What if H.P. Lovecraft lived longer?
- Thread starter Andrela
- Start date
Channeled by his writing the ancient ones would have actually entered our world?
1. His writing gets less racist (thank goodness). He would never find a publisher with his anti-semitic rants in the aftermath of the Second World War.
2. He was already starting to move away from Gothic horror to a cosmic horror-science-fiction blend. That trend would have strengthened.
3. We would no longer be reliant on August Derleth to preserve his work: Lovecraft might live long enough to see himself in paperback.
4. Clark Ashton Smith would have continued writing for longer, rather than giving it up for sculpting.
2. He was already starting to move away from Gothic horror to a cosmic horror-science-fiction blend. That trend would have strengthened.
3. We would no longer be reliant on August Derleth to preserve his work: Lovecraft might live long enough to see himself in paperback.
4. Clark Ashton Smith would have continued writing for longer, rather than giving it up for sculpting.
Delta Force
Banned
Lovecraft died in March 1937, at age 46. He would have been 55 just before the end of World War II, and 67 when Sputnik launched. That's a reasonable lifespan for someone in that era, and I think things would have changed greatly for Lovecraft in those twenty years. Certainly the world did.
In May 1937, there was the Bombing of Guernica. Later on of course, there was the buildup to World War II, the Holocaust, etc. There was industrialized killing of civilians, massive airstrikes that burned down entire cities, and finally the atomic bomb. Then the Soviets acquire their atomic bomb, the United States develops the thermonuclear bomb, and by 1957 Sputnik 1 is launched. The late 1950s also sees the growth of world travel and trade.
By the 1950s, Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos would be rather antiquated. Exotic places aren't that exotic with international travel. Eldritch horrors would seem quaint compared to the horrors of World War II and the emerging horrors of thermonuclear weapons. However, exploration of some very remote areas would seriously ramping up, such as space, underwater, and Antarctica. I think there are a few routes that Lovecraft could take in such an environment:
1. Keep writing something similar to the Mythos, but change to underwater and space. After World War II, the world is less exotic. Someone could fly to Alaska, Tibet, or the Pacific is so inclined. It would be expensive in the 1950s, but quite possible.
2. Technology could replace eldritch horrors. It could even follow the same basic formulas. Someone (or perhaps humanity as a whole) feels a need to invent something or know something. They push ahead, even though there are signs it might not be the best idea. Then the technology leads to something terrible happening. Alternatively, people could be the eldritch horrors, and society could misuse the technology to create something terrible.
As an example, perhaps a man of science sets out to develop robotic components to help his wife suffering from an incurable disease. However, he has to race to develop more and more components to avert the fate. Eventually, his wife is almost entirely robotic. Then he realizes he can't replace her brain. All the technology has done is prolong the inevitable, and inflict a horrible fate.
3. Something akin to the Dreamworld phase, but focused more on psychological horror. The noble man of science unleashed the atomic genie, what other horrors await? What's more fearsome than thermonuclear war? What about the experiences of explorers as they venture from the safety of civilization into the depths of the oceans and space?
4. Perhaps he takes a more Lovecraft-lite take to things, and writes from a more existentialist viewpoint instead of a nihilistic one.
In May 1937, there was the Bombing of Guernica. Later on of course, there was the buildup to World War II, the Holocaust, etc. There was industrialized killing of civilians, massive airstrikes that burned down entire cities, and finally the atomic bomb. Then the Soviets acquire their atomic bomb, the United States develops the thermonuclear bomb, and by 1957 Sputnik 1 is launched. The late 1950s also sees the growth of world travel and trade.
By the 1950s, Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos would be rather antiquated. Exotic places aren't that exotic with international travel. Eldritch horrors would seem quaint compared to the horrors of World War II and the emerging horrors of thermonuclear weapons. However, exploration of some very remote areas would seriously ramping up, such as space, underwater, and Antarctica. I think there are a few routes that Lovecraft could take in such an environment:
1. Keep writing something similar to the Mythos, but change to underwater and space. After World War II, the world is less exotic. Someone could fly to Alaska, Tibet, or the Pacific is so inclined. It would be expensive in the 1950s, but quite possible.
