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| A sketch of Cthulhu made by |
| H. P. Lovecraft in May 1934. |
When horror aficionados think of horror and tentacles, the first words that come to mind are H. P. Lovecraft and his creation Cthulhu. A malevolent monster combining elements of a human, octopus, and dragon, Cthulhu first appeared in Lovecraft's short story “The Call of Cthulhu,” published in
Weird Tales in February 1928. Here's a passage from the story describing a statue of Cthulhu.
It represented a monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind. This thing, which seemed instinct with a fearsome and unnatural malignancy, was of a somewhat bloated corpulence, and squatted evilly on a rectangular block or pedestal covered with undecipherable characters.
Looking for a short, creepy novel with more plot twists and surprises than the crooked branches of an old oak tree? Stuart R. West's Neighborhood Watch is the book for you and here to talk about it today is Mr. West himself.
My story Last Request is finally seeing the light of day as a self-published novelette. This piece has taken a long road to publication and doubled in size from a 6K short story to a 12K novelette along the way. I wrote the bulk of original story while vacationing on the Outer Banks in North Carolina. Why I would write this particular story while watching the sun rise over the boundless Atlantic is hard to believe. If you read the story, you'll understand just how odd that is.
The anthology King David and the Spiders from Mars is now available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle. This is a fabulous collection of seven tales drawing their inspiration from Old Testament stories. I'm stoked that my offering, "Good King David," stands among them.