@0kami: I love a good story as much as the next mammal-- okay, probably more so. It's when folks over extend the metaphor and say, "I can't do [this extremely advantageous thing], the planets are out of alignment", or even worse, "This guy disagrees with the story I hold dear, let's kill him", that things go wrong.
Stories hold us together and help us to make sense of a Universe that really could care less what we think. Enjoy them and take what comfort you can from them but never ignore Facts (as dicey as those can be).
@Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H.: There's also a substantial number of individuals not able to enjoy cheeseburgers. When will the madness end, and we can all suffer from heart disease together?
@LittleDragon: That got me curious, did some googling...
"To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe." -- Anatole France
He wrote L'Île des Pingouins which looks like avery cool book and was involved in the infamous Dreyfus affair and worked to clear Dreyfus' name. Must read up on this guy. Thanks!
And I liked the Muffy stories, tho before he died, Geo. got very tired of being asked about them; I think he was upset that they were more well-known and talked about than his years of serious work.
@Belabras: I liked the author's note that went with it, where he talked about being at a con and drinking beers and he and Whoever It Was he was with (it escapes me) starting to say things in a deep Cockney accent like, "Wot? That frightful soul and messenger of infinity's Other Gods, the crawling chaos Nyarlathotep?"
@braak: "Oooooh. My name's braak! I'm soooo smart!"
what, no love for Lovecraftian text adventure, "The Lurking Horror"? not to mention webcomic Penny Arcade's undying fawning and devotion, best displayed in "The Last Christmas" series.
Lovecraft and gaming: two abominable things that are otherworldly together!
I've always felt there was a kind of similarity between Lovecraft's themes and Philip K Dick's. They both had the themes of "reality fails" and fated protagonist in their works.
And Lovecraft did do science fiction. "Shadow Out of Time," is a good example of this. Actually a lot of his stories had science fictional themes, disembodied brains, bizarre aliens bent on global conquest, bizarre hyperspatial physics, etc.
Of course back then the genres weren't so clearly defined. The phrase science fiction hadn't even been invented yet. It all seems sort of steampunkish to us now but, according to ST Joshi a leading scholar of Lovecraft's works, Lovecraft's later stuff began to read more and more like straight SF. Many of Lovecraft's stories predate themes commonly found in UFO abduction stories, involving bizarre creatures, dreamlike, nightmarish, visceral.
@corpore-metal: ST Joshi's works are great, but I'd just like to mention that personally he's an intolerably dick (actually, pretty similar to what Lovecraft himself must have been like) and that he's also got a ladyfriend who is disturbingly obsessed with Archie comics, to the exclusion of all other topics.
@braak: I've enjoyed S.T. Joshi's lectures immensely. He's very opinionated, but he also has an encyclopedic knowledge of Lovecraft's life and work. And I'm really not sure where you'd get the idea that Lovecraft was probably an "intolerable dick," especially since so many people described him as genteel and polite.
Came here to plug both Nick Pollotta's "That Darn Squid God" and Moore's "What Ho, Gods of the Abyss" but I see I was beaten on both counts.
The latest "Garrett P.I." book from author Glen Cook deals with a very Cthulhu-esque primordial sleeping monster, who is being roused from his ancient slumber by a bunch of very unpleasent giant burrowing insects who have decided he looks rather tasty.
I am seized by a vortex of cosmic terror it's hideous tendrils of prehistoric malice burrowing deep into the very fabric of my mind, rending asunder the very core of my ...what the hell was I just talking about?...
There was also a neat Lovecraftian/Office Angst/Schizophrenia novel called Resume With Monsters, that apparently you can only get used now for an inordinate amount of money.
Uh ... what? Have you actually read Wells' book, or are you just going by the Spielberg crapfest? 'Cause that's the only version of the story where the Martians were buried.
OK, so um, I don't care, but since this site seems to rabidly control for this-- how exactly is H.P. Lovecraft scifi? Is it because the Elder Gods are aliens? I mean, I don't care, I'd love it if you talked about Buffy or some of the good fantasy stuff out there, but I'd just like to know how you justify Lovecraft as scifi. It seems like where you draw the line gets very arbitrary sometimes.
@pheagan: well. there's Space Vampires, the Colour out of Space, the Hounds of Tindalos that move Dimensions, YogSoggoth that's the whole of spacetime, the Elder Things that flew through space to land on earth.. oh and the Fungi from Yoggoth (Pluto)...
oh and there's that story 'In the Walls of Eyrx' set on Venus..
there's quite a lot of SF material in ol' lovecrafts works actually...
