H. P. Lovecraft

H. P. Lovecraft
Species:	Human
Place of origin:	Providence
First mentioned in:	The Taking of Planet 5
Appearance:	The Lovecraft Invasion
Main voice actor:	Alan Marriott

Howard Phillips Lovecraft (also known as H. P. Lovecraft) was an American writer of the early 20th century whose stories were a combination of science fiction, horror, and fantasy. He was an antiquarian who loved the 18th century.

His 1936 novella At the Mountains of Madness introduced the fictional alien race called the Elder Things, the creators of the Shoggoths. A Celestis fictional generator would later bring them to life.

The Eighth Doctor spoke of having corresponded with Lovecraft and their shared love of ice cream. The Doctor had even considered taking him on a trip to the 18th century but decided that it would have just disillusioned the writer. (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5)

In 1937, Lovecraft's mind was infiltrated by a sentient weapon called the Somnifax when the Sixth Doctor, Flip Ramon and Constance Clarke arrived to stop it from making Lovecraft's demented creations manifesting in the real world. Lovecraft's strongly xenophobia views also earned him the ire of Calypso Jonze, to whom he was repeatedly disrespectful.

The Doctor was abjectly disgusted by his racist views, telling his companions that Lovecraft was someone he never particularly wanted to meet and directly told him, when the allusion arose, that he found any insinuation that they were even slightly alike to highly insulting and departed forthwith.

Lovecraft died on 11 March 1937. (AUDIO: The Lovecraft Invasion)

Fitz Kreiner never read anything by Lovecraft. As a child, he had once picked up a book by the author but his mother had seen the book and assumed that "lovecraft" was the subject. (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5)

Behind the scenes

• Various fictional arcane tomes created by Lovecraft and his circle of writer friends are real in the Doctor Who universe, such as the Necronomicon, the Book of Eibon, the Eltdown Shards and the Pnakotic Manuscripts.
  • Another of Lovecraft's creations, the Great Old Ones, are real in the Doctor Who universe. The Taking of Planet 5 never states whether the Doctor's Lovecraft also wrote about them.
  • Use of the term "Old One" was rarely consistent and was used both for the Great Old Ones and Elder Things in both Lovecraft's writings and in Doctor Who.
• C.P. Doveday from Lurkers At Sunlight's Edge is an obvious reference to H.P. Lovecraft, also being a writer of strange fiction, as well as the story itself sharing many similarities with Lovecraft's works.
• Vitas Varnas appears as a recurring character in role-playing games set in the Cthulhu Mythos based off the works of H.P. Lovecraft.