Win a novel by sci-fi & dark fantasy author David J Rodger: Bring the Cthulhu Mythos In – last call for entries

Hi folks
I’ve had a great response to the fun little brain duster where you applied Mythos concepts to classic movie titles.

I’ll be starting the process of selecting a winner tomorrow evening (6th Jan – UK time).

So you’ve got a bit over 24 hours to get YOUR idea in if you want a chance to have a novel, in paperback, shipped to you, courtesy of the author David J Rodger.

Here’s the current contenders.

• One Flew over the Mountains of Madness (Kelvin Wright via Comments )
  
• Mythosletoe & Wine (Floyd Hayes via Facebook)
  
• Let The [Great Old] One In (Adam Lee via Facebook)
  
• Mi-go of La Mancha (Samantha Rule via Facebook)
  
• Gloon Over Miami  (Major Sebastian Perry via Facebook)
  
• A Shoggoth To Remember (Samantha Rule via Facebook)
  
• Breakfast at Nyarlathotep’s (Khalida al-Katib via Comments )
  
• The Empusa Strikes Back  (Major Sebastian Perry via Facebook)
• Citizen Caeneus (Major Sebastian Perry via Facebook) – not strictly Mythos but Greek Mythology was a great source of inspiration to the young Lovecraft.
• Polyp Fiction (Chris Halliday via Comments )
• Run Lloigor Run (Chris Halliday via Comments )
• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dagon!  (Chris Halliday via Comments )

Think you can do better?

Drop me a line, leave a comment below or post your suggestion on my Facebook wall.

• Tweet me baby @davidjrodger
• David J Rodger Facebook Fan Page

The Master of Monstrous Dreams: Great Cthulhu by Diego Simone

With the latest tranche of 3D remakes and another generation being exposed to recycled vampires, werewolves, poltergeists, evils spirits and possessed victims it seems like the major movie houses are yet again missing a trick with the Cthulhu Mythos.

This is perhaps epitomised by Warner Bros and Universal failing to act on Guillermo del Toro’s proposal for filming At The Mountains of Madness; although the latter studio seems willing, but only at the cost of introducing a love interest and a happy ending.

Hello – this is Lovecraft>!

Even though I’d love to see James Cameron render Lovecraft’s Mythos into stunning big-budget digital fantasy, I’d hate to see the Mythos concept diluted by the tired and jaded industry tricks that belong to the 20th century.  Just look at the phenomenal success of the movie Drive, directed by Nicolas Winding Refn (based on novel by James Sallis) to see you can have love interest without a happy ending.  So perhaps everyone is missing the trick; it’s not about Titanic scale budgets, it’s about the right funding to bring the cosmic beauty and breathtaking horror of Lovecraft’s visions to a wider audience.  It’s about finding the Will and having the Courage to take the risk.

So, with this in mind…

QU: Can you come up with a classic movie title that include the names of some Mythos concepts?

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Here’s one to start:

Gone with the Wendigo

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The winner gets to pick one of five intelligent, action-packed novels that share the incredible world of the near dark-future crafted by David J Rodger:

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God Seed

“Mankind will be judged, and smitten and cleansed”

Order a bookstore quality paperback from LULU

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Full description & customer reviews on official website

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Lovecraft brought screaming and thrashing into the 21st Century!

David Rodger has created a World where Lovecraft’s mythos enters the near future. This, one of […] novels that he has set in a Gibsonesque environ, is a fulfilling piece of sci-fi horror, something that he evokes well. You can see the inspiration of Alien, beefed up with some Andy McNab-style action. The narrative sometimes sacrifices depth for pace, but is ultimately a fulfilling read. If you like Philip K Dick, or indeed William Gibson, and enjoyed some of Lovecraft’s genre, this will definitely appeal.

– S R Pyne, Bristol

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Dante’s Fool

“An outstanding blend of crime, terror and technology”

Order a bookstore quality paperback from LULU

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Full description & customer reviews on official website

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Things are never as they seem.

I’m starting to pick up your style now. When you’re halfway through the book, what you are guessing as the end, is way off! When you think its done, there is more. Really hard to guess whats next even. Kept me reading until 5am!

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Iron Man Project

“One man, one team, absolute loyalty or die”

Order a bookstore quality paperback from LULU

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Full description & customer reviews on official website

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Really engaging characters and plenty of pace.

‘Unputdownable’ is such an overused phrase, but this is in that category.

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EDGE

“Courage means nothing in the face of Ancient Evil”

Order a bookstore quality paperback from LULU

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Full description & customer reviews on official website

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Edge is a great book.

