Robert Harrison Blake - The Five Short Story Titles

The Five Short Story Titles

Other mythos authors have attempted to supply text for Blake's fictional titles, perhaps writing them as Blake himself might have. Robert M. Price argues that at least three of these titles have already been written. First, "The Feaster from the Stars" is obviously a parallel to Bloch's "The Shambler from the Stars" (a title Lovecraft suggested to Bloch). Second, "The Stairs in the Crypt" appears to be a cross between two of Bloch's short stories: "The Grinning Ghoul" and "The Secret in the Crypt". Lastly, "The Burrower Beneath" is similar to "The Blasphemy Beneath", an early story that Bloch sent to Lovecraft for review.

Price believes that Blake's "In the Vale of Pnath" is another name for Lovecraft's The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath (1926), since in the story Randolph Carter is carried to the Underworld and soon realizes that he is "in the vale of Pnath".

"Shaggai" may parallel Lovecraft's "The Whisperer in Darkness" (1931). Since in "The Haunter of the Dark" Lovecraft says that Shaggai lies beyond Yuggoth, he is adding yet another planet to the solar system, essentially a new version of Yuggoth. Since Lovecraft often repackaged his mythos creations in the revision stories he wrote for other authors, Price believes that "Shaggai" is the kind of story that Lovecraft would have ghostwritten if "Robert Blake" had been his client.