On this episode of The Black Laser Reads we feature the short story Dagon by everyone’s favorite problematic weirdo, HP Lovecraft.
Content warning: Suicide.
This is a classic Lovecraftian story where not very much happens but for some reason the narrator grapples with maintaining his sanity. Really. Dude wakes up on a muddy plane covered in rotting fish, finds a rock that’s carved with fish people, and sees a giant fish monster climbing around. He wakes up in San Francisco and decides to end it.
That’s it!
Light weight, overall, but important for introducing the fish people who would become so important in later Cthulhu mythos tales like Lovercraft’s later The Shadow Over Innsmouth. We’ll get to that one another day. Ultimately, like most of Lovecraft’s work, this story is about the vibe.
Please listen and enjoy, unless you value your sanity.
The text for this episode came from Standard Ebooks. If you are interested in reading “Dagon” or other Lovecraft short fiction yourself, you can download a public domain e-book here.
