecraft’s Mythos. Some will use it in new and inventive ways, some on tried and true paths. (It has been this way since 1926 and it will go on this way as long as Lovecraft is remembered.) But now, the medium of ebooks brings a new element to reading the Mythos. Back in 1985, when I began my Mythos journey as a reader and, later, a writer, there were not many places to find Mythos stories. Anthologies, fanzines, old paperbacks. With the advent of the Internet and a new awareness of the public domain, Mythos has become much more available. Most of HPL’s canon was once available online at DagonBytes, but can now be found at Gutenberg, all of Clark Ashton Smith’s massive 100+ stories and poems at The Eldritch Dark and Robert E. Howard at WikiBooks. These tales represent the core of the Mythos, as well as the output of the most important trio of the Weird Tales circle. Along with these are the ancestor tales of Arthur Machen, Robert W. Chambers, William Hope Hodgson, M.R. James, and others at various sites, including Horrormasters.com and Munseys.com. Back in the day, it took years of book shopping, borrowing, hunting in libraries to find a collection of this size. Today…virtually instantaneous.
Added to the free online stories is a widely available selection of new and old material through eBay, Amazon.com and other vendors. New anthologies, collections and other content appear daily at Fictionwise, Smashwords, in the iBook store and other ebook sellers. Scholarship and fan activity about the Mythos fill websites and blogs (such as this one you are reading right now). No longer open to a select few, reading their purple Gestetnor fanzines, the Mythos is everywhere and for everyone. The Mythos has given up its dusty aroma in place of a new digital smell.
What will this mean for the Mythos in the long run? Certainly the work of Lovecraft will become better known. (I saw a YouTube video about Narwhals the other day that featured old Cthulhu in the lyrics!) This will be both good and bad. On the plus side, you may see better-known writers trying a Mythos tale (Imagine a James Rollins Mythos adventure!) On the negative side, you might have Tori Spelling produce a Cthulhu film (No, wait! That’s already happened!)
The ease with which ebooks can be produced (You can literally write it, produce it and publish it all in a day. I’m not recommending this, but it is technically possible. Especially if you skip the editing process.) This means all levels of quality will be the result. Good, bad and ugly, to be sure. In the past, the worst type of pastiche would have ended up in a mimeographed fanzine distributed to twenty people. These days, that same piece will be placed online for sale, to be purchased by the unwary. This hurts the reputation of us all. But not all ebooks are vile dreck. Some small ebook publishers are putting out new material worthy of purchase. And this is the exciting part of the deal. A new, inventive tale that might not sell to a regular magazine can be found online. Authors can now explore new ideas without worrying about the restrictive chains of magazine policy. (A quick look at Ralan.com shows me there are currently only seven professional magazines that MIGHT buy a Mythos piece. Probably less.)
Despite the dangers of inferior products, there is an amazing opportunity for Mythos fans. Online Print-On-Demand and ebooks allow smaller presses such as Wildside Books, Subterranean Press and others to exist in a market that would not be attractive to large companies. A short story collection of Mythos tales can be well-produced and sold for a reasonable price, much as Arkham House has done since 1939. The new digital production techniques, such as POD, allow these books to exist and even flourish. While bad news, like Dorchester Press cutting their paperback line, reduces the bigger publishing opportunities, any number of smaller venues will gain prominence, and find avid horror and Mythos fans (those who have read all the free stuff already) who are willing to pay $20 for a good Mythos read. It’s a whole new frontier and yet, if August Derleth were still alive today, he might ask, “What has really changed?” That special fan of cosmic horror is still looking for the next great tale. Go out and write it.