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Crashbee posted:Too late for you, but if anyone else wants The Willows it's out of copyright so free to download from Project Gutenberg. Yeah, I saw that as well, but I am retarded insofar as getting gutenberg stuff onto my device.
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Jul 23, 2015 22:13
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Baronjutter posted:But mostly that the narrator was too stupid to figure out he was talking to a wax mask after being told it was a thing they specifically planned on doing, that what drove me nuts. How obvious the whole thing was a set up. How obvious the driver was the voice on the recording, a voice he had listened to over and over again for months. It isn't a wax mask, it's the guy's real face. And maybe the concept of aliens is still so incredible to the narrator that he doesn't even think it's not the real guy. But yeah, he was pretty stupid. I liked that the narrator is freaked out simply by knowing aliens exist. Anyone else see the HPLHS movie version? I was really disappointed. It removes most of the creepiness and adds action sequences. The interminable postal correspondence could have been shortened, but it did build up dread. However, it seems like the movie is trying to get through that part as quickly as possible to get the narrator up to the house.
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Jul 24, 2015 00:52
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Does anyone who has read the biographies recently remember why HPL wrote so little in his last few years? I know he was sick for about the last 6 months but the last short story was in 1935. Does anyone know what reasons were suggested for his dry spell for almost 2 years at the end?
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Jul 24, 2015 10:51
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Fog Tripper posted:Kindled this for .99c. On my every growing list. Read it in 2 sittings. Was pretty underwhelmed by it. If it was at all disturbing or frightening, it was completely eclipsed by how annoying the main character/narrator is.
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Jul 28, 2015 21:18
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Josef K. Sourdust posted:Does anyone who has read the biographies recently remember why HPL wrote so little in his last few years? I know he was sick for about the last 6 months but the last short story was in 1935. Does anyone know what reasons were suggested for his dry spell for almost 2 years at the end? The only explanation I could give here would be his seemingly unending pride and his refusal to do low-level work. In his last years he was poor and he always refused to sell his texts to publishing houses or magazines he considered as cheap and unworthy. Additonally he wasn't ever really satisfied with himself and always wanted to do good work he could be proud of. His tendency to critize his own words harder than anyone else ever did surely had something to do with this. I wouldn't be too surprised if he considered his poor life situation in the end to be not a good background for writing "worthy" stories either, but that's just an assumption. Goons Are Gifts fucked around with this message at 13:22 on Aug 2, 2015 |
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Aug 2, 2015 13:19
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I read something suggesting that he had basically reached the limits of his ideas and couldn't work out how to go around them. So he didn't have any good ideas, basically. Ever wondered what HPL's favourite words were, btw? Wonder no more: http://arkhamarchivist.com/wordcount-lovecraft-favorite-words/
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Aug 11, 2015 14:18
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House Louse posted:I read something suggesting that he had basically reached the limits of his ideas and couldn't work out how to go around them. So he didn't have any good ideas, basically. And from most used to least if anyone's interested: Hideous 260 Faint (ed/ing) 189 Nameless 157 Antiqu (e/arian) 128 Madness 115 Singular (ly) 115 Abnormal 94 Blasphem (y/ous) 92 Accursed 76 Loath (ing/some) 71 Furtive 60 Spectral 60 Stench 59 Daemoniac 55 Fungus/Fungoid/Fungous 54 Shunned 54 Proportion/Disproportionate 53 Cyclopean 47 Cat 46 Manuscript 35 Noisome 33 Decadent 32 Tentacle(s) 28 Mortal 27 Immemorial 25 Indescribable 25 Eldritch 23 Foetid 22 Unnamable 22 Gambrel 21 Charnel 20 Amorphous 19 Dank 19 Unmentionable 16 Lurk 15 Swarthy 14 Unutterable 13 Antediluvian 10 Gibber (ed/ing) 10 Comprehension 9 Gibbous 9 Tenebrous 9 Stygian 6 Effulgence 4 Ululat (e/ing) 4 Iridescence 2 Non-Euclidean 2 Squamous 1 e: "swarthy" lol Clipperton fucked around with this message at 15:41 on Aug 11, 2015 |
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Aug 11, 2015 15:19
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Ornamented Death posted:As there was some discussion on Lovecraft's attitude towards women in the recent past, I figure now's as good a time as any to post this. They made their goal and you can pre-order the book now. All female authors, all the stories with prominent female characters. Should be awesome!
