Robert Bloch and H. P. Lovecraft were contemporaries of sorts, with Bloch at the beginning of his career as a science fiction and horror writer and Lovecraft near the end of his career in 1935, when "Shambler from the Stars" was published. In this well-crafted short story, the narrator's friend from Arkham, Lovecraft, is killed by a monster he evokes. Lovecraft will return the favor in a short story called "The Haunter of the Dark", published in Weird Tales in 1936, where Robert Harrison Blake (Bloch) dies while investigating The Starry Wisdom Cult.