THE GENTLEMAN FROM PROVIDENCE. H.P Lovecraft (seen here holding his lunch) is, without doubt, the greatest horror writer of the 20th century; on a par with Edgar Allan Poe or any others you may care to mention. Lovecraft's dimension-spanning tales of the horribly monstrous "Great Old Ones" (who had dominion over this universe and our Earth millions of years before man) include such demonic entities as Yog Sothoth, Nyarlathotep and the ever popular Cthulhu (not to mention the fabled forbidden book known as the Necronomicon). Lovecraft has also probably influenced more writers than any other author besides Ernest Hemingway. Think about it. As great as J.R.R. Tolkien is, you don't see many people creating new tales of Middle Earth. One or two, maybe, but not the literally HUNDREDS of authors who have used Lovecraft's "Cthulhu Mythos" as the basis for their short stories and novels. Name another author who has spawned such a vast number of tributes and pastiches in the world of horror writing. A superb HPL biography (more like an extended essay) is Michel Houellebecq's "H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life" which celebrates his writing while not shying from HPL's very real faults and foibles. I strongly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in Lovecraft. The thin tome is fleshed out by the inclusion of two of HPL's short stories: "The Call of Cthulhu" (which you can listen to in audiobook version by clicking here!) and "The Whisperer In Darkness". I have gone on record in the past as naming "The Colour Out of Space" and "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" as my favourites but there are just too many great stories from which to choose! As for the world of motion pictures, Lovecraft has not faired particularly well; HPL's cosmic horrors have proven remarkably difficult to film. Only recently (as was also the case with Tolkien) has technology advance sufficiently to make filming them possible. Such films as "The Haunted Palace" starring Vincent Price, ""Die, Monster, Die" starring Boris Karloff and "The Dunwich Horror" starring Dean Stockwell and Sandra Dee (!) have made valiant but doomed efforts to successfully bring HPL to the screen; the movies remain pretty good but fail in conjuring the spirit that is Lovecraft. Later, director Stuart Gordon has made numerous attempts including the wonderful "Re-Animator" and the recent "Masters of Horror" episode of "Dreams in the Witch House". I am also rather partial to Gordon's recent film "Dagon" (click here to watch trailer) which is very close in spirit to ole HPL. However, if you have never experienced the purple prose and cosmic horror of Howard Phillips Lovecraft, rush right out and read some! If for no other reason than this: when the Great Cthulhu stirs from his slumber and our tenuous grasp on this universe is wrested from us by the mind-blasting, eldritch horror of the Great Old Ones. . . .well, you will have been forewarned!