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Aug 11, 2015 15:23
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Dienes posted:They made their goal and you can pre-order the book now. All female authors, all the stories with prominent female characters. Should be awesome! Hang on, is that the same book? None of the authors in the kickstarter are in it. Also, I knew Joyce Carol Oates was a fan but did she really write a Lovecraftian horror story? I'd be all over that.
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Aug 11, 2015 15:40
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Dienes posted:They made their goal and you can pre-order the book now. All female authors, all the stories with prominent female characters. Should be awesome! That's a different book.
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Aug 11, 2015 16:28
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Ornamented Death posted:That's a different book. Oh poo poo, more to read, then.
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Aug 11, 2015 22:56
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Me and my wife love DS9 so we're going to watch every single Jeffery Combs lovecraft movie. There's like 5 or 6 of them. Wish us luck.
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Aug 12, 2015 04:29
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Ibid is pretty funny. Did Lovecraft write any other satire like that?
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Aug 13, 2015 01:36
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Hunterhr posted:Ibid is pretty funny. Did Lovecraft write any other satire like that? 'The Unnameable' is a good-natured send-up of his own style of writing.
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Aug 13, 2015 09:57
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Hunterhr posted:Ibid is pretty funny. Did Lovecraft write any other satire like that? "Herbert West - Reanimator" is a parody of Frankenstein, but it's pretty weak. The main problem is the structure: the story was serialized, so each chapter ends with a cliff-hanger and begins with a recap of the previous chapter. Lovecraft wasn't used to using those devices, and he doesn't do it well. There's some fun ideas, though. Just watch the movie Re-Animator instead.
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Aug 13, 2015 17:07
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Darth Walrus posted:'The Unnameable' is a good-natured send-up of his own style of writing. There's also the Hound, which incidentally contains the first mention of the Necronomicon.
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Aug 13, 2015 17:19
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Alhazred posted:There's also the Hound, which incidentally contains the first mention of the Necronomicon. Not to mention his funniest "horrific" italics: quote:We only realized, with the blackest of apprehensions, that the apparently disembodied chatter was beyond a doubt in the Dutch language. 
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Aug 13, 2015 19:32
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Pththya-lyi posted:The Dutch language! No good can come of the Dutch language....  Can anyone tell me what the situation is with copyright currently? For the uninitiated, the situation was that HPL work published during his lifetime were due to leave copyright in the 1990s? 2000s? but Arkham House was claiming it had renewed copyright so that everything was still copyrighted. Previously unpublished work stays copyrighted by the first publisher for a period, so the letters are all still copyrighted. Has the copyright situation been clarified or is it still a mess?
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Aug 13, 2015 21:40
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Josef K. Sourdust posted:No good can come of the Dutch language.... I'd say it's pretty clear there all PD, based on the term for both unpublished work and registration and renewal requirements. Joshi claims that as of 2008 everything is in the public domain (using Life+70). Truthfully I think most were already PD due to the fact that the Copyright Act of 1909, under which all of HPL's published works are governed, was very anal about registration and renewal requirements, which most genre magazines wouldn't spend the money to do (and incidentally Roger Corman wouldn't either). This chart can give you a brief idea of the various potential dates and how unpublished works can work (and regular works too). https://copyright.cornell.edu/resources/publicdomain.cfm Type of Work Copyright Term What was in the public domain in the U.S. as of 1 January 20153 Unpublished works Life of the author + 70 years Works from authors who died before 1945 Unpublished anonymous and pseudonymous works, and works made for hire (corporate authorship) 120 years from date of creation Works created before 1895 Unpublished works when the death date of the author is not known4 120 years from date of creation5 Works created before 18955
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Aug 24, 2015 22:42
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I've been going back the last few months and reading the things before Lovecraft, like A. Machen and R. Chambers. Anyone else read "The Hill of Dreams" or "The King in Yellow"?
