Page Created: 08/09/16. Last Updated: 12/22/16.
PETER CANNON
Fiction Collections:
FOREVER AZATHOTH
THE LOVECRAFT CHRONICLES
THE LOVECRAFT PAPERS
PULPTIME
SCREAM FOR JEEVES
Non Fiction Titles, Author
THE CHRONOLOGY OUT OF TIME: DATES IN THE FICTION OF H P LOVECRAFT
H P LOVECRAFT
LONG MEMORIES: RECOLLECTIONS OF FRANK BELKNAP LONG
SUNSET TERRACE IMAGERY IN H P LOVECRAFT
Non Fiction Titles, Editor
LOVECRAFT REMEMBERED
MORE ANNOTATED LOVECRAFT (co-edited by S T Joshi)
Pages of interest
Speculative Fiction Data Base: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Peter_Cannon
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Cannon
Social Media:
Meeting Summary
Meeting Date: November 12, 2016.
Meeting Venue: Bergen Highlands United Methodist Church. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.
Attendance: 21.
Meeting Program: Talk / Q & A with Humor-Horror Author / PW Reviews Editor.
Meeting Account:
The following account is reprinted with permission from THE STARSHIP EXPRESS Copyright 2016 Philip J De Parto:
The Science Fiction Association of Bergen County's monthly meeting was held at the Bergen Highlands United Methodist Church in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey on Saturday, November 12, 2016. Author Peter Cannon, a writer of fiction and non fiction about H P Lovecraft, his contemporaries and his work, was our speaker.
The focus of the Writers' Space Saloon was on characterization. The discussion included the naming of characters, playing character against genre expectations and defining them through their possessions (for example, what art or photographs hang upon their walls). Maureen stated that she mentally takes her characters out for a night on the town to see how they would react under a variety of situations.
Barry's Ice Nine discussion, our other pre meeting event, spent most of its time on the television shows BABYLON 5, DOCTOR WHO, and the various STAR TREK series, as well as discussing the recent deaths of Robert Vaughn and Zacherly.
Peter Cannon was our evening's speaker. Mr Canon has written a number of homages, parodies and pastiches of H P Lovecraft including the novel, PULPTIME (Lovecraft and Sherlock Holmes) and the collections THE LOVECRAFT CHRONICLES (three novellas) and FOREVER AZATHOTH (sixteen shorter works). He has also written and edited non fiction collections about HPL, Frank Belknap Long, and others in the Lovecraft circle. He has been an editor at Crown Books and is currently a Reviews Editor at PUBLISHERS WEEKLY. Unfortunately his time with us was less than expected as he arrived late (he got lost en route) and had to leave early (he had to return a rental car).
Our guest was born in Massachusetts, grew up in California, and moved to Manhattan in 1975. He was drawn to Lovecraft at an early age and the author was the subject of his dissertation at Brown.
Mr Cannon stated that his success in publishing is the result of four great ideas. The first was to mix Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos with Sherlock Holmes in his first published story, "The Madness Out of Space." Author Frank Belknap Long plays the role of Watson.
His second idea was to pit P G Wodehouse's classic characters Jeeves and Wooster against Lovecraftian horrors in a series on stories which became the book, SCREAM FOR JEEVES.
The third was to imagine what would have happened if H P Lovecraft had not died young and had a normal lifespan. THE LOVECRAFT CHRONICLES imagines the exploits of the author into his 70s.
Mr Cannon's final great idea was to mix Lovecraft and Bob & Ray. The author, his wife, Nan, and club member Patricia Nash enacted a series of calls to the program by characters from Lovecraft stories.
Lovecraft's fear and loathing of the Other presents a problem for the modern reader. His writings describe Blacks, immigrants and others as subhuman in no uncertain terms. He penned the poem, "On the Creation of Niggers," among other works. The World Fantasy Convention no longer uses his likeness on the award trophies.
On the other hand, if HPL is uniquely reprehensible, why did the newspaper publish the verse? Where was the hue and craft over its publication? Where is the evidence of his bigotry in his dealings with others?
Individuals differ on the merits of these two arguments. At present, those who condemn him have the upper hand. Continued on the 22016 - 11/2016 Meeting Page on the club website.