Time to expand my collection of Lovecraft scholarship. A book on the master of tentacled ickiness by French novelist, Michel Houellebecq, has recently been translated into English. The Independent, no less, has a review.

Yet Lovecraft is not easy to dismiss. Encountering the stories in adolescence, I thought they were silly, but I have never forgotten them. Houellebecq makes a very good fist of explaining what makes them memorable. He points out that Lovecraft’s obsession with touch contributes to an immersive quality in his horror – his monsters are felt and seen.

Which reminds me of how disappointed I was to discover that the plush nightgaunts that were on sale at Finncon where not in the slightest bit tickly.