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Sep 2, 2015 03:33
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Chain_of_Dogs posted:I've been going back the last few months and reading the things before Lovecraft, like A. Machen and R. Chambers. Anyone else read "The Hill of Dreams" or "The King in Yellow"? "The Hill of Dreams" is pure poetry. Read "A Fragment of Life", if you can find it and "The Three Impostors" or "The Great God Pan" if you want to get back to proper horror. On the subject of "The Three Impostors", I've always suspected that the Novel of the White Powder was Stephen King's inspiration for the short story "Gray Matter", in Graveyard Shift. Anybody else think that?
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Sep 2, 2015 05:32
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While we're on Arthur Machen, have an extract from John Betjemann's 'Summoned by Bells': "With Arthur Machen’s “Secret Glory” stuffed Into my blazer pocket, up the hill On to St. Merryn, down to Padstow Quay In time for the last ferry back to Rock, I bicycled — and found Trebetherick A worldly contrast with my afternoon. I would not care to read that book again. It so exactly mingled with the mood Of those impressionable years, that now I might be disillusioned. There were laughs At public schools, at chapel services, At masters who were still ‘big boys at heart’— While all the time the author’s hero knew A Secret Glory in the hills of Wales: Caverns of light revealed the Holy Grail Exhaling gold upon the mountain-tops; At “Holy! Holy! Holy!” in the Mass King Brychan’s sainted children crowded round, And past and present were enwrapped in one."
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Sep 2, 2015 05:49
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Chain_of_Dogs posted:I've been going back the last few months and reading the things before Lovecraft, like A. Machen and R. Chambers. Anyone else read "The Hill of Dreams" or "The King in Yellow"? The Repairer of Reputations is my favorite story in the King in Yellow book. Something about it works better for me than the more fantastic shorts.
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Sep 2, 2015 06:50
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Germane to the HPL and Racism topic, I'm working out some ideas for a cosmic horror-themed group of fantasy stories, and I've tripped over a few land mines like the Tcho-tcho and the miscegenation issues with the Deep Ones already. Most of the time, you can keep the cool aspects and jettison the problematic baggage (or at least replace it with your OWN problematic baggage), but what else should I look out for? For the record, I'm not directly referencing the Mythos, or even trying to sand off the serial numbers. I'm trying to take the stuff that scares me about cosmic horror and look at through a different contextual lens.
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Sep 2, 2015 07:29
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Peztopiary posted:The Repairer of Reputations is my favorite story in the King in Yellow book. Something about it works better for me than the more fantastic shorts. I thought that was an excellent story as well. Pistol_Pete posted:"The Hill of Dreams" is pure poetry. Read "A Fragment of Life", if you can find it and "The Three Impostors" or "The Great God Pan" if you want to get back to proper horror. I've read A Fragment of Life and The Great God Pan, those were great.
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Sep 2, 2015 15:32
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navyjack posted:Germane to the HPL and Racism topic, I'm working out some ideas for a cosmic horror-themed group of fantasy stories, and I've tripped over a few land mines like the Tcho-tcho and the miscegenation issues with the Deep Ones already. Most of the time, you can keep the cool aspects and jettison the problematic baggage (or at least replace it with your OWN problematic baggage), but what else should I look out for? Focus on environmental catastrophe and the possibility of western progressive politics imploding under the pressure of resource depletion. Write monsters and evil humans as fascists, white supremacists and other modern day bads. Work out what you are your audience value and under what circumstances those values might be destroyed. Personify that threat in supernatural, alien evil.