2. Technology could replace eldritch horrors. It could even follow the same basic formulas. Someone (or perhaps humanity as a whole) feels a need to invent something or know something. They push ahead, even though there are signs it might not be the best idea. Then the technology leads to something terrible happening. Alternatively, people could be the eldritch horrors, and society could misuse the technology to create something terrible.
As an example, perhaps a man of science sets out to develop robotic components to help his wife suffering from an incurable disease. However, he has to race to develop more and more components to avert the fate. Eventually, his wife is almost entirely robotic. Then he realizes he can't replace her brain. All the technology has done is prolong the inevitable, and inflict a horrible fate.
3. Something akin to the Dreamworld phase, but focused more on psychological horror. The noble man of science unleashed the atomic genie, what other horrors await? What's more fearsome than thermonuclear war? What about the experiences of explorers as they venture from the safety of civilization into the depths of the oceans and space?
4. Perhaps he takes a more Lovecraft-lite take to things, and writes from a more existentialist viewpoint instead of a nihilistic one.
If memory serves, when Lovecraft was alive and prior to the works going over to August Derleth, there was not really a collected mythos and, while he did borrow elements from other stories and have them overlap, he didn't really treat his works as a comprehensive, single reality canon.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
No.
Central to Lovecraft's conceit was a very simple (and unique idea): that humans, and everything created by humans, are completely unimportant. That we are mere ants in the cosmic scheme of things, and that our morality means nothing to the cold alien emptiness of space. Thermonuclear War is but a firefly light compared with Lovecraft's universe.
Putting technology or humans at the centre of the story completely wrecks that.
...so saying that he ends up as a contributing writer for The Outer Limits / The Twilight Zone?
The International Geophysical Year could have spawned another 'At the Mountains of Madness', perhaps a book on Kadath of the Cold Waste.
Or his racism could have gotten worse-did he own a copy of Mein Kampf?
Or he could have combined the Pacific Atomic Testing with Cthulhu/R'yleh' cycle-Nautilus' voyage could be inspiring for a 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea meets Dagon cycle.
Or his racism could have gotten worse-did he own a copy of Mein Kampf?
Or he could have combined the Pacific Atomic Testing with Cthulhu/R'yleh' cycle-Nautilus' voyage could be inspiring for a 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea meets Dagon cycle.
Delta Force
Banned
Lovecraft developed the Mythos as he went, and probably never really thought of it as a larger setting. The view of it as a comprehensive setting came later.
Lovecraft did have a few stories that were in more of a conventional narrative style, and had a few stories featuring mad scientists.
That's been proposed a few times, and it could work out if Lovecraft writes in a Twilight Zone style. However, some of his fiction is likely incapable of being properly translated into visual media, and if Lovecraft writes in that style he wouldn't really be able to go into film.
If Lovecraft wants to continue writing full time, he would have to find success writing books or radio, film, and television scripts. Short fiction wouldn't provide enough income.
Delta Force
Banned
I think at some point Lovecraft would have to deal with nuclear weapons and similar events. There's both nuclear annihilation, which totally destroys everything, and the horror of both nuclear and conventional firestorms. Essentially, Lovecraft has to do something to show eldritch horrors or fates worse than death that do more than harm a few people who stumble across them every now and then. At the very least they have to come out of the shadows.
Actually, I read about this fellow:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Sharpe_Shaver; and I had this idea that Lovecraft, had he lived, might have written a parody of the hair brained hypothesis. I was even going to write a review of such a work, as sort of a DBWI, on my blog.
