Cthultree (pictures I like)

"It's a dead game, Jim."

Not that I've mentioned it in a while, but I have this garage cleaning project going on. Possibly, "cleaning" isn't the correct word for it, since you can hardly tell anything has happened in it so far. I mean, I can tell, because I know what stuff I've sold, but I'm kind of making a bigger mess out of things as I go along. None of which has anything to do with what I'm about to get into other than reminding everyone that I'm in the process of selling off my old collectibles and, mostly, using eBay to do that.

Which tempts me to expound on all of the things that are wrong with eBay, but I'm not going to do that. After all, I'm making the choice to use them. Not that there are other feasible options, but, since there are other things that are like options (you know, in the way that people say carob is another option for chocolate or that tofu is an option for... anything), it's on me that I'm choosing eBay, so let's forget about the issue, for the moment, with eBay itself.

No, instead, let's talk about the users. Not all of them, of course, or, even, most of them. It has been, after all, quite a while since I've had... issues... with other eBay users. Then, of course, after going a year or so with no issues at all, I get three in the same month, the first of which we're going to skip due to it being typical opportunistic greed based on a late delivery by the USPS (which I've also had problems with just in the last month after having zero problems with them since I started using eBay again), which eBay, actually, took care of, amazingly enough, without me having to call them or anything. [Maybe there's some problem with June. The heat wave? Who knows.]

However, the other two are a different story and cut from the same cloth, so let's talk about them. I'm sure there's a metaphor in here somewhere. [Actually, I know that there is; I'm just not sure, yet, whether I'm going to point it out or not.]

A lot of my collectible stuff is pretty, I'll call it, mainstream. The greatest bulk, by volume, is comic books, and most of those are Marvel. By piece count, I have more Magic: The Gathering than anything else. Some of my stuff, though, is a little less... usual. Generally, because it's gone out of production so younger collectors, unless they fall into the niche, don't know about the stuff.

Some people, evidently, refer to these as "dead games." Well, the things that are games, anyway.
I also have stuff like this:

(Who would know he would "win" in 2016? Actually, I'd rather have Cthulhu than the current #fakepresident.))

Within the last week or so, I began listing some "dead games": L5R (Legend of the Five Rings) and Neopets, both ccgs (that's collectible card game for those of you haven't lived any in the last couple of decades), though Neopets calls itself a tcg (trading card game). It didn't take very long before I was contacted by buyers interested in the two games (one for each game) if only I would lower my price to next to nothing so that they could buy my stuff. You know, to garage sale prices.
You know about garage sale prices, right? Everything for a $0.25.

Let me be a little more clear about that. Both buyers wanted to "buy" all of what I currently have available on both games at prices that clearly didn't represent the value of the items. Now, I don't have a problem with people trying to get a good deal; heck, I like good deals! So I don't have an issue with people asking me if I would consider lowering my price on something. What made these two stand out is that when I turned down their offers as being too low, they both got mad at me and began arguing with me, both using the "dead game" argument and telling me how I would never find a buyer willing to pay more than they were offering.

And that can be a compelling argument. Sometimes, it's one we even tell ourselves:
"You'll never find someone else who will 'love' you."
"You'll never find another publisher/agent/whatever."
"I'll never..."
Fill it in yourself.

That is the reason my mom married my stepdad, just by the way. According to her, no one else would ever have taken us.

To make matters more interesting, the guy who wanted the L5R stuff kept going on about all of the places he knew of where he could get what I was selling at even lowere prices than what he was offering! And, so, why was he trying to talk me down rather than just buying the stuff for the EVEN CHEAPER PRICES?!? I guess he was doing me a special favor or something by offering me more than what he would have to spend elsewhere. Riiight...

And the guy who wanted the Neopets stuff? Well, somewhere in arguing with me over the price, he let slip that he was interested in re-selling it. Hmm... Re-selling the "dead game" for a profit, which I shouldn't expect because it's a dead game. Later in the conversation, he tried to recant that and tell me he was just offering an example of why someone might want to get something for no money. It made me want to LOL in his face. Which is difficult to do online.

