The Westin Peachtree 1–2 room, Friday 7PM, was standing-room only for the presentation of “Cthulhu: New Spins on Old Mythos.” The panel consisted of Richard Lee Byers, Kenneth Hite, John Hornor Jacobs, Jonathan Maberry, Michael J. Martinez, and James R. Tuck.
The panel agreed that H. P. Lovecraft had a significant impact on horror fiction. Lovecraft’s creativity put a spin on previous horror fiction and brought it into the pulp market. The Cthulhu mythos is relevant for contemporary audiences.
The guests stated that Lovecraft portrayed people that were not stupid. His use of language and cadence drew the readers in, but not his use of dialogue, since there was not a lot of this in his works. His stories were not full of drama. They were more of the nature of man versus himself rather than other forms of conflict.
Lovecraft, in real life, was scared of everything. He had a history of hardship and illness, as well as paranoia of “foreigners.” He was not really prolific with his writing until the last few years of his life. Those few years made for an eternal path for aspiring horror writers to follow.
