304: Haunted Landscapes

We’re back and we’re digging deep. While you might expect to find ghosts in these haunted landscapes, mostly we’re unearthing history. Oh, and carcinogens. On balance, ghosts seem like the healthier option.

Main Topic: Haunted Landscapes

Building on last episode’s discussion of Lovecraftian horror and detective fiction explored in Heather Miller’s Ripples From Carcosa, we’re delving into another part of the book, which lays out the idea of haunted landscapes.

The landscapes in question are haunted by the past rather than ghosts, with layers of history transforming their geography and meaning. We take this concept and see how it might help us add depth to our Call of Cthulhu scenarios.

Our Guest Host

We are delighted to have Heather Miller join us for this episode. Heather is a Lovecraftian scholar who has presented a number of papers at Necronomicon Providence and has recently published a book for Hippocampus Press — Ripples From Carcosa — which explores the relationship between Lovecraft and True Detective.

Heather’s other papers include “Melville and the Lovecraftian Gaze”, which examines the connection between Lovecraft’s investigators and the cosmic horror of Moby-Dick, and “Toward a Definition of Lovecraftpunk”.

You can find Heather’s blog at notesonhplovecraft.blogspot.com, where, amongst other things, she discusses some of the research that went into her book.

Links

Things we mention in this episode include:

• Ghosts in Call of Cthulhu
• Hauntology
• True Detective
• Detective fiction and Call of Cthulhu
• Requiem For a Nun by William Faulkner
• “The Shadow Out of Time” by HP Lovecraft
• Petrochemical America by Richard Misrach and Kate Orff
• Cancer Alley
• “The Colour Out of Space” by HP Lovecraft
• “The Whisperer in Darkness” by HP Lovecraft
• “The Picture in the House” by HP Lovecraft
• Hurricane Katrina
• Hurricane parties
• The Loved One (1965)

• Palimpsest
• Psychosphere
• The Stone Tape (1972)
• Poltergeist (1982)
• Folk horror
• Necronomicon Providence
• Gothic horror
• Southern Gothic
• The Rural Gothic in American Popular Culture: Backwoods Horror and Terror in the Wilderness by Bernice M Murphy
• The King in Yellow by Robert W Chambers
• “The Call of Cthulhu” by HP Lovecraft
• “An Amaranthine Desire” from Nameless Horrors
• Dunwich

• “The Secret of Castronegro” from the Cthulhu Companion
• “Blackwater Creek” from the Call of Cthulhu Keeper Screen Pack
• At the Mountains of Madness by HP Lovecraft
• J Hillis Miller
• Deconstructionism
• Henry James
• Eudora Welty
• Yoknapatawpha County
• Flannery O’Connor
• East Anglia
• MR James
• Masks of Nyarlathotep
• Masks of Nyarlathotep Companion
• “Hell in Texas” from The Things We Leave Behind
• “The Necropolis” from Gateways to Terror
• Cōātlīcue

News

Just One More Thing

Often, we find ourselves with more to say than would fit into an episode. This may be because we’ve done a bunch of research that didn’t fit into the flow of the conversation, or simply because something occurred to us later. We’ve decided to try putting some of this to use in the form of bonus episodes for our Patreon Backers.

The first episode of Just One More Thing will hit the Good Friends Patreon early in the New Year. In it, Matt and Scott discuss some of the things they couldn’t quite fit into episodes 301 and 302, exploring a few other historical settings that appeal to us and offering more thoughts about Carnival of Souls.

Please let us know what you think of this approach. We’d love to hear your feedback.

Matt at ConTingency 2025

Matt is scheduled to attend ConTingency 2025 in less than two short weeks. The convention takes place in Hunstanton, on the east coast of England, and will run from the 27th of January to the 3rd of February. While Matt is planning to carve out some time to play “Fiery Angels” from the Blade Runner RPG, he will be his usual unstoppable GMing machine for the rest of the con. Please say hi if you see him there and make sure he has enough tea to keep functioning.