EPISODE28 - The Lovecraft Geek

Iâ??ve heard you mention that you've spent some time visiting different parts of Lovecraft's New England and was wondering what kind of experiences or comments you had relating to the settings.. What are some of the things you can gain, or miss out on, by experiencing HPL through audiobooks? Am I the only person who has noticed that L. Sprague de Camp's Al Azif is 4 pages of Syriac text, turned upside down, and repeated? I haven't tried to identify the text, but the New Testament seems a good guess. It's definitely the Serto or "Jacobite" script of the Syriac alphabet. and not the Arabic alphabet, as some say. I recently re-read 'At The Mountains Of Madness' but found some difficulty accepting how much Dyer and Danforth accomplish in a short time.  We're told they're away for 16 hours. They leave at 09.00 and land at the city at 12.30.  Being generous and saying the return trip is one and a half hours, because they know where they are going, that leaves them 10 hours.  I find it hard to accept you could put together such a story, spanning hundreds of thousands of years, from wall relief carvings.  How would you determine the sequence of such images?  Where would you get the confidence to decide which is the classical style of an alien culture and what is the debased style?  I am compelled to ask you to elaborate on your falling out with the Lovecraft eZine. What are your thoughts on the World Fantasy Award abandoning the Lovecraft bust as their official award statue? Do you think the Lovecraftian community can survive political correctness if their constant bashing of our beloved Uncle Howard continues? In your February 15th Lovecraft Geek cephalopodcast, you talked about Bible-inspired Lovecraft stories.  One that you did not mention is "The Doom That Came to Sarnath."  I think this is clearly a parody of the tale of the lost ark in 1 Samuel 4-6.  Both stories have the same plot elements presented in the same order.  There is the massacre, the capture as a prize of war, the tussle in the temple, the curse, and the miraculous return.  The difference between the two is that in the Bible story the aquatic idol (Dagon) is vanquished, whereas in Lovecraft's story the aquatic idol (Bokrug) is victorious. Exodus 33:18-23 must have been the source for the climax of Robert E. Howard's story "The Fire of Assurbanipal, right?