Next week marks the 133rd birthday of Howard Phillips Lovecraft. I wonder if he would be surprised at his influence. He spawned an entire sub-genre: Lovecraftian Horror. Its tentacles reach from prose to film to games to seemingly every type of collectible merchandise imaginable.
I wonder if this prominence, this degree of ubiquity would tickle his vanity. Or would he be in the Tolkien “deplorable cultus” camp, disgusted with the whole circus? I imagine he might be disgruntled at the fact that his work became the source of income for so many while he barely scraped by. August Derleth, Robert Bloch, and many others owed much of their success to exploring the grim cosmos he created. Perhaps Lovecraft might consider it more evidence for his central thesis of a cold, uncaring universe.
It would be fascinating to learn the answers to my musings. Imagine the afterlife correspondence between Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard.
Well, enough idle speculation. How about some idle reading? My first novel, Reunion (wow, about ten months away from its tenth publication anniversary) would fill some leisure hours.