Lovecraft through the lens of Bloch

I always forget that Robert Bloch was part of the Lovecraft circle. He seems too young to have been one of Lovecraft’s pen pals and he also seems like he’s at least one generation further in the development of horror.

Well, to be fair, he was the youngest member of the circle, still a teenager when he was a part of it. And, while he started out writing Lovecraftian tales, he moved on to develop his own style and voice.

Reading the Mysteries of the Worm, a collection of some (but I don’t think all) of his Mythos works, a number of things struck me. 

First of all, a lot of stories are meh. Which isn’t unreasonable, seeing as how young he was when he wrote most of them. However, they don’t show the promise of how good he was going to become. His afterward pretty much agrees with that assessment lol

But I can’t ignore that some of the stories, The Shambler from the Stars in particular, were influential and important to the Mythos. Not only did Shambler give us the memorable star vampire, it inspired Lovecraft to write the Haunter of the Dark. (Bloch and Lovecraft killed each other in their respective stories because that’s how they had fun)

The other thing was how hard Lovecraft’s death affected Bloch. I hadn’t realized how important a mentor, as well as a friend, Lovecraft was to him. Lovecraft did a lot to push Bloch into becoming a writer. And Bloch was also well aware how unknown Lovecraft was to the world at large when he died. Lovecraft’s passing was devastating for Bloch.

(I get why some people are August Derleth haters. But we wouldn’t have the world of the Mythos without him)

The best story in the book is, unsurprisingly, one of the last ones written. Terror in Cut-Throat Cove, despite having one of the most hackneyed titles _ever_, is a rich and unnerving work. I was reminded of Ramsey Campbell’s The Faces of Pine Dunes in a very positive way. It is Bloch approaching Lovecraft is a very Bloch way.

For me, Mysteries of the Worm was an archeological dig into both the history of the Mythos and Bloch.