Yes and no. I could see him incorporating atomic science and nuclear experiments into his mythos very seamlessly. Lovecraft had a fascination with the idea of our science only touching the edges of the true reality and has stories, like Dreams in the Witch House, where people make contact with Eldritch Forces not through magic but the application of advanced mathematics and quirks of space-time. I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if he did the same thing with uranium or even implied that uranium was created by the Great Old Ones in some fashion.
He can also use the power of science to heighten how truly horrible the Great Old Ones are. I think Cthulhu or some other Great Old One would retain all of its potency if you had a moment where it gets nuked and shrugs it off like a fleabite or picturing Nyarlathotep deliberately triggering a meltdown. Lovecraft's horror is derived from the concept that humans are meaningless and insignificant in the eyes of these eldritch horrors and that kind of existential dread still works even in the wake of the Second World War.
I do agree the exotic-ness would probably diminish but not as quickly. Even though distant places won't be as isolated and remote there would still be places that would excite the imagination and be remote for other reasons. Stories taking place in Central Asia, the depths of the Congo, the windswept plateaus of Tibet could still work to a point though it does seem like he'd get the most out of Antarctica and space.
Also it is worth pointing out that Lovecraft's racism was not extraordinarily over the top for his time. In some ways I think stories where he plays on that were less out of advocating that viewpoint and more out of playing off those fears in society. He is also quite equal-opportunity in who becomes a cultist of the Great Old Ones; you've got degenerates of every nation and social class with the only thing they really had in common was their association with eldritch forces and that they were all ultimately meaningless pawns.
That does not, however, excuse the rather unfortunately named cat in The Rats in the Walls.
His racism was actually mellowing out in the last years of his life. Once he got out of Providence and spent time in New York, he infamously hated the cultural melting pot medley at first, but after a while (and with his wife's coaxing) he learned to just barely tolerate it, and given more time, he probably would have learned to accept it.
IMO, the root of most of his xenophobic tendencies lay in his isolated upbringing and early adulthood in homogeneous Providence. If he'd lived longer and gotten more opportunities to travel around the country or world, I'm positive he would have learned to be more tolerant of other peoples and cultures.
I'm intrigued with the idea of having him as a guest writer for an episode of the Twilight Zone.
IMO, the root of most of his xenophobic tendencies lay in his isolated upbringing and early adulthood in homogeneous Providence. If he'd lived longer and gotten more opportunities to travel around the country or world, I'm positive he would have learned to be more tolerant of other peoples and cultures.
I'm intrigued with the idea of having him as a guest writer for an episode of the Twilight Zone.
Delta Force
Banned
Lovecraft wrote both different phases and different settings. I think there would be a change after World War II (I've mentioned what that might look like earlier), but what do you think his writing would look like during the war years?
Also, Lovecraft might be able to live into the 1960s or even the 1970s. How might his fiction change as the last undiscovered regions of the world (and space) are comprehensively explored? Would he become more oriented on psychological horror, or become fantasy or science fiction oriented?
Also, Lovecraft might be able to live into the 1960s or even the 1970s. How might his fiction change as the last undiscovered regions of the world (and space) are comprehensively explored? Would he become more oriented on psychological horror, or become fantasy or science fiction oriented?
That's the nice thing about space: there's always more of it.
LOL, I'm having this image of Lovecraft being asked to write an episode of Star Trek, much as Ellison was. Can Kirk, Spock and the crew of the Enterprise deal with their explorations uncovering something truly unfathomable?
You know, my last post got me thinking. Lovecraft was a strong anglophile, and openly clImes to regret the Revolution. Beginning in the 60s in OTL, his work actually became rsther popular amongst British Science Fiction writers and fans.
So, possibly a later giving Lovecraft is asked to write for a certain British Science Fiction show about an wldwrlt gent, his granddaughter, and her teachers traveling through time and space into the unknown? A Lovecraft penned serial would be ... Fantastic.
So, possibly a later giving Lovecraft is asked to write for a certain British Science Fiction show about an wldwrlt gent, his granddaughter, and her teachers traveling through time and space into the unknown? A Lovecraft penned serial would be ... Fantastic.