“It’s got an epic mountain setting and brings strong characters with interesting back-stories together to face some very bad things. The sci-fi aspects are blended into everyday use with the exception of a technology that an unscrupulous and delightful maggot of a man is trying to get his hands on. People die. Some die much worse than others. There is gore but not slasher style and with a lean on genuine creeping horror. Something is bad on that mountain and I highly recommend you find out what!”

– Dr Andrew Collins

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Dog Eat Dog

“Sometimes death is a blessing”

Order a bookstore quality paperback from LULU

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Full description & customer reviews on official website

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This is really, really good stuff.

I’d go as far to say it’s the best Sci Fi horror I’ve read in ten years. I can’t think of anything that beats it in terms of action, the innovative ideas per page quota is off the chain, the characters are deep and real. Drobna is the best anti-hero in the genre. A total bad ass, he makes Mad Max look like Stephen Fry.

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Previous Winners – Happy People:

• 2011 – May: Mayday Mayday. Mr Matt M McElroy. He chose Dog Eat Dog as his prize.
• 2011 – March: Enjoy the Ides of March. Andrew Corrieri . He chose Dante’s Fool as his prize.
• 2010 – December: Free Sci-Fi giveaway. Peteofrepublic. He chose Dog Eat Dog as his prize.
• 2010- November: Free Sci-Fi giveaway. Alexandre Siegelin (Germany). He chose EDGE as his prize.
• 2009- July: Free Sci-Fi giveaway. Christopher Clark Plambeck. He chose God Seed as his prize.

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<<<YOU MAY ALSO ENJOY THIS>>>

Monster discount savings extended to 6th Jan 2012

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Got Kindle?

If you’re keen to try these novels in digital format then you can buy all these titles at Amazon with a choice of currencies, $ US Dollars; or £ GB Pounds, or the Euro.

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David J Rodger – DATA

Boxing Day 2010: Cloudy Head, Polar Exploration, Mountains of Madness, Murder on the Orient Express. What a day. Bliss.

¦ dialling in from Sky Bunker ¦

11:12 GMT, Boxing Day, 2010. I’ve got life support blasting full power, in fact I’ve got it pulled right up close to my chair so it can charge away the cold tendrils of air clutching at me in this frozen room, and frozen house.

Yesterday I relaunched my spooky short for adults with an inner child lurking at the boundary of their subconscious, called Cloudy Head.

Today’s mission is to start and finish a short story called The House Of Heavenly Light – an idea I came up with at the start of this month when I was in New York.  The aim is to expand the concept of the zombie infection (in Yellow Dawn) and …the influence of Hastur through it.

The Book of Polar Exploration by Edith L Elias, published 1928

I’ve also started reading a book written in 1928, called The Book of Polar Exploration by Edith L Elias – which is delightfully inspiring and compelling stuff – about the history, context and exploits of Humankind’s exploration of the Arctic and Antarctic realms.  Of course, for me, I can’t shake free from H.P.Lovecraft’s patina of horror whenever I think of Antarctica thanks to his incredible story: At the Mountains of Madness, and the equally fantastic Call of Cthulhu campaign called “Beyond The Mountains of Madness.”  If you’re ignorant of these items of work and you like period horror from the 1930s, then do your imagination a favour and make swift inquiry and purchases…or just wait for Guillermo del Toro’s and Cameron to bring it to life on the big screen (2013?).

You can read Lovecraft’s novella At The Mountains of Madness (free) here.

At the Mountains of Madness - Lake's plane (The Munki's Tree)

At Pabodie's camp with specimin (Blastr)

Finally, I’m still reeeling today from last night’s airing of Murder on the Orient Express, with David Suchet playing the Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot. Here’s an actor who has been chugging through Agatha Christie’s story collection for what, 21 years? And I’ve watched him do them all, and watched him (the actor and the character Poirot) grow old in the process. As I have grown older in a coterminous life stream.  Some of the episodes have been great, a few have been lacking something… but all of them have been enjoyable. Then last night, he tackles one of the classics.
Murder on the Orient Express.
And it’s better than any film I’ve ever seen.
Just incredible.

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David Suchet as Hercule Poirot

I feel like I’m raving but everything about it was perfect. The photography, stunning and evocative. The few scenes of CGI were not intrusive.  The script – superb. The acting – first class.  The music – brilliantly edgy and unsettling when it needed to be.  The whole 2 hours was a coup de grace against my cynicism about another production company digging out this “over cooked” story.  There is a wonderful sense that Poirot is tired and jaded, that he himself is slightly unsettled at the start of the journey from Istanbul; he looks old, and if you’ve seen David Suchet in the past 21 years of acting the role, you feel something of his weariness about being here, stuck on a train with a bunch of suspects.  And it’s claustrophobic, and frigidly cold, and dangerous.

More David J Rodger? God Seed ¦ Dante’s Fool ¦ Iron Man Project ¦ Edge ¦ Yellow Dawn RPG