Foreword
THE LOVECRAFTIAN Mythos has a lot going for it. Its mythology is truly original: perhaps the only major pantheon of gods and monsters introduced in the twentieth century that can’t be easily traced back to some combination of folklore, classic works of fiction, and religious texts that predate it. Howard Phillips Lovecraft and his contemporaries created a shared universe that has inspired generations of writers to build upon it and create dark, moody, atmospheric fiction that combines his pulpy brand of existential nihilism with modern writing techniques.
Not me though.
Crazy cultists? Batrachian denizens of New England? Giant, snoozing octopi? I find those things hilarious. I’d argue that, overall, the Mythos is as rich a source of hilarity as it is of cosmic dread. And I’m not alone. Writers have been poking fun at the Mythos for decades. There’s the excellent Scream for Jeeves by Peter H. Cannon, several short stories by Neil Gaiman (one of which is included in this book), The Laundry Files series of comic horror novels by Charlie Stross, not to mention a plethora of cartoons, internet memes and funny T-shirts.
I reached out to some of the funniest writers in the business to see if they wanted to thumb their noses at Cthulhu with me, and they took to the project with the manic glee of half-crazed cultists. Their tales will take you on a whirlwind tour of well-trodden Innsmouth, on a visit to the sunny shores of Florida and California, and for a peek into the dreary, inhospitable locales of Hell and North Korea. You will find Cthulhu in a wading pool, at a weekly poker game, moonlighting as a private eye, or inhabiting the plastic body of a love-dispensing Elvis doll. Even Lovecraft himself hasn’t escaped the sharp pen of our authors, appearing as a character in a couple of the stories.
There are sure to be some readers who do not appreciate my sentiment. They may dislike some of the swipes at Lovecraft’s prejudices and his adverb-laden prose, jokes often written by the “sort of people” he might’ve crossed the street to avoid. “How dare you poke fun at one of the cornerstones of horror literature?!” those readers might shout as they prepare to toss this book across the room. To those readers I have two things to say:
First, print books are heavy and throwing your e-reader might damage it irrevocably.
Second, the sincerest form of flattery isn’t imitation. It’s satire.
On an episode of The Big Bang Theory, guest star Stephen Hawking laments, “I have never won a Nobel Prize.” He adds, “It’s fine. I’ve been on The Simpsons.” There’s a reason Hawking appeared on both of those sitcoms: he’s important enough to have become a pop culture phenomenon. The same is true of H. P. Lovecraft and his oeuvre. Whatever the man’s flaws, he’s important. Important enough to have been a character in works by Ray Bradbury and Alan Moore, and in TV shows like Supernatural. Important enough to have influenced not only the horror genre but pop culture in general, in ways very few writers—nay, individuals—ever have.
It is with the acknowledgment of this importance and respect for his accomplishments that we mercilessly lampoon Mr. Lovecraft and his Mythos within these pages.
Happy reading,
Alex Shvartsman