Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut

As a kid, the anarchic, satirical genius Kurt Vonnegut hoovered up the trashy, pulp and fantasy magazines of the 1930s, where he may well have come across the disturbing, bleak visions of Lovecraft. Certainly his own worldview was anything but cheery, focusing on the themes of war, the dangers of an over-mechanised world and the disparities of society. But he also possessed an ingenious and remarkable imagination which saw the rich exiled to Saturn, mysterious potato barns and the evolution of man into strange seal-like creatures.

Significant Works: Player Piano (1952), Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), Breakfast of Champions (1973)

Michel Houellebecq

Another cult writer not afraid to court controversy is enfant terrible Houellebecq who has been cited as "France’s biggest literary export and, some say, greatest living writer" while also being accused of, and occasionally prosecuted for, obscenity, racism, misogyny and Islamophobia. Houellebecq’s first published work was an analysis of the life and work of H. P. Lovecraft called Against the World, Against Life, but he soon moved into poetry and fiction. His novels Platform, The Possibility of an Island and Submission deal with sex, religion, economics and apathy.

Significant Works: Platform (2001), The Possibility of an Island (2005), Submission (2015)

Octavia E. Butler

The names of Octavia Butler and H.P. Lovecraft have been thrown together recently for reasons other than literature. Some objected to a bust of Lovecraft being used to award winners at the World Fantasy Awards, due to the author’s quite virulent racism. Instead they suggested the great sci-fi writer Octavia Butler take his place. “I began writing about power because I had so little,” Butler is quoted as saying, being one of the few black female practitioners of the fantasy genre. Her Patternist series of books deal with time travel, slavery and the Black Power movement. She went on to receive a number of Hugo and Nebula awards and became the first science fiction writer to receive a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship.

Significant Works: Patternmaster (1976), Dawn (1987), Parable of the Sower (1993)