H.P. Lovecraft is an interesting writer in I suspect that if it weren’t for his racism his writing wouldn’t have been as memorable, as haunting as it is.

Because underlying his eldritch horrors is a fear of the unknown, of terrors beyond comprehension, an “other” which if you look deeper you’ll likely realize are inferences to yellow and brown people (in hindsight it’s fairly apparent in some of his earlier work, particularly The Call of Cthulhu) though the whole ‘Innsmouth look‘ that turns up in more than a few of his stories is suspect as well.

And there’s no doubt that while racism is a terrible thing, any passion can be the fuel that lights the fire of creation; that he was able to channel it in such a fashion is pretty impressive though don’t take that to read that I somehow approve of Lovecraft’s feelings though it is what it is, and knowing that now (I didn’t at the time I discovered his writing) doesn’t make it any less brilliant.

And I honestly think he hated them, if only because the horrors he created based upon them were so monstrous, so threatening that even in sleep they’re not only ever present, but calling from the sunken city of R’lyeh.

Another interesting thing is that, while there have been numerous adaptations of his work, none of them – in my view, with the exception of The Color Out Of Space (2010) have even attempted to be accurate to Lovecraft’s work.

And I’m not entirely sure why because most of it either short stories or novellas though his work was so influential that may other authors have expanded what came to be known as the Cthulhu Mythos.

I don’t expect The Deep Ones to add much to Lovecraft’s mythos, if I were honest because it doesn’t appear particularly faithful to any one work, as opposed to touching upon the whole of Lovecraft’s writing.