@pheagan: Read "At the Mountains of Madness," or "The Colour Out of Space," or "The Walls of Eryx," or "The Shadow Out of Time" and then explain why you think Lovecraft isn't science fiction.
@KhaiJB: Hmmm. I think my bank might, also. It'd explain a lot, anyway, like how they can charge me compound & laterally-compound interest on my loans...
@SeanOHara: Agreed. An expedition of SCIENTISTS going to Antarctica to check out ancient ruins of a bygone race? Dissections, detailed descriptions of funky barrel things? Why, it just reeks of scifi! Literally, if I remember the autopsy scene correctly.
@pheagan: OK, fair enough, but by the same token every fantasy world that exists is implicitly set on an alien planet, and also any fantasy involving people who use eldritch herbs and whatnot involves science, albeit bad science... so when's the post on A Song of Fire and Ice coming?
@pheagan: Well, of course, generally the exercise of "what's fantasy and what's scifi" is considered to be an intellectually bankrupt activity, useful only in that it enables people to show off how smart they are by exploiting semantics.
But if we're going to do it, I would suggest that the only really consistent definition of science-fiction is China Mieville's: Science-fiction is the genre that authoritatively uses scientific language to describe natural or "super"natural events.
Given that, there's no question that Lovecraft qualifies as a science fiction writer--though he often used other kinds of language, he always attempts to ground his paranormal horrors in the scientific language of his era. Even when he talks about things like witches, magical spells, and magical rituals, he takes great pains to indicate that thinking of them as "spells" is something that only primitive, ignorant, degenerate Eskimaux would do, and that they are actually complicated forms of non-Euclidean mathematics.
Song of Fire & Ice, while awesome, makes no such similar attempt.
Also: space aliens. What kind of a thing has space aliens in it without being science fiction?
@braak: Yeah, but the space aliens, that's what I thought the justification was going to be. But I was always under the impression that the space aliens were the Elder Gods trying to get back in, which makes it a very fantastical to me. I can dig China Mieville's explanation, but I am more interested in the permeability of the boundaries than the boundaries themselves. I just can't believe the Buffy ban, considering all the sci-fi elements. Especially since all the True Blood posts are based on there being literally one sci-fi conceit in the show (and frequent assertions that vampire blood is magic).
@pheagan: Lovecraft's actually got a lot more space aliens than just elder gods. There's a race of aliens that look like giant, bat-winged crabs that are actually sentient, organized fungus that live on Pluto and come from another star. There's the Ythians, who are an alien race the preceded the dinosaurs, and had their minds possessed by a different alien race from a billion light-years away, but then that race sends their minds into the future because of more aliens, etc. etc.
The Old Ones--the big sort of cucumber-looking monsters that live in Antarctica, are another set of aliens. Lovecraft always makes a distinction between aliens that are essentially biological (like the Old Ones or the Mi-Go), and aliens that are composed of strange, extra-dimensional or stellar matter--so, even if you're disinclined to believe that the Star-Spawn of Cthulhu qualify as genuine space aliens, there are definitely just regular old space aliens hanging around. (Some of them can fly through space on their bat-wings, but that was probably because Lovecraft didn't really get "exospheric vacuum.")
Vampires are always a weird and tricky issue, and I try and stay out of that one. My guess, with regards to Buffy, is two things: 1) there's definitely just regular magic in that show, and regular magic is a big part of it (they call them demons instead of aliens, so, there you go). 2) There's, like, a million places for people to talk about Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and maybe the editors are a little leery of opening that window here.
Do not call up, as they say, that which ye cannot put down.
@braak: "There's the Ythians, who are an alien race the preceded the dinosaurs, and had their minds possessed by a different alien race from a billion light-years away, but then that race sends their minds into the future because of more aliens, etc. etc."
08/31/09
"The universe is made of stories, not of atoms."
We are the story-telling apes.
08/31/09
Seeing someone else mention them always makes me happy :)
08/31/09
08/31/09
Stories hold us together and help us to make sense of a Universe that really could care less what we think. Enjoy them and take what comfort you can from them but never ignore Facts (as dicey as those can be).
Sapience is a bitch, yo?
08/31/09
08/31/09
09/01/09
09/01/09
08/31/09
08/31/09
"To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe." -- Anatole France
He wrote L'Île des Pingouins which looks like avery cool book and was involved in the infamous Dreyfus affair and worked to clear Dreyfus' name. Must read up on this guy. Thanks!