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Sep 2, 2015 19:05
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You're doing yourself a disservice if you equate fascism with cosmic horror, I think. It romanticizes human evil and narrows the scope of the unknown to things we've already done to each other. If you want to address both those subjects at the same time, maybe write about a fascist state that leverages fear of the cosmic and projects human wickedness onto them ("they want to drive us mad, eat our children, enslave our whole world!") when in fact they really are just incomprehensible. Basically an Indiana Jones story but more firmly in the realm of horror.
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Sep 4, 2015 22:39
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Or go for pitch black comedy and have an Eichmann-esque character who encounters the Great Old Ones and is completely unphased because he doesn't have the imagination or the moral capacity to understand why they're horrifying.
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Sep 4, 2015 22:54
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navyjack posted:Germane to the HPL and Racism topic, I'm working out some ideas for a cosmic horror-themed group of fantasy stories, and I've tripped over a few land mines like the Tcho-tcho and the miscegenation issues with the Deep Ones already. Most of the time, you can keep the cool aspects and jettison the problematic baggage (or at least replace it with your OWN problematic baggage), but what else should I look out for? The big issue, the thing which keeps Lovecraft's bigotry eternally relevant, is that his works are largely structured around a rejection of the alien, the strange, the unusual. This isn't endemic to cosmic horror, and stories like The Shadow Over Innsmouth and At The Mountains of Madness go beyond total rejection. But it is a big issue. Tuxedo Catfish posted:Or go for pitch black comedy and have an Eichmann-esque character who encounters the Great Old Ones and is completely unphased because he doesn't have the imagination or the moral capacity to understand why they're horrifying. Haha.
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Sep 5, 2015 02:15
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Or go for pitch black comedy and have an Eichmann-esque character who encounters the Great Old Ones and is completely unphased because he doesn't have the imagination or the moral capacity to understand why they're horrifying. Eichmann in R'lyeh, On the Banality of Cosmic Horror
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Sep 5, 2015 02:26
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Or go for pitch black comedy and have an Eichmann-esque character who encounters the Great Old Ones and is completely unphased because he doesn't have the imagination or the moral capacity to understand why they're horrifying. "Hmm, yes, these eldritch entities seem like characters I can do business with: I shall ally them to my Cause!" *Throughout the story, gradually transmogrifies into a hideous meat puppet of forces lurking a shadow's width away, an ever-diminishing spark of his consciousness shrieking in horror as he experiences an excruciating and indescribable fate far, far worse than death*
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Sep 5, 2015 21:51
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Personally, I think it's a little more interestingly freaky when people's attempts to harness eldritch horrors for their nefarious ends actually work. I mean, one of the principles of Lovecraftian cosmic horror is that the big scary monsters often don't care about us, and the violence they inflict is nothing more than an elephant crushing an ant's nest in its sleep. Now imagine all that bizarre, horrific power with a human's intelligence, malice, and petty-mindedness. Forget Hitler and company getting eaten by Cthulhu - what if their mad ideas had actually borne fruit? Imagine an immortal Fuhrer, shrunken and pallid, gnawing on the bones of the dead as his shoggoth legions roll across Asia, sweeping away the lesser races and leaving nothing but an empty, glassy plain in their wake. Imagine the Eternal Man of Steel, the slave-drones of Russia networked together under his unbreakable will as he turns his two hundred million eyes to the stars beyond. Imagine the Tennou expressing his divinity to the Chinese and Korean barbarians with an army of slavering youkai, as the Tokko scoop out the impure thoughts of the worker caste and hang them on display in Tokyo's public gardens, dripping shreds of brain-matter still attached, as a warning to others. Horror, both real and fictional, derives from the human imagination. It's a powerful tool to use.
