Would you read this book? H.P. Lovecraft mixed with Tom Clancy

[cbender89]

This is my first post, and I was hoping for some feed back from some like mined Sci-Fi/Fantasy lovers. I recently wrote a book that blends H.P. Lovecraft and Tom Clancy. I am currently in the US Navy, and have been serving onboard Submarines for the past 14 years. I've always loved Sci-Fi, and after my time onboard a submarine, i began to write about a submarine crew that is sent to investigate strange anomalies is the Pacific Ocean. The book is written similar to Game of Thrones, were the narration jumps chapter to chapter, following four main characters as their paths slowly intertwine. Major themes for the novel include isolation, claustrophobia, comradery, and depression, with an overarching theme of "People are almost never who they seem to be, what he know about someone is simply what they want us to know, the mask they present the world. A persons true nature is only ever revealed in times of peril".

What I'm really hoping for is to find out if anyone else has an interest in a book like this. My friends and family have pushed me to try and publish, but for me this has never been more than a hobby. I would hate to try and get if published only to see it fail, show interest, then maybe its worth looking into.

 

[Fiberglass Cyborg]

Cthulhuesque horror on a submarine.... that's actually kind of genius!

I'm a fan of Charles Stross's "Laundry" books, which are basically Lovecraftian spy thrillers. They're his most sucessful series, so I'd say there's some appetite for this kind of fusion out there.

 

[The Judge]

Hello and Welcome to the Chrons!

Personally, this in theory wouldn't appeal to me as I'm not that interested in Lovecraft and I found Clancy's The Hunt for Red October tedious in the extreme (made for a great film, though, some dubious accents notwithstanding!) but there are lots of SF lovers on the site who have much broader tastes than I have and I'm sure the idea will be of interest to a good many.

However, a poll of this kind really isn't likely to help you, since invariably people say one thing and do another -- they might claim they want something different, but when something different arrives, it isn't what they buy. So although I hope you get lots of replies here, do take the responses with a pinch of salt.

In addition, while it's wonderful to have a great and unusual premise for a novel, which will get people looking at it, sales will only come if people like what they read, and that means having something more -- things like great characters, good writing, cracking dialogue, atmosphere, fast-moving plot, and preferably all of those. The good news is that we can help you find out if you've got those in your writing armoury -- once you get to 30 counted posts you can put a short extract up in our Critiques section and get feedback on your work. We also have members who are happy to provide help as beta readers, who can deal with longer pieces, perhaps even the whole book. In due course, we can also help guide you if you're thinking of self-publishing, or if you want to try getting agents and publishers interested.

If you decide just to keep your writing as a hobby without expectation of more, well you're not alone in that here, and being part of a community of writers and readers will add enjoyment, as well as perhaps helping you improve your skills.

So whatever results you get, and whatever you decide, stick around and join in threads in our Writing sections!

 

[cbender89]

Cthulhuesque horror on a submarine.... that's actually kind of genius!

I'm a fan of Charles Stross's "Laundry" books, which are basically Lovecraftian spy thrillers. They're his most sucessful series, so I'd say there's some appetite for this kind of fusion out there.

I haven't read any of Charles Stross's novels, but now I know to stop at BAM on the way home and pick up a few, they sound amazing! Thank you for the feedback!

 

[cbender89]

Hello and Welcome to the Chrons!

Personally, this in theory wouldn't appeal to me as I'm not that interested in Lovecraft and I found Clancy's The Hunt for Red October tedious in the extreme (made for a great film, though, some dubious accents notwithstanding!) but there are lots of SF lovers on the site who have much broader tastes than I have and I'm sure the idea will be of interest to a good many.

However, a poll of this kind really isn't likely to help you, since invariably people say one thing and do another -- they might claim they want something different, but when something different arrives, it isn't what they buy. So although I hope you get lots of replies here, do take the responses with a pinch of salt.

In addition, while it's wonderful to have a great and unusual premise for a novel, which will get people looking at it, sales will only come if people like what they read, and that means having something more -- things like great characters, good writing, cracking dialogue, atmosphere, fast-moving plot, and preferably all of those. The good news is that we can help you find out if you've got those in your writing armoury -- once you get to 30 counted posts you can put a short extract up in our Critiques section and get feedback on your work. We also have members who are happy to provide help as beta readers, who can deal with longer pieces, perhaps even the whole book. In due course, we can also help guide you if you're thinking of self-publishing, or if you want to try getting agents and publishers interested.

If you decide just to keep your writing as a hobby without expectation of more, well you're not alone in that here, and being part of a community of writers and readers will add enjoyment, as well as perhaps helping you improve your skills.

So whatever results you get, and whatever you decide, stick around and join in threads in our Writing sections!

