I know...cool huh?
We can get a bit....uh...crazy. I think he may laugh at/with us at times. But I hope he knows he's truly appreciated for his talents.
I'm a voracious reader....I have bookcases full of books....yet FPW is the only author I have sought out everything he has written to read and collect.

Yeah I've been steadily gathering all his, some are rather hard to find, but it gives me a reason to prowl through used books stores. The only other author I've ever does this for is RAH (Heinlein) I've pretty much tattered out all the paperbacks I have so I'm buttering my wife up in an attempt to try to get permission to start in on the Virginia Heinlein editions of his works, all his stuff leather bound. It's something like 46 volumes.

Wow...46 volumes!
Last year I broke down and ordered all the books I was missing. Did it in increments and scored some bargains on Amazon and Abebooks.

Yeah 46 volumes, but its like everything he ever wrote, novels, short stories, speeches, editorials, etc.. But yeah it would me like my crown jewel, it would end up having its own bookshelf I think, 46 leather-bound books, would be heavy as all get out. But it would be worth it IMO. But yeah getting FPW's books outside of ordering them on Amazon seems to be fairly tough. But I enjoy the chase. If it ends up being impossible then yeah I'll order them online. I'm nitpicky like that if there's series I end up liking, then yeah I buy all the books, although a lot of them end up being sold or donated after awhile. LOL My wife does't even have to ask me which ones I want her to take, its the ones on the bottom shelf that aren't even really put up right, they're all on their sides or leaning against something kind of scattered.

Thinking back to before I read The Tomb, My two roommates and I were paintballing in a secluded canyon in the Sierra Nevada mountains at night. This was maybe '89. Our car got stuck, and we had to walk about 10 miles to the nearest settlement to call for help. During the long walk we heard something following us at a distance. Something large. One of my mates suggested it could be a creature from a book he'd read a few years back. He described it as being larger than human with cobalt blue skin and an insatiable blood lust. He called this thing a "Rakosh". Later (since we were not eaten by any Indian mythical creatures during the long hike to civilization) I read The Tomb and made the connection. This will always be a point of reference for me.

Thanks cobalt, I've noticed that this seems like a pretty tight knit community here while I was trolling. And the frequency that The Man posts and interacts with the members, well I've just never seen an author so accessible to his fans.

Welcome, murelz! And yeah, Paul is =extremely= cool. I think you'll find the gang pretty cool too. One thing about this board--there's a world-class expert on just about any topic you can name. My own specialty is crazy horseshit.

That sounds like the same thing I went through with my original copy of The Tomb. It had been my hope for some time to eventually have it signed by Paul, until it met a grisly fate.
Now I guess I will have to have my second most sentimental FPW novel signed instead, that being Nightworld.

I was thinking that as I read your original post. Very similar. But I had forgotten to add that when I had loaned it to my aunt she had set it down on a table and someone knocked a glass of red kool-aid over. Basically, my book is half pink also. Since it has been signed it has taken a top spot on my shelves, never to be touched again. At least not until I become nostalgic.

My condolences on your book. But good luck with having "Night World" signed!

Yeah 46 volumes, but its like everything he ever wrote, novels, short stories, speeches, editorials, etc.. But yeah it would me like my crown jewel, it would end up having its own bookshelf I think, 46 leather-bound books, would be heavy as all get out. But it would be worth it IMO. But yeah getting FPW's books outside of ordering them on Amazon seems to be fairly tough. But I enjoy the chase. If it ends up being impossible then yeah I'll order them online. I'm nitpicky like that if there's series I end up liking, then yeah I buy all the books, although a lot of them end up being sold or donated after awhile. LOL My wife does't even have to ask me which ones I want her to take, its the ones on the bottom shelf that aren't even really put up right, they're all on their sides or leaning against something kind of scattered.

Welcome, Murelz. You'll like it here.

-Wapitikev

What gives, Wapitikev, no sharing with us newer members what your first FPW book was? I'll take a stab in the dark and say it was The Tomb.

Well, despite joining the board only 11 months before you Srem, I must not fail that challenge.

Note: I composed a version of this story on the first or second day of this thread...and then said to myself: self, "who wants to read this drivel?" so I never pressed post.


This is a tale of woe. Of a stifling rat-race full of missed opportunities and tragic happen-stance. But it has a happy ending.

