|
As you slowly open the cover, you imagine
you hear a tortured groaning as of hinges long-unused. With a chilling shudder
you glimpse the words "Crypt of Cthulhu" and almost faint with
fright. But it's too late to turn back! The cover art by Jason Eckhardt has
captured your curiosity like some ghoulish Pied Piper, and now you're headed,
lock-step, irresistibly into this issue's chamber of Robert E. Howard's horrors.
Our lead article, "The Strange Case
of Robert Ervin Howard" by Marc A. Cerasini and Charles Hoffman, compares
Howard's use of the weird and unknown with that of H. P. Lovecraft. "The
Borrower Beneath" explores the Lovecraftian influence on Howard's famous
"The Black Stone", while "Gol-Goroth, A Forgotten Old One"
attempts to restore one of R.E.H.'s best monsters to the Cthulhu Mythos hall of
fame. Finally, "Genres in the Lovecraftian Library" provides an
up-to-date listing and classification of all those books (invented by Howard,
Lovecraft and others) that you'll never find in any library.
By the way, if anyone still has room for
dessert after this Howardian testimonial dinner, may we suggest you try Ben
Solon's article "Howard's Cthuloid Tales", in L. Sprague deCamp (ed.),
The Blade of Conan (Ace Books)?
With this, our third issue of Crypt of Cthulhu, we think we've further vindicated the need and role of a
"Lovecraftian" publication that is both fun and scholarly, and that
deals in depth with HPL yet widens its scope to include the whole Cthulhu
Mythos. We think you'll agree.
Robert M. Price
Hierophant of the Horde
|