tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773759989225356372.post3338807209297188428..comments2024-03-27T19:24:05.285-05:00Comments on Stupefying Stories Magazine: Re the Bad Imitation Lovecraft Challenge~brbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10845253722980029012noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773759989225356372.post-23372424862054302902018-11-08T20:34:36.099-06:002018-11-08T20:34:36.099-06:00This wasn't an easy challenge for me to weigh ...This wasn't an easy challenge for me to weigh in on, primarily because my nodding acquaintance With Lovecraft comes at a price of ALWAYS having to google the correct spelling for Cthulhu. So, I won't be judging the stories on whether or not they are good/bad bad/good Lovecraft but more from my gut. For me, "Garden<br />Shoggoth" by Gregg Chamberlain grabbed me the hardest. Perhaps it was the use of the s-silibants, but I suspect that the story had some emotional resonance for me because it made me think of garden slugs. yeah....those innocuous little slime-trail leavers. The ones we pour salt on and laugh maniacally as they bubble and ooze. Oh, am I the only one that does that? Anyway, garden slugs here in Hawaii are not so innocuous because some of them carry rat lung worm disease....not as bad as it sounds....just MUCH WORSE. Anyway, ALL the stories were great, Gregg's tipped it just slightly for the resonance for me.Mark Keigleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11057982108264843405noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773759989225356372.post-76510245929143871002018-11-07T16:51:17.293-06:002018-11-07T16:51:17.293-06:00As a one-time practitioner of (unintentionally) ba...As a one-time practitioner of (unintentionally) bad Lovecraftiana, would have to go with "Garden<br />Shoggoth" by Gregg Chamberlain for sheer bad-Lovecraftian panache. It's also the most physically<br />revolting, for which I think HPL himself might have spared a shudder (he whom only an abiding disgust at seafood moved to profanity). And I loved/loathed the alliteration.<br /><br />If I were choosing a second, I'd pick Robert Hobson, though his entry<br />was probably more sexual than the prudish Lovecraft would have<br />endorsed. The others all had their merits, though a couple of them feel a little too<br />close to serious Lovecraft to make it all the way into the Bad Lovecraft category.<br /><br />p.s. I too am being plagued with the "Unknown" tag. This is Thomas R. Smith weighing in.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06662345436473796652noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773759989225356372.post-59917536361207719142018-11-07T16:47:26.273-06:002018-11-07T16:47:26.273-06:00As a one-time practitioner of (unintentionally) ba...As a one-time practitioner of (unintentionally) bad Lovecraftiana, would have to go with "Garden<br />Shoggoth" by Gregg Chamberlain for sheer bad-Lovecraftian panache. It's also the most physically<br />revolting, for which I think HPL himself might have spared a shudder (he whom only an abiding disgust at seafood moved to profanity). And I loved/loathed the alliteration.<br /><br />If I were choosing a second, I'd pick Robert Hobson, though his entry<br />was probably more sexual than the prudish Lovecraft would have<br />endorsed. The others all had their merits, though a couple of them feel a little too<br />close to serious Lovecraft to make it all the way into the Bad Lovecraft category.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06662345436473796652noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773759989225356372.post-55865670015181971872018-11-07T11:13:00.311-06:002018-11-07T11:13:00.311-06:00I also have never read lovecraftian, but was excit...I also have never read lovecraftian, but was excited to read the entries to this contest, and laughed at the Garden Shoggoth. The others were a bit harder to get through, but it gave me a good understanding of what lovecraft is about! <br /><br />And I think the friday challenge should definitely be brought back :)ellenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08746985854095046417noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773759989225356372.post-17428409523157607602018-11-07T06:50:05.459-06:002018-11-07T06:50:05.459-06:00Much is I empathised as a gardener with the brave ...Much is I empathised as a gardener with the brave hero in Gregg Chamberlain's 'Garden Shoggoth', it simply made too much sense to be bad. Even worse, C.S.Humble's 'The Deliberate Work...' was actually intriguing, made me want to read on and left me hoping for more.<br />My vote goes for Micah Castle's 'The Questioning Sanity...' which I not only found genuinely difficult to follow through its labyrinthine punctuation of semi-colons, m-dashes and elipsis some of which were actually ADJACENT but also while I read it found it had temporarily reduced my own SANITY and WILL to LIVE along with an increasing determination to eschew all punctuation forever.<br /><br />Well done all. So very terribly good.Dave G.https://www.blogger.com/profile/01292926228800009570noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773759989225356372.post-87882821900610394012018-11-05T14:36:23.384-06:002018-11-05T14:36:23.384-06:00Oh, by the way, Unknown is Robert Hobson. I just c...Oh, by the way, Unknown is Robert Hobson. I just can't figure out why it doesn't, the website, recognize me. Roberthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17279106356599301346noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773759989225356372.post-45067413085320350122018-11-05T14:34:13.788-06:002018-11-05T14:34:13.788-06:00The best of the works was by Mr. Humble, though I ... The best of the works was by Mr. Humble, though I would take away points for his lack Lovecraftian verbiage. <br /><br /> This is the key to crafting a Lovecraftian pastiche. The sentences must be long with commas, colons, and semicolons with a hint of a hyphen now and then. Does it have to make absolute sense? Not really. Will you have to read it twice to grasp it? Of course, it's a Lovecraftian sentence.<br /> I tried in vain to craft one complete, one hundred word sentence, but I just couldn't. Lovecraft's longest sentence came from "He" published by Wierd Tales in 1926, it was eighty-seven words long.<br /> I do believe Micah Castle managed a sixty-seven-word sentence and had a few long words thrown in for good measure. My attempt was a meager fifty-two. The rest fell below the forty words range.<br /> Lovecraft's writing was about the smallness of humanity when compared with the cosmos. Whether he meant to or not, he did this by throwing large words at the page and caused the reader to realize how small thier brains were. There have been very few authors who could make me feel small, challenge my mind enough that I would keep my laptop close by to find a word. Roberthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17279106356599301346noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773759989225356372.post-39786056841954461312018-11-05T10:51:02.572-06:002018-11-05T10:51:02.572-06:00I read them all--with some difficulty, because the...I read them all--with some difficulty, because they seemed to be written in a foreign language--but I really didn't know what to say about them. I read part of one Lovecraft book years ago and got out of it his way of trying to keep suspense going by constantly saying things would get worse soon. I don't remember much else, but I wasn't interested in reading more of his work. <br /><br />My main problem with the challenge was that we were supposed to reward "bad Lovecraft." Is his only fault his vocabulary? If so, everyone did a great job. Some of the entries had no plot, and some had incomplete sentences and/or sentences that didn't make any sense. Is that "bad Lovecraft" or just bad writing?<br /><br />Perhaps I am disqualified to comment on this challenge because of my lack of experience with the subject.<br />Arisiahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08171607978526875237noreply@blogger.com