Lovecraft in the 21st Century Lovecraft in the 21st Century assembles reflections from a wide range of perspectives on the significance of Lovecraft’s influence in contemporary times. Building on a focus centered on the Anthropocene, adaptation, and visual media, the chapters in this collection focus on the following topics: • Adaptation of Lovecraft’s legacy in theater, television, film, graphic narratives, video games, and game artwork • The connection between the writer’s legacy and his life • Reading Lovecraft in light of contemporary criticism about capital- ism, the posthuman, and the Anthropocene • How contemporary authors have worked through the implicit racial and sexual politics in Lovecraft’s fiction • Reading Lovecraft’s fiction in light of contemporary approaches to gender and sexuality Antonio Alcala Gonzalez is founder of the International Gothic Literature Congress and chair of the Humanities Department at Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico City. Carl H. Sederholm is professor of Interdisciplinary Humanities at Brigham Young University and chair of the Department of Comparative Arts and Letters. Routledge Studies in Speculative Fiction Speculative Satire in Contemporary Literature and Film Rant Against the Regime Kirk Combe The Biopolitics of Gender in Science Fiction Feminism and Female Machines Emily Cox-Palmer-White Character and the Supernatural in Shakespeare and Achebe Kenneth Usongo Human Evolution and Fantastic Victorian Fiction Anna Neill Genre and Reception in the Gothic Parody Framing the Subversive Heroine Kerstin-Anja Münderlein Lovecraft in the 21st Century Dead, But Still Dreaming Edited by Antonio Alcala Gonzalez and Carl H. Sederholm For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-Studies-in-Speculative-Fiction/ book-series/RSSF Lovecraft in the 21st Century Dead, But Still Dreaming Edited by Antonio Alcala Gonzalez and Carl H. Sederholm First published 2022 by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Antonio Alcala Gonzalez and Carl H. Sederholm; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Antonio Alcala Gonzalez and Carl H. Sederholm to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this title has been requested ISBN: 978-0-367-71304-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-71308-9 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-71306-5 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9780367713065 Typeset in Sabon by SPi Technologies India Pvt Ltd (Straive) Life is a hideous thing, and from the background behind what we know of it peer daemoniacal hints of truth which make it sometimes a thousand- fold more hideous. Science, already oppressive with its shocking revela- tions, will perhaps be the ultimate exterminator of our human species—if separate species we be—for its reserve of unguessed horrors could never be borne by mortal brains if loosed upon the world. “Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family” I have frequently wondered if the majority of mankind ever pause to reflect upon the occasionally titanic significance of dreams, and of the obscure world to which they belong. “Beyond the Wall of Sleep” Contents Acknowledgments x List of Contributors xi Introduction 1 ANTONIO ALCALA GONZALEZ AND CARL H. SEDERHOLM 1 Lovecraft and the Stage: A Recent (Re)Discovery 12 KEVIN J. WETMORE, JR. 2 Lovecraftian Landscapes and Cosmic Horror in HBO’s True Detective (2014) 28 ELISABETE LOPES 3 An Uncanny Absence: Lovecraft in Brazilian Cinema, 1975–2016 43 LÚCIO REIS FILHO AND SHEILA SCHVARZMAN 4 The Masks of E’ch-Pi-El: Interpreting the Life and Work of H.P. Lovecraft 57 JOHN GLOVER 5 “It’s like a maze you can’t see”: Comics Cryptomimesis of Lovecraft and the Lovecraftian in Alan Moore’s Neonomicon (2004–2005) and Providence (2015–2017) 71 STUART L. LINDSAY 6 Man or Cartoon: H.P. Lovecraft as a Comics Character 90 TOM SHAPIRA viii Contents 7 Drawing the Unknowable – Lovecraft’s Cosmic Horror in Magic: The Gathering and Hearthstone 103 SUZANNE ALBARY AND RICHARD ALBARY 8 Nuclear Inhumanities: H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Colour Out of Space” and the Dread of Contamination 118 IAN FETTERS 9 An Eldritch Crisis: Capitalist Paradigms in the Cthulhu Mythos 132 DANIEL DONCEL 10 Lovecraft’s Viral Networks: A Contaminated Ethics for the Chthulucene 143 NATASHA REBRY COULTHARD 11 “It Was the Vegetation”: Ecophobia and Monstrous Wilderness in the Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft 158 FREDRIK BLANC 12 Nautical Horror and the Anthropocene: Lovecraftian Monsters in William Eubank’s Underwater 172 ANTONIO ALCALA GONZALEZ 13 Racial (In)Visibility, Cosmic Indifference: Reimagining H.P. Lovecraft’s Legacy in Victor LaValle’s The Ballad of Black Tom (2016) 186 KATHLEEN HUDSON 14 Finding “Something and Not Nothing”: Women of Color Repurposing Lovecraft in the Posthuman 21st Century 201 LOREN BARBOUR 15 The Crawling Chaos: H.P. Lovecraft, Closed Gothic Spaces and “Dungeon Crawler” Videogames 213 KEVIN CORSTORPHINE AND MATTHEW CROFTS 16 Dreaming in Layers: Lovecraftian Storyworlds in Interactive Media 227 EOIN MURRAY Contents ix 17 “Bringing … Uncertain Geographies Under … Control”? Exploring the Lovecraftian ‘Walking Simulator’ 241 DAVID SIMMONS 18 Queering Cthulhu: Reclaiming Lovecraft’s Monstrous Others 253 NOWELL MARSHALL 19 Weird Bedfellows: H.P. Lovecraft, m/m Romance, and the New Queer Families of Jordan L. Hawk’s Whyborne & Griffin Series 268 BRIAN JOHNSON 20 Lovecraft, Hauntology, and the Rhetoric of Unthinkability 284 MICHAEL CERLIANO 21 Falling into the Void: “Nyarlathotep” 295 CARL H. SEDERHOLM Index 308