As a teenager in the 80s, I saw The Keep on pay-tv (aka cable). It was ok, as far as movies of that era went; good acting with cheesy music and effects and a horror/fantasy storyline. It "felt" like The Sword and the Sorcerer only with higher production values.

It wasn't until years later that I would connect that movie with FPW's book.

As my member-profile says, I've been an H. P. Lovecraft fan for more than a generation. In my studies on Lovecraftia over the years I learned that FPW lists HPL as an influence on his work; a fact that was soon filed away and forgotten as I devoured HPL and his various, blatant imitators.

Later, as a Professional Librarian for the better part of 15 years, I ordered and recommended FPW's work on numerous occasions...I even took the majority of his books home for my wife to read.

However, all I knew about FPW's work was from reviews, publisher's ads, and professional reference works on reader's advisory. In more than 20 years of reading Lovecraft-esque literature I never once read any of his work. Oh, the bitter Irony!

All that changed in 2007.

Growing increasingly bored with the current anthology of Lovecraft imitators, I went to my bookshelf for something else (I've read only about 1/2 of what I own). Looking over my modest collection of horror literature, I realized, of all the Lovecraft-inspired authors whose work was sitting on those shelves, nowhere was there any FPW.

Remembering the movie version of The Keep from my youth and that it was one of FPW's books, I decided it would be as good a place as any to start. That way, if the book tanked, I could at least forge on to the end, in order to compare it to the movie.

So I borrowed The Keep from the library and dove in.

Imagine my confusion when the book bore only a passing resemblance to the movie of my youth. However, within a few more pages I no longer cared about the movie. I was awash in the tumult of dark forces surging through the keep night after night!

Wow.

I had to have more.

Knowing that FPW had a series character named Repairman Jack but little else about his work, I searched the web for a list of his stories/novels and quickly came upon this site and the Secret History of the World. To say I was ecstatic would be an understatement.

The rest, as they say is history...secret history.

Heh.

-Wapitikev

Well, despite joining the board only 11 months before you Srem, I must not fail that challenge.

Note: I composed a version of this story on the first or second day of this thread...and then said to myself: self, "who wants to read this drivel?" so I never pressed post.


This is a tale of woe. Of a stifling rat-race full of missed opportunities and tragic happen-stance. But it has a happy ending.

As a teenager in the 80s, I saw The Keep on pay-tv (aka cable). It was ok, as far as movies of that era went; good acting with cheesy music and effects and a horror/fantasy storyline. It "felt" like The Sword and the Sorcerer only with higher production values.

It wasn't until years later that I would connect that movie with FPW's book.

As my member-profile says, I've been an H. P. Lovecraft fan for more than a generation. In my studies on Lovecraftia over the years I learned that FPW lists HPL as an influence on his work; a fact that was soon filed away and forgotten as I devoured HPL and his various, blatant imitators.

Later, as a Professional Librarian for the better part of 15 years, I ordered and recommended FPW's work on numerous occasions...I even took the majority of his books home for my wife to read.

However, all I knew about FPW's work was from reviews, publisher's ads, and professional reference works on reader's advisory. In more than 20 years of reading Lovecraft-esque literature I never once read any of his work. Oh, the bitter Irony!

All that changed in 2007.

Growing increasingly bored with the current anthology of Lovecraft imitators, I went to my bookshelf for something else (I've read only about 1/2 of what I own). Looking over my modest collection of horror literature, I realized, of all the Lovecraft-inspired authors whose work was sitting on those shelves, nowhere was there any FPW.

Remembering the movie version of The Keep from my youth and that it was one of FPW's books, I decided it would be as good a place as any to start. That way, if the book tanked, I could at least forge on to the end, in order to compare it to the movie.

So I borrowed The Keep from the library and dove in.

Imagine my confusion when the book bore only a passing resemblance to the movie of my youth. However, within a few more pages I no longer cared about the movie. I was awash in the tumult of dark forces surging through the keep night after night!

Wow.

I had to have more.

Knowing that FPW had a series character named Repairman Jack but little else about his work, I searched the web for a list of his stories/novels and quickly came upon this site and the Secret History of the World. To say I was ecstatic would be an understatement.

The rest, as they say is history...secret history.

Heh.

-Wapitikev

Well, the positive side of that is that you got to read all his works closer together .... I've been reading them for 25 years and now i cant remember what happened in some of his books ... (Although I do re-read the Keep ever so often)