At any rate, to make a long story short, before I even got the L5R auctions posted, a different buyer, one who had purchased some other L5R stuff from me many weeks ago, made me an offer he was worried I wouldn't take (he thought I would think it was too low (but it was what he could afford)) that was for only about half of what I was going to put on auction but at more than double the price the other guy wanted to offer me for all of what I had. The new offer was actually a bit lower than what I wanted, but it was a reasonable offer for a good chunk of stuff that I would no longer have to list on eBay. I took it.

And the Neopets stuff? I did post all of that and, within 12 hours of posting it, had already made more on just a tiny fraction of it (less than 10%) than the "dead game" guy was offering for all of it.

Do I have a lesson in here for you? You decide.
What I will say, though, is don't listen to anyone who is trying to get you to do something with the "dead game" argument.

Shadow Over Innsmouth (a book review post)

As I've mentioned before, Lovecraft was not very successful in his day. In fact, he was decidedly unsuccessful. Fans of Lovecraft like to say that it's because he was before his time, but, no, really, it was because he was a bad writer. He had interesting ideas, but his writing was mostly shit. No one would know who he was if this other author hadn't come along after he died and had the thought, "Huh. I can do something with this Cthulhu stuff." There's a reason Shadow Over Innsmouth was Lovecraft's only published book.

Part of me wanted to like this one. Lovecraft spent some time and really built this one up. He made it seem as if it was going to be something. Go somewhere other than where Lovecraft usually goes. You've got this student interested in architecture travelling through New England in order to take in the sights and see the buildings. He doesn't have much money, so he's travelling as cheaply as possible and, thus, discovers Innsmouth as a cheap detour to get to where he really wants to go. But he's intrigued because the people of the neighboring towns don't like Innsmouth or the people who live there.

Of course, in true Lovecraft style, this is all flashback. The protagonist is telling a story from his youth that was so horrifying that he hasn't shared it with anyone since it happened... until now. And, this, actually, is what causes the story, ultimately, to fail.

Yes, there will be spoilers. You should be able to tell by this point that I didn't care for Innsmouth which may be all you need to know. If you don't plan to read it, though, you may as well read on.

Lovecraft has a severe issue with logical inconsistencies. I suppose this isn't an issue for people who don't think about what they're reading, but I do, so his inconsistencies tend to stack up for me as I read until his stories lose cohesion. I suppose that's what makes his shorter works somewhat easier to take: They're not long enough for him to contradict himself too much or stick in very much information that just plain doesn't make any sense.

For instance, when the protagonist arrives in Innsmouth, already set against it due to the driver of the bus he arrived on and his reception at the hotel (or whatever it was), he seeks out some non-natives...

Wait a minute; this already doesn't make any sense. Everyone in the surrounding towns hates Innsmouth and there are no people from outside of it who live there. The town is dirt poor with no economy, so there's no plausible explanation for anyone to be commuting into Innsmouth for work... And, yet, there is a boy from one of the neighboring towns who works at a grocery store in Innsmouth. On the flimsiest of reasons. But Lovecraft needs this non-native boy as a plot device so inserts him and tries to brush it off with a lame excuse.

Basically, he needs the boy to up the creepy factor by offering an exposition on what life is like inside the town. Then he has the boy sketch out a very detailed map of the entire town, including all of the street names, in just a moment or two, a map which the protagonist refers back to throughout the story and that Lovecraft uses as a device to give the protagonist an almost clairvoyant knowledge of Innsmouth. You know, something like he would have had if he'd lived there all his life. I was annoyed every time he pulled out that map.

The thing that breaks the story, though, is Lovecraft's insistence on the twist ending. Where did that even come from? Was it Lovecraft? I don't know. I just can't think of anyone who wrote earlier than him that did that shit. Forcing in the twist endings doesn't work out in the long term, just ask Shyamalan.

