HP Lovecraft shows up in the darnedest places. His influence is obvious in Weird Tales, but outside that magazine you had to look harder in 1950. Arkham House published Lovecraft in hard cover, but in the world of science fiction, a genre now dominated by gears and the scientific ideas of John W Campbell, HPL and cosmic horror were of little interest. But there was at least one exception…
Clifford D Simak is probably best remembered for City (1954), a series of interconnected short stories that form a kind of novel. In that book, humans migrate into space, leaving the planet to the dogs, who remember us vaguely as gods. Simak also has a lonely robot left behind and a race of intelligent ants. CDS tells it all with subtlety, wit, and pathos. He is best know for his love of ordinary people, rural settings, and human foibles. It is this predominate trend that named him the Pastoral Poet of Science Fiction. About as un-Lovecraftian as you can get…
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https://www.michaelmay.online/2016/08/the-call-from-beyond-hp-lovecraft-and.html
