R.I.P. Joe Pulver — The True King of Carcosa

After a long, agonizing battle with myriad health issues, Joe Pulver has gone home. His wife, Katrin, was with him through every up and down, every hope and setback, of which there have been so many over the years. I used to semi-regularly hang out with Joe and editor/author Robert M. Price at the Price estate in Selma, NC, on the far side of Raleigh from here. We referred to those gatherings a new kind of Kalem Club, where Lovecraftian lore ruled the day. Our discussions of fiction, movies, philosophy, food, drink, and fun always went on until well into the wee hours. Since the Prices live a couple of hours from home, I'd always stay overnight so we wouldn't have to end our evenings too early.

Back then, I always slept in gym shorts, and on my first visit, I took a bright red pair with me. Joe loved to rib me about those, and whenever we made plans to gather, he always admonished me to "bring those bright red 'PUH-jamas'!" His wit and wisdom always kept us in stitches, and it's hard to believe the last of those was almost a full decade ago, just before he moved to Germany.

After Joe moved, I never saw him again in person, though several times in the past few years I have participated in Mike Davis's Lovecraft eZine videocasts, in which Joe was a regular panelist. During those episodes, the old-time banter came to life again, as if he were sitting just across the room from me, rather than across an ocean.

Joe's affection for Robert W. Chambers' King in Yellow was legendary. He paid tribute to the Yellow King in the stories he wrote and the anthologies he edited. His work has deservedly received much critical acclaim and, near as I can tell, he almost single-handedly brought about a new appreciation in the dark fiction field for Chambers' work. I had read Chambers years before I met Joe, but it was Joe's influence that prompted me to get into it all over again, this time with a whole new perspective and appreciation. His fondness for the Old King is certainly what prompted me to write what I consider one of my best short stories — "Masque of the Queen" — which appears in In the Court of the Yellow King, edited by Glynn Owen Barrass and published by Celaeno Press.

By all indications, Joe and Katrin couldn't have made a more perfect match. Seems like it was right after Joe left the States that the two of them became one. I always enjoyed their posts on Facebook relating the ins and outs of their lives, and, once Joe's health issues became evident, it was Katrin that kept his huge online family apprised of his condition. His downward spiral wasn't consistent; so often it seemed he was going to bounce back, to resume life as the Joe we all knew and prayed to see again. Eventually, though, it became clear this was not going to happen. But he could not have been in better hands than with Katrin, whose efforts to safeguard his life and health were monumental. My heart sure goes out to her during this shattering time.

Joe is gone, but he left a personal and creative legacy that I believe will endure. You can find much of his work on Amazon.com here. If you have yet to sample any of his gut-wrenching tales of horror and surreal chills, I urge you to dive in. And you can still look at his blog here.

Goodnight, dear Joe. Perhaps, in some way, some day, that little Kalem Club of ours will happily reunite in Carcosa.

Photo by Lady Lovecraft

Beyond the Mountains of Madness

It's been a long, strange road for this volume of blood-chilling tales to see the light of day. A few years back, director Guillermo del Toro was all set to make a big-screen adaptation of H. P. Lovecraft's acclaimed short novel, At the Mountains of Madness. To coincide with the film's release, writer, editor, and high priest of the Cthulhu Mythos, Dr. Robert M. Price, compiled an anthology of stories — including one of mine, titled "The Danforth Project" — that took the theme of Lovecraft's story of horror in the Antarctic and ran with it. At the last minute, however, del Toro's project fell through, and the anthology went into limbo. After several fits and starts with various publishers, Dark Quest Books picked up the project, and now... finally... it's here. Well, my contributor copies have not yet arrived, but several other authors whose works are included in the book have verified the book is, in fact, a reality. Other contributors include Ken Asamatsu; Glynn Owen Barrass; Pierre Comtois; Laurence J. Cornford; Cody Goodfellow; C. J. Henderson; Edward Morris; Will Murray; Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.; Pete Rawlik; and Brian Sammons. Fine company indeed for paying tribute to one of Lovecraft's best stories and one of my favorite works of dark literature.

Publisher's description: "The frozen continent of Antarctica still harbors mysteries, slowly being revealed by intrepid scientists and by melting ice caps. The stories in this new collection offer more revelations still, as our frostbitten authors chip away at the legacy bequeathed by H. P. Lovecraft in his historic novella, At the Mountains of Madness. Lovecraft's epic is itself a continent teeming with lurking fears and horrors unknown. What mysterious entities did his star-headed crinoids serve? What genetic secrets gestated within the shifting masses of the unholy shoggoths? Can a mere human fathom or describe the thought patterns of such creatures? If the Elder Things survived, what further nefarious mischief might they have spread? Had there been other, earlier or later expeditions to the Lovecraftian tundra? Did the cyclopean metropolis of the Old Ones exist in this or some other dimension? Could there be unsuspected links between the Miskatonic Expedition and characters or events in other Lovecraft tales? What if The Twilight Zone had adapted At the Mountains of Madness for television?"

The Mountains of Madness is now available as a trade paperback, available from Dark Quest Books for $14.95. 

Kind of a Kalem Klub

Joe "The Pulverizer" Pulver and Robert M. Price

Mr. Price and Helix the Cat—a rare delicacy

Spent an enjoyable weekend in Selma, NC, at the Robert M. Price abode, which played host to Lovecraftian comrades-in-arms Joe Pulver and that Mr. Deathrealm dude. Good eats, good yakking, and good DVDs, including The Mist and a biopic of H. P. Lovecraft, which featured the likes of Peter Straub, Neil Gaiman, Caitlin Kiernan, Ramsey Campbell, John Carpenter, Stuart Gordon, and Mr. Price himself. Not as much sleep happening as most old farts prefer... And 44 caches grabbed betwixt coming and going. Most satisfying. This weekend was also the 23rd wedding anniversary for Mrs. Death and me. We did manage to get in some quality time together and lament the senseless death of so many years. How do these horrific things happen, one must wonder....