10/30/08
10/30/08
And I liked the Muffy stories, tho before he died, Geo. got very tired of being asked about them; I think he was upset that they were more well-known and talked about than his years of serious work.
10/30/08
10/30/08
10/30/08
10/30/08
@braak: "Oooooh. My name's braak! I'm soooo smart!"
10/30/08
Lovecraft and gaming: two abominable things that are otherworldly together!
10/30/08
And Lovecraft did do science fiction. "Shadow Out of Time," is a good example of this. Actually a lot of his stories had science fictional themes, disembodied brains, bizarre aliens bent on global conquest, bizarre hyperspatial physics, etc.
Of course back then the genres weren't so clearly defined. The phrase science fiction hadn't even been invented yet. It all seems sort of steampunkish to us now but, according to ST Joshi a leading scholar of Lovecraft's works, Lovecraft's later stuff began to read more and more like straight SF. Many of Lovecraft's stories predate themes commonly found in UFO abduction stories, involving bizarre creatures, dreamlike, nightmarish, visceral.
10/30/08
10/30/08
10/30/08
10/30/08
But there's a case to be made for Lovecraft being a dick if you include in the category of dickish behaviors "deep-seated and pernicious racism."
10/30/08
The latest "Garrett P.I." book from author Glen Cook deals with a very Cthulhu-esque primordial sleeping monster, who is being roused from his ancient slumber by a bunch of very unpleasent giant burrowing insects who have decided he looks rather tasty.
10/30/08
10/30/08
[www.infinityplus.co.uk]
10/30/08
10/30/08
10/30/08
10/30/08
10/30/08
10/30/08
2 bucks is "inordinate"?
It's a fun read.
10/30/08
Nevermind, nevermind.
10/30/08
"Resume with Monsters" - freaking hilarious. Cuthulu meets Office Space.
10/30/08
10/30/08
Uh ... what? Have you actually read Wells' book, or are you just going by the Spielberg crapfest? 'Cause that's the only version of the story where the Martians were buried.
10/30/08
10/30/08
10/30/08
oh and there's that story 'In the Walls of Eyrx' set on Venus..
there's quite a lot of SF material in ol' lovecrafts works actually...
10/30/08
He didn't believe in voodoo, for god's sake.
10/30/08
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10/30/08
Yog-Sothoth can be convinced, but only if your position is coterminous with all points in space simultaneously.
This is difficult for the average borrower.
10/30/08
Yog-Sothoth can be persuaded easier if you kidnap Wilbur Whateley's twin brother. Good luck with that.
10/30/08
*ZAAAAPPPP* aaaiee!
[www.macguff.fr]
10/30/08
10/30/08
10/30/08
But if we're going to do it, I would suggest that the only really consistent definition of science-fiction is China Mieville's: Science-fiction is the genre that authoritatively uses scientific language to describe natural or "super"natural events.
Given that, there's no question that Lovecraft qualifies as a science fiction writer--though he often used other kinds of language, he always attempts to ground his paranormal horrors in the scientific language of his era. Even when he talks about things like witches, magical spells, and magical rituals, he takes great pains to indicate that thinking of them as "spells" is something that only primitive, ignorant, degenerate Eskimaux would do, and that they are actually complicated forms of non-Euclidean mathematics.
Song of Fire & Ice, while awesome, makes no such similar attempt.
Also: space aliens. What kind of a thing has space aliens in it without being science fiction?
10/30/08
10/30/08
The Old Ones--the big sort of cucumber-looking monsters that live in Antarctica, are another set of aliens. Lovecraft always makes a distinction between aliens that are essentially biological (like the Old Ones or the Mi-Go), and aliens that are composed of strange, extra-dimensional or stellar matter--so, even if you're disinclined to believe that the Star-Spawn of Cthulhu qualify as genuine space aliens, there are definitely just regular old space aliens hanging around. (Some of them can fly through space on their bat-wings, but that was probably because Lovecraft didn't really get "exospheric vacuum.")
Vampires are always a weird and tricky issue, and I try and stay out of that one. My guess, with regards to Buffy, is two things: 1) there's definitely just regular magic in that show, and regular magic is a big part of it (they call them demons instead of aliens, so, there you go). 2) There's, like, a million places for people to talk about Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and maybe the editors are a little leery of opening that window here.
Do not call up, as they say, that which ye cannot put down.
10/30/08
Was that Lovecraft? I thought it was Tom Cruise.
10/30/08