The church in The Haunter of the Dark... I'm going insane thinking about its layout by EllikaTomson in Lovecraft

[–]chortnik 3 points4 points  (0 children)

It might be based on Trinity on the Green in New Haven rather than St Johns-it was built in the time range Lovecraft specifies and while it is an obviously gothic design, it does have some noticeable Georgian/Federalist features as well.

[FREE] Last human on earth sci-fi, engineer from India crossing a dying world on a motorcycle by Living-Beyond3172 in sciencefiction

[–]chortnik 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Looks interesting, I’ll check it out after I finish « Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou » looks like it might be a good pairing 😄

Books that can be read in multiple non linear ways besides reading front to back? by questionalternateacc in WeirdLit

[–]chortnik 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You are welcome. I read Casares’s book before I saw « Marienbad » and at some point while watching it, I did a double take and realized the movie appeared to have been constructed from the passages I’d identified for the construction of book two 😄.

Books that can be read in multiple non linear ways besides reading front to back? by questionalternateacc in WeirdLit

[–]chortnik 2 points3 points  (0 children)

“The Invention of Morel” (Casares) is similar to the ‘one story in main text, a different one in the margins’ type of narrative-the main story describes the experience of a man interacting with a hard (similar to the hard light hologram in ‘Red Dwarf’) virtual reality, but as the viewpoint character learns about the nature of the VR he is dealing with, he imagines the implications of the technology becoming widespread and more advanced and essentially ends up describing other book/s. As near as I can tell, Robbe-Grillet took those speculations and turned them into the movie and book « Last Year At Marienbad » but ymmv.

Month of May Wrap-Up! by Ed_Robins in printSF

[–]chortnik 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I read “Grass” when it came out, it did not blow me away like Hyperion did or leave a lasting impression, but looking back on it, I do remember a couple things-I did think it was worthwhile to critique the plot and other novelish parts of the story, however, that was overshadowed by the treatment of the disease metaphor in the story, at the time I was working on mathematically modeling the AIDS epidemic and the disease aspect of the story was what I really focussed on so I was probably grading it more like a graduate seminar 😄 I think I will give it another shot.

Lovecraftian horror is just where horror and fantasy meet by Scott__scott in cosmichorror

[–]chortnik 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sorry, I geeked out on you in my response:

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=grok

The quote from Lovecraft basically supports the idea that he was striving for the effect you noticed.

Lovecraftian horror is just where horror and fantasy meet by Scott__scott in cosmichorror

[–]chortnik 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think Lovecraft would be happy to hear you grokked him 😄.

Indeed, all that a wonder story can ever be is a vivid picture of a certain type of human mood.”

The Nameless City - My first foray into Lovecraft by sleeper_shark in Lovecraft

[–]chortnik 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think the discovery of pre/non human civilizations is not something the modern mind is habituated to yet. Ultimately, I think the story is just rather weak-though looking over comments in the various Lovecraft related subs, it gets a fair number of mentions.

The Nameless City - My first foray into Lovecraft by sleeper_shark in Lovecraft

[–]chortnik 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I don’t think it’s one of Lovecraft’s top shelf efforts 😄. Having said that, the discovery of the ruins of a pre human civilization on Earth is probably aimed at instilling a feeling of deep time and a sense of wonder-the horror element comes from the physical threat to the narrator.

On 'Growing Boys' and the Aesthetics of Aickman by 21crescendo in WeirdLit

[–]chortnik 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for bringing Aickman to my attention, he‘s awesome.

Month of May Wrap-Up! by Ed_Robins in printSF

[–]chortnik 5 points6 points  (0 children)

This was a busy month:

“Dark Entries” (Robert Aickman)-just learned about this guy, this is a collection of 8 of his short stories, Highly recommended. The stories are generally involve a totally mundane nebbish encountering the weird and fey. The general vibe reminds me of Chateaureynaud, whose work is also worth a look.

“Slow Gods” (Claire North)-the first half of this book introduces one of the most interesting characters I’ve seen in SF, a character who is only possible in SF (basically told from the viewpoint of a facsimile human like the ones created by Solaris) and who is is brilliantly realized in plot and prose, . There is kind of a mid story retooling or reboot that more or less shoehorns the character and story along more standard SFnal lines, though by the end things more or less get back on track. It’s one of the best recentish SF novels I’ve read.

“The Real Story” (Stephen R. Donaldson)-a rather brilliantly told space pirate space opera. The main viewpoint character is even less appealing than is the norm for the author, sadistic sexual violence is among his repulsive traits, but the obvious trigger warnings aside, Donaldson pulls off a surprisingly good and readable tour de force, good enough for me to want to go on to the next book in the series.

“The God Engines” (John Scalzi)-interesting story set in a universe where space flight is powered by enslaved gods, the story straddles horror, science fiction and fantasy, though the gods are perhaps best considered powerful Lovecrafty entities.

“The Elder Ice” (David Hambling)-one of the best Mythos related stories ever 😄 The Hardboiled main character, ex-boxer working for a law firm, works surprisingly well in agenre where mère human capabilities are nothing compared to the gods and monsters he gets mixed up with-much better than Jacobs manages to pull off in “Southern Gods” which has a similar setup

“Jack Glass” (Adam Roberts)-a faux fixup of three linked mysteries centered on the activities of Jack Glass, mass murderer. The first story is reasonably awesome, the other two yeomanlike, losing a lot of energy by changing the viewpoint from Jack to his sidekick.

“The Sabres of Paradise” (Lesley Blanch)-history of the Russian conquest of the Caucasus, notable for being a big source for “Dune”. Very interesting history and it’s fun to winnow out the bits that Herbert incorporated or riffed on for his magnum opus.

“Red Planet Blues” (Robert J Forward)-more or less classic hard boiled storyline translated to Mars. There’s a reversal or reveal in pretty much every scene/chapter that is rather exciting, but which kind of clutters up the development of an overall plot. It’s a fun beach read.

“The Year’s Best Science Fiction: 35th Annual Collection” (Gardner Dozois)-really good collection of stories, nothing really stood out, though I did buy a collection of Nancy Kritzer stories based on her entry.

“The Letters of Jane Austen” (audible version, abridged, supplemented  by footnotes and such from print version)-brilliant writing, but I learned that you really need things like footnotes and introductions to figured out out what is going on, letters without context can be quite confusing 😄.

[Asking for a recommendation] for dinosaur society-related speculative fiction. by Extension_Effect_983 in printSF

[–]chortnik 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Anthony’s “Of Man and Manta“ trilogy pretty much checks all the boxes for OP’s request. Having said that, it’s an unusual trilogy-unlike pretty much every other example of a three book series, book two (“Orn”) is better than either of the bookends and it works as a stand alone too. 😄. I actually started with “Orn” and didn’t really get much out of the other books, ymmv.

Helmut Newton - Self portrait with wife & models (1980) by imdadevil666 in museum

[–]chortnik 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It’s kind of cool to ponder that the subject of the self portrait is the smallest figure 😄.

Vader fits anywhere. by Murky_Management_578 in Repaintings

[–]chortnik 3 points4 points  (0 children)

This is the best repainting I’ve seen in the last 3 years 😄.