R.I.P., H.P. LOVECRAFT

Today, March 16th, 2012 A.D., marks the 75th anniversary of the death of H.P. Lovecraft.

Lovecraft was a self-educated materialist, amateur scientist, editor, and pulp writer, producing roughly seventy stories over his career. He wrote for scientific journals and worked as a literary critic. He wrestled with mental illness for much of his life, living in solitude in his home city of Providence. He wrote over one hundred thousand letters to his friends and colleagues. He was 47 years old. He never saw a hard-cover edition of his works published in his lifetime. He has inspired countless artists and writers, from Richard Matheson to Stephen King and Anne Rice and even musical groups like Metallica. He died of intestinal cancer in poverty. And he is the greatest author of horror I've ever encountered.

From maismal pits and sepulchers deep under the ground, in benighted vaults, silent grave legions are raising a lurid harmony for their champion. Ghouls and bestial entities that defy description are offering up prayers to him as they prey upon the unwary. Howard Phillips Lovecraft may be dead... but that is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons, even death may die.

And when the stars are right, the Old Ones will break through the steadily weakening walls of reality and reclaim that which is already theirs.

Hail to the Devourer of Worlds. Hail to the Beast. Cthulhu fh'tagn. He Who Must Not Be Named. The Goat With A Thousand Young. The Dark Man. The Great God Dagon. And those without names...

Some day, we will all go into the water.