A Review of “The Secret Life of H.P. Lovecraft”:by W.J. Renehan

 

This is not a book about the “Secret” life of H.P. Lovecraft, but more a monologue about how each one of the more famous stories that came from HPL’s fevered mind “could” have been inspired by a series of black envelopes.Not a bad thing in and of itself, the writing is well thought out and pacing is solid, but I should note that if you are an avid fan of Lovecraft like myself, you will find nothing new in these pages. I would however recommend this book to someone who has never read the Mythos, as it would be a fantastic introduction. All of your favorites are mentioned here; Dagon, Herbert West, Thomas Malone and Arthur Jermyn (White Apes!!!!!) and the chronicle flows seamlessly from story to story. I only wish the Author/Editor would have given us more, new points of reference from other subjects not covered by Lovecraft within the tales themselves, just to name one example.The Author,W.J. Renehan, is the Editorial Director of Dark Hall Press and from what I can gather he has a passion for Lovecraft brewing just under the surface. He has emulated the style of Lovecraftian fiction quite well,unfortunately he has only given a myopic view of a what might have been, and I feel the meat is missing from the bone.If his next installment gives us more substance from the darker corners of “histories archaic”, this reader would be more than pleased.

Review by: Vincent Piazza

A Review of “The Secret Life of H.P. Lovecraft”:by W.J. Renehan was originally published on The Hidden Left Hand

Squid-Head

In a dream I saw the city in a shadow, and the river beyond.

Siting where the river meets the sky,  fancy and illusion get drunk on rum and bad intent.

In a dream it was also that squid-head that called to me, for when awake I never hear squid.

Perhaps it is natural for me to see them awake,but dreaming is how I am reminded of who I have been.
I preferred to be awake,but that’s just the lie I tell myself to keep the dreams at bay.

What I wrote was laughed at by those Squid Heads,much better that, then silence.

The more I withdraw from the world,the more silent I became,a sound impossible to describe on paper

Naked in ugliness, this foul thing called reality……..
Artwork and Poem by Vincent Piazza, Copyright 2015

The Forgotten Ones…

Rumour has it that the Forgotten Ones, the Faceless Ones ah la the Titans, breached
human consciousness in the twentieth century. Various reasons could get given for this
which would include the splitting of the atom, the development of nuclear science, our
own evolutionary development or even the peculiarities of a double aeonic current
(Horus/Maat) that some practitioners of magic might consider in operation.

These primal forces variously named The Forgotten Ones, the Elder Gods, the Great Old
Ones, or the Ancient Ones, once got defined by the artist-magician Allen Holub as:
“…The raw unnamed energies existing since the icy cold of the fabric of space emerged
from nought. They pre-date the coming of space itself, and of time, from the aethers,
although it can be said that they represent the process of formation itself…” “Outside the
Circles of Time” K. Grant.

In an unpublished document entitled “The Keys of Aaton” a speaker notes the following:
“…Mark well what I have said, for comes a day
When dark things held in harness are revealed
By Man’s own curiosity, and blood
Is multiplied with new and deadly fears.

The Faceless Ones unlocked are not put out
With weaponry or words that of a time
Created access, yet we thread a door
Beneath the nightmare with the Spinners’ Line…”

The names of the Ancient Ones and the Elder Gods, the primal forces, have come from a
variety of sources: notably from Chaldean, Sumerian, Assyrian, African and Egyptian,
and from the realms of dream and vision and imagination. In the twentieth century, the
fantasy writer H. P. Lovecraft provided material that eventually got researched by The
Order of the Seven Rays in Haiti. Other writers have included Robert E. Howard, Clark
Ashton Smith, August Derleth and Robert Bloch…….

Art Copyright 2015: Vincent Piazza

The Forgotten Ones… was originally published on The Hidden Left Hand