Anyway, the twist ending in this one is so out-of-context from the events in the rest of the story that it broke the whole thing for me. It makes the rest of the story, basically, a lie -- not on the events themselves but in the frame of mind in the narration -- and made me feel like I'd wasted my time. Oh, wait, I wasted my time! Because I did.

Which is not to say that the whole Lovecraft experiment has been a waste of time, but the experiment itself has been valuable. More on that when I finish the last few stories I have to read. And, boy, am I ready to be through reading them! Like I said, Lovecraft is mostly a shit writer.

"Dagon" (a book review post)

Having already read "Call of Cthulhu," it's easy to see that this story, "Dagon," is an earlier iteration of Lovecraft's most famous story. In many ways, "Dagon" reads as an early draft, just an early draft that ended up published. Clearly, this idea of a massive body of land rising from the depths of the ocean floor was not one Lovecraft could get out of his mind.

Even with the similarities, there are things about this earlier story that I think work better. "Dagon" is about a man lost at sea. He's drifting alone in a little boat in the middle of the ocean and certain that he's going to die. Upon waking one day, he finds that his boat is no longer drifting but has struck land. Except that it hasn't "struck" land, because, when he sits up and looks around, he finds that the land has risen up under him and his boat is stranded, land bound.

Lovecraft's description of the risen continent is exquisitely detailed with sensory information. The smell of rotting fish and other sea... things... that are equally stranded upon the new rocky plain. The lack of anything to block out the sun. The desolate waste of the sea floor suddenly exposed to light. And our lone man tramping across it to find out if there's any way off.

Of course, in true Lovecraft style, all of this is told in flashback style to explain why the man feels as if his death is imminent. And this is the part of the story that doesn't work for me. While the part on the island is interesting in its landscape and the thing that happens, once he escapes, there is no reason given within the story that there should be anything to worry about after.

I understand that the tension in the story is the man's fear about dying because of what he saw, but doesn't ring true. Especially so considering what happens at the very end. How does it relate to the rest of the story?

It's an interesting story, and the part with the risen continent is well worth the read, but I wasn't impressed with the story overall. I think there could have been much more tension without it being done as a flashback.

"The Call of Cthulhu" (a book review post)

More than anything else, Lovecraft is known for Cthulhu. That, in and of itself, is extremely interesting because, other than a few other mentionings of the... creature, "The Call of Cthulhu" is the only story he ever wrote about the monstrous deity from the far reaches of space. I would say it's because of the 80s RPG except that that game only came about because "Cthulhu" was already a thing. Even TSR tried to use the character as a deity of some sort in one of their D&D publications.

In fact, I think all of the popular culture reference to Cthulhu have led to a misconception about who or what Cthulhu is or was. Not that I'm going to tell you, because you should read it. Just know that Cthulhu is not just some demon from Hell. It's more complicated than that. "In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming."

The story itself seems to be typical of Lovecraft's style, meaning the action happens to characters other than the protagonist, who is only researching events that have already happened. Sometimes, as in the case of "The Call of Cthulhu," this raises the tension and suspense. Why? Because, as we find out early in the story, our protagonist is expecting to be murdered, and his research into his uncle's supposed accidental death tells us why.

So here's the thing: I don't quite get why "The Call of Cthulhu" has taken on such a mythic quality. It was good, but I wouldn't say it's great. It's certainly apparent that there is a huge tapestry of mythos that this one story was pulled from and, evidently, Lovecraft had some of that worked out. Of course, I'm not very far into my reading of Lovecraft, yet (I've only read about half a dozen stories, so far), so, maybe, it's the other mentions in other stories that really build up the "legend" of Cthulhu and have made so many other people want to build on it. That said, even Lovecraft said this particular story was only "middling."

At any rate, it's certainly worth a read if, for nothing else, just to see where all the Cthulhu stuff came from. And, honestly, I think the whole cult of Cthulhu aspect is much more frightening than Cthulhu itself. Who, after all, is going to kill the protagonist? Assuming that happens, of course.