"The Lurking Fear" as Serious Fictional Inspiration



It was, of course, inevitable --that Miss Thing wou'd pen her own version of "Ye Lurking Fear".

Ye editor of Fungi magazine has ask'd me to write a new Sesqua Valley novelette for their journal.  His needs were quite specific:  he wanted something around 11,000 words, and he wanted the individual chapters to have their own separate titles.  Naturally, I immediately thought of "The Lurking Fear" and knew instantly that this new thing wou'd be highly influenced by Lovecraft's tale.  I decided, thus, to be obnixiously obvious.  Here is ye thing's title and chapter titles:

"From Wreaths of Darkness"
I. The Shadow on the Chimney
II.  A Passer in the Storm
III.  The Horror in the Eyes
IV.  The Horror from the Shadows
V.  From the Dark

O, what obnoxious & obvious thievery!  What blatant plagiarism!  What fun!

"The Horror in the Eyes" is especially delightful, considering the eyes of ye shadow children of Sesqua Valley.  I shall have fun there.

I already have 3,600 words.  Part I is completed.  It concerns an innocent fool who discovers a private journal in which mention is made of ye haunted Martense mansion atop Tempest Hill in Sesqua Valley.  The high and dark domed hill is just below the spectral twin-peaked mountain and contrasts with that mountains shimmering white rock.  Legend has it that the mansion was built by lunatic sorcerers who were among the first mortals to settle in Sesqua Valley, and that the building of this pile of stones was what initially awakened Simon Gregory Williams and his horde of kindred in that secret realm of shadow and mist from which they eventually wandered.

In Part II, ye narrator meets a regular human resident in the valley named Arthur Monroe, and together they return to the shunned mansion and learn some of its diabolique secrets.  Again, the writing of the story is such fun, and although I am blatantly playing upon themes and incidents in Lovecraft's original story, I hope that Iam doing so in a way that is original and effective.  I firmly believe in that element of fun that was a vital component in ye writing of Lovecraft-inspir'd fiction during E'ch-Pi-El's lifetime.

at ye Fleur-de-Lys Building in Providence, clutching ye Penguin Classics edition of Lovecraft's tales that contains "Ye Lurking Fear."

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