Thank you for the advice, I'm defiantly looking forward to spending more time here and bouncing ideas and thoughts off other writes/readers. Hopefully this thread will hit the 30 mark!

 

[Pyan]

I’d try it, just to see what kind of stab can be made at combining the two genres.
I do hope your main protagonist is called Jack R’lyeh, though…

 

[Randy M.]

Neither Clancy nor Lovecraft were strong on characterization, HPL because he was more interested in trying to inspire cosmic awe through words and Clancy (I think) because he was more interested in operations of machines and processes than in people. Merging those two seems like a potential trap for a writer unless that writer is fairly well attuned to how real people act and speak. If you are that writer, then the result could be interesting.

 

[Dave]

"A submarine crew that is sent to investigate strange anomalies is the Pacific Ocean," sounds like Irwin Allen's Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (which was a 1964–1968 American science fiction television series based on the 1961 film of the same name, starring Walter Pidgeon and Robert Sterling. The supporting cast included Peter Lorre, Joan Fontaine, Barbara Eden, Michael Ansara, and Frankie Avalon.) It was an extremely popular success. However, the series seaQuest DSV, shown between 1993 and 1996, began to decline in ratings throughout its run.

Whether, or not, "anyone else has an interest in a book like this." I couldn't say, but it's the only part of Earth that we still haven't fully explored. There aren't very many books like this, not if this list is exhaustive: Category:Submarines in fiction - Wikipedia

 

[paeng]

Clancy's novels focus on pro-U.S. views and espionage while Lovecraft looked at cosmic horror.

Lovecraftian horror - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[AllanR]

Have you read Clarke's The Deep Range?

 

[Brian G Turner]

What I'm really hoping for is to find out if anyone else has an interest in a book like this.

The trouble is, it's not the concepts of the story that make a story successful, but whether it's written competently - a process that can take years but more likely decades for most people!

On saying that, self-published military SF has become very popular on Amazon over the past few years and your naval experience should certainly help with that if you translate your experience directly into a space setting.

 

[sknox]

>I would hate to try and get if published only to see it fail
You've already written it, so that's a success right there. Have you given it to beta readers? You don't really want feedback on an idea (specifically, on how you express that idea on a particular forum, which is really all we can respond to), you want feedback on the actual story because that's what you hope to get published.

You want to get it published. Do you mean traditionally published by one of the Big 5? Do you mean by indy publishers? Do you mean self-published? Each one of those have their own markers for success. Or do you just mean you hope to get as far as getting an agent for it? Before you worry about failure, it's a good idea know what success looks like for you. Once you start looking, I think you will find there's a whole range of possibilities and probabilities.

 

[Wayne Mack]

I think this could be an interesting combination. I liked Tom Clancy's stuff, I felt he had good plot lines and good characterization. I'm not sure what an H. P. Lovecraft spin on that would be, perhaps something like Aliens?

Don't let the fear of failure stop you, go ahead and write the thing. Like the old saying goes, if you don't try, then failure is ensured.

 

[HalaxyGigh]

I would definitely read it, go for it. I was going to say more, but it's been said already here. And while I didn't like Clancy's often simplistic approach to characterization, I'm personally a bit tired of Lovecraft's nihilistic pessimissm, it would be good to see an author inject some optimism into his bleakness.

 

[OuttaInc]

I've been away for a while so I realize this is a late response, but I'll echo what others here have said: hard to say whether I'd read a book based on premise alone, but I'd certainly pick it up and read the first page or two. If it's well-written, yes, I do believe I'd read your book. If it's not well-written....

Having said that, I love books that take place on/beneath the ocean, and it sounds like you have the personal experience to write with authority about submarine environments, so in those respects, your book would check two very important boxes for me. Hope to read a few samples after you reach 30 posts!

 

[Rufus Coppertop]

I

I recently wrote a book that blends H.P. Lovecraft and Tom Clancy.

I'd be happy to read a few pages and see how I like it.

 

[Extollager]

Cbender, the market may be saturated with Lovecraft's own writings and fiction by his admirers and opportunists. Long ago (Basil Copper's Great White Space comes to mind) I found that, much as I liked HPL's fiction then, I would not necessarily persist with "Lovecraftian" short stories and novels; so I, personally, probably wouldn't read the book under present discussion unless I saw a review(s) from someone I trusted who said it was something extraordinary. For example, if Michael Dirda praised it I might well try to get it from the library. But I'm pretty much off Lovecraft and Lovecraftiness. I wrote a couple of articles, "The Mythopoeic Gift of H. P. Lovecraft" and "Lovecraft's Comfortable World" after much of a lifetime of reading him, and feel I'm probably pretty much done with him & his.

 

[THX1138]

Sound like Ice Station Zebra meets The Thing. Maybe not in the artic, but similar concepts. Sure!