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Sep 5, 2015 23:37
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navyjack posted:Germane to the HPL and Racism topic, I'm working out some ideas for a cosmic horror-themed group of fantasy stories, and I've tripped over a few land mines like the Tcho-tcho and the miscegenation issues with the Deep Ones already. Most of the time, you can keep the cool aspects and jettison the problematic baggage (or at least replace it with your OWN problematic baggage), but what else should I look out for? If by "things to look out for" you mean problematic or otherwise distasteful elements, one thing you may want to watch out for is the relationship between different communities and forbidden knowledge. Now obviously most (all?) of HPL's protagonists or "good guys" are white academics and intellectuals, and their academically rigorous and systematized knowledge grants them the ability to understand the Old Ones, their history, and their relationship to our world. Now paradoxically, there are plenty of peoples who start off with a greater knowledge of the Old Ones, but these are people who are uneducated and uncivilized: South Seas islanders, the white rural poor, "mulattoes" in Lousiana, etc. They know about the Old Ones (or whatever) before the academic protagonists, have some sort of relationship with them, etc. But their knowledge 1. isn't academic or systematic - it's passed down orally, they don't have the ability to see the "big picture," and 2. is used to aide the Old Ones for evil or self-centered ends, whereas the white academic protagonists are able to put the pieces together, mash the folktales and superstition together into a big picture, and come to the conclusion that these alien god dudes are harmful and need to be opposed. In several stories, it is this academic research and piecing together of knowledge that enables the protagonists to avert the threat posed by the old ones, triumphing (at least temporarily) over the unlettered "savages": CoC, the Dunwich Horror, Shadow over Innsmouth, and etc. This in spite of the fact that HPL warns us such piecing together knowledge will drive us into a new "dark age." It comes down to the trope that the poor, the non-western, etc., can't know things as well as the educated white guys, and therefore are dangerous. So. What does this mean for you? Be aware of who is able to use knowledge better. Maybe a bunch of professors or scientists aren't able to do some research and discover more about what's going on with the Old Ones (or whatever) than the people that have been aware them for generations. Maybe the poor, the illiterate, or the non-western actually have a greater breadth and depth of knowledge than the guys from Miskatonic U., and the professionals are the ones who react with superstition and worship. Say, for instance, a researcher discovers some Force from Out There, and decides whatever it is, we'd better keep it happy, while the protagonists are "superstitious" people who are the ones that say "oh poo poo" and have to rely on their folklore and superstitions to find a way to stop him. Maybe the piecing together of knowledge is fundamentally impossible, and attempting it does make things worse.
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Sep 7, 2015 01:36
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Yeah, another theme that is very strong is very much the 19th century elightenment ideals of rigorous academic thinking, analysis and an elevation of written records over oral ones. Nearly always the academic hero pieces things together from 'hidden lore' and the direct writing of other truth seekers. The oral histories are painted as inaccessible, supersitious and generally barbaric. The idea of turning that on its head is interesting. The dry academic analysis gives you some room for exploring the 'detached' scientist who doesn't grasp the horror of what they're encountering because they reject the emotional side of the lore. The 'Dark Gods' is supersitious mumbo-jumbo attached to alien intellects by peoples who were, unavoidably, ignorant of the nature of the cosmos. They're not evil they're simply other and it should be possible to utilise them, understand their motivations and work together. The players could be helped in this by some more traditional order who have a strong oral tradition that, it turns out, the superstitious mythological sounding parts of are actually true. It gives the possible set up of the players starting out being assisted by the scientist, who is investigating deaths of his colleagues caused by some mystical order (maybe similiar to the original Assassins or something) and the players can slowly come to realise that they are in fact working with someone who doesn't understand what they're doing and is endangering all humanity. It's a basic scientist playing god type trope, that does have the danger of being anti-intellectual but it gives you the opportunity to turn the 'indigenous, supersitious worshippers of the Old Ones battling upstanding white men of Englightenment rationality' part of Lovecraft on its head.
