©1990 John Tynes
[This is your basic editor’s column. Originally, I’d planned to use it for
convention announcements and miscellaneous garbage after the first issue
was released, but it has remained a very personal soapbox for me and my
views, however ludicrous. It is unabashedly inspired by “The Cosmic
Streetcorner,” a column in my all-time-favorite gaming magazine, GATEWAYS.
The title is a take-off on a CoC spell, “The Dread Curse of Azathoth.”
In TUO10 it finally lives up to its name and is only a single page long.]
It was a smallish book, somewhere between a Gideon New Testament and an
issue of Reader’s Digest; hardbound, black, with a murky figure on one corner
of the cover. The spine identified the author as Robert W. Chambers. Title?
The King in Yellow.
It was a first edition published, as memory serves, in 1895. How long it
had been in the library of the University of Missouri-Columbia I do not
know, but it is not improbable that it had been in the collection since
publication. Last March, ecstatic at the find, I checked it out and perused
the short stories it contained. At the time I considered keeping it, reporting
it “lost” and paying whatever fine they asked. But in the end
I dropped it in the book return slot, and that night I slept well.
A few weeks ago I went back to retrieve it again, meaning to verify some
of my scribbled notes from the previous spring. Requesting “king in
yellow” from the library’s computer directory, I was greeted with “title
not found”. Puzzled, I asked for an author listing for “chambers,
robert”. Scanning the ten or so resulting entries confirmed it: The
King in Yellow was not there.
The old card catalogs beckoned, and I hurried over to the banks of narrow
wooden drawers, reminiscent of the great Yithian library lost under the
Australian sands. Once again, The King in Yellow refused to manifest itself.
A physical search through Chambers’ section on the bookshelves further confirmed
the title’s odd status.
The librarian who came to my aid was perplexed; if the book had been lost,
there would still be a record of it. But there was none; as far as she could
tell, the library of the University of Missouri-Columbia had never seen
it — my memory to the contrary.
Fortunately, two other University campuses were listed as possessing copies
of the book, and so I requested for one of them to be sent here. Unfortunately,
neither was the same first edition. One was an Ace paperback from the late
1960’s; the other, a quickie reprint for libraries. The paperback made the
journey here intact, yet within an hour of my picking it up I left it behind
in a large lecture hall. Realizing my misfortune that night, I rushed across
campus and rescued the book from the phalanx of janitors sweeping through
the room. It seemed that The King in Yellow and I were magnetically charged,
each repelling the other.
Imagination is a wonderful thing; it spawned HPL’s organic Mythos, prodding
writers from Robert Bloch to Sandy Peterson to join in. Occasionally, though,
the real world seems to be just as conspiratorially mocking as any of Lovecraft’s
cosmic beings; at such times, imagination leads us to see dangers where
they may not be — we wonder about the strange man in the overcoat who smells
of the sea. When life’s conundrums refuse to resolve themselves as neatly
as our role-playing adventures, are we not likely to rail against the implacable
fates? Are we not likely to utter a blasphemous curse?
An Unspeakable Oath?
Well then, we’ve all come to the right place.
This past August, Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island hosted the
H.P. Lovecraft Centennial Conference to celebrate the anniversary of his
birth. This four-day function saw the delivery of a number of papers on
Lovecraft, as well as more than a few interesting events. Several HPL-related
films were shown, including the premiere of Bride of the Re-Animator, and
the last day saw the official dedication of a large Lovecraft monument and
plaque on the campus made possible through the laudable efforts of the Friends
of H.P. Lovecraft.
Jon B. Cooke, one of the afore-mentioned Friends, put together a 44-page
guidebook to the weekend’s events. It is very well produced and contains
contributions from Ramsey Campbell, Gahan Wilson, S.T. Joshi, and many more.
Cooke still has a few copies left, for $5.50 postpaid, and they are well
worth getting. Write Jon at 106 Hanover Ave.; Pawtucket, RI 02861. Tell
him the Oath sent you.
A project like this does not get off the ground without a lot of effort
and support. I’d like to thank the following people for a lot more things
than I have room to list here (especially since this issue needs to be finished
in another fifteen minutes):
Damon Lipinski, for getting me into Call of Cthulhu and pressing me to read
HPL.
Kendall Carnes for selling me all sorts of great Lovecraft stuff at inflated
prices.
Kevin Ross, Scott Aniolowski, and Jon Cooke for their support and advice.
Lynn Willis and Keith Herber of Chaosium, Inc., who gave this zine the go-ahead
and spread the word.
The Columbia Cthulhu Cartel, for playtesting “Within You Without You”
(they did the really wrong thing, by the way) and for making GM’ing so enjoyable.
Shea Reynolds and Jeff Barber for their amazing artwork and ceaseless energy.
Finally, a big thanks to Kim Stewart for tending my “mental disorder”.