Table Of ContentLovecraft 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