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Sep 7, 2015 10:45
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So I read Crooked, by Austin Grossman. I think I saw it recommended here. It's the book ostensibly about Nixon fighting eldritch horrors. The first half was pretty good, but I kept hoping for more stuff to be explained and it just never panned out. Story fell pretty flat after that first half. I might have liked it more if I was more familiar with Nixon himself, maybe, since I only know the basics. The only part I really enjoyed was Nixon himself as the self loathing underdog main character. Overall I couldn't really recommend it. I've seen similarities drawn between it and Stross's A Colder War for obvious reasons, but (spoilers for both) A Colder War drops neat little hints and references to the Lovecraft mythos and actually follows up on them with eldritch apocalypse awesomeness. Crooked blueballs you, nothing is ever explained satisfactorily, nothing exciting ever really happens and overall it feels like there's no point.
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Sep 10, 2015 13:21
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Yeah, it's more of a take on the history than the magical angle. The whole twist it puts on Watergate is interesting but ultimately there's just not much to see there. It's got ideas but never really realizes them; whoever was it here that compared it to Declare was way, way off.
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Sep 10, 2015 16:31
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I agree about Crooked. The climax of the book is Nixon's allies having an epic showdown against eldritch horrors during the Watergate "break-in." Nixon is hiding downstairs during the battle and gives us a short second-hand account. Hardly a satisfying pay-off! The book does name-drop the Battle of Peleliu, which I only recently learned about and think could make a good horror story in its own right. It was one of the most horrific battles of World War Two: the U.S. forces firebombed the tropical jungle that covered the island, but the defenders just hid in their vast network of underground tunnels and were left virtually untouched. What was supposed to be a 4-day assault turned into a two-month slog as the Americans staggered through the 115 degree heat with no cover or shade while the fighting-fresh Japanese popped out of their caves to wreak havoc on them. For every Japanese soldier killed, over 1500 rounds of ammunition were fired. Attrition took its toll, however, and the Japanese surrendered after 10,700 of the island's 10,900 defenders were killed. In one transmission to central command the Japanese soldiers promised to fight on even after they had been turned into nightgaunts.   Artist's depiction of a
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Sep 11, 2015 06:18
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MrNemo posted:Yeah, another theme that is very strong is very much the 19th century elightenment ideals of rigorous academic thinking, analysis and an elevation of written records over oral ones. Nearly always the academic hero pieces things together from 'hidden lore' and the direct writing of other truth seekers. The oral histories are painted as inaccessible, supersitious and generally barbaric. The idea of turning that on its head is interesting. The dry academic analysis gives you some room for exploring the 'detached' scientist who doesn't grasp the horror of what they're encountering because they reject the emotional side of the lore. The 'Dark Gods' is supersitious mumbo-jumbo attached to alien intellects by peoples who were, unavoidably, ignorant of the nature of the cosmos. They're not evil they're simply other and it should be possible to utilise them, understand their motivations and work together. The players could be helped in this by some more traditional order who have a strong oral tradition that, it turns out, the superstitious mythological sounding parts of are actually true. Forgall fucked around with this message at 18:02 on Sep 12, 2015 |
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Sep 12, 2015 18:00
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Pththya-lyi posted:I agree about Crooked. The climax of the book is Nixon's allies having an epic showdown against eldritch horrors during the Watergate "break-in." Nixon is hiding downstairs during the battle and gives us a short second-hand account. Hardly a satisfying pay-off! Wow I had not seen such a hi-res version of that image. That's Kurtzman's The Thousand Yard Stare right (or something similar)? From before post traumatic stress had a name other than "shell shock". It's crazy that most of Harvey Kurtzmans career was funny comic strips for Mad Magazine & others. He could be intense as hell when he wanted to.
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Sep 12, 2015 22:55
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It is actually Tom Lea's Marines Call It That 2,000 Yard Stare. Lea was a war correspondent with Life Magazine and that painting is one of several he made as part of his Peleliu coverage. Before Peleliu Lea's military paintings were generally on the theme of gently caress YEAH AMERICA, but the Peleliu series showcases the horrors of war. That painting and The Price ( ) are two of Lea's best-known works; both are Peleliu paintings.
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Sep 12, 2015 23:14
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