#mentions of Lovecraft Kurt

[abigail-nicole]

Hello, perpetual English major here and I read the tags on all 3000 reblogs and added all the stories mentioned more than once:

the ones who walk away from omelas by ursula k leguin

The landlady by roald dahl

The man who knew belle star by richard bausch

All summer in a day by ray bradbury

Cold air by lovecraft

Tell the women we’re going by raymond carver

The metamorphasis by kafka

An occurrence at owl creek bridge by ambrose pierce

Bartleby the scrivner by herman melville

The feather pillow by horacio quiroga

Green patches by isaac asimov

Sredni Vashtar by saki

A rose for Emily by william faulkner

Miriam by truman capote

Bloodchild by octavia butler

the axolotol by julio cortazar

The necklace by guy de maupassant

A good man is hard to find by flannery o’connor

The most dangerous game by richard connell

The scarlet ibis by james hurst

Harrison bergeron by kurt vonnegut

Tlon uqbar orbius tertius by jorge luis borges

To build a fire by jack london

Don’t press charges and i won’t sue by charlie jane anders

All you zombies by robert a heinlein

The story of an hour by kate chopin

No is yes by paul jennings

2BR02B by kurt vonnegut

The monkey’s paw by w w jacobs

Paper cranes by ken liu

There will come soft rains by ray bradbury

[kurtty-drabbles]

Fanboy au

@djinmer4 @dannybagpipesarecalling @discordsworld @look-ma-no-hands336

@sailorstar9

N/A: Kurt is extremely powerful and loves to have fans...and now he's a fan of Kitty Pryde.

The Kingdom of Saldonia used to be a prosper kingdom, the image any Utopia should have, until, their king made several odd choices and the fallout leads to the Saldonia mourning the glory days. The king´s premature death was mourned out of obligation and nothing else, however, his young queen didn't take the news as a person should. Anger, sadness and longing are one of the some of the emotions a normal person would feel in these circumstances, but, the queen shuts herself in the castle. And several young women have been reported missing.

The case at first didn't attract anyone's interest as many widow act differently, maybe, she never loved the king(it was an arranged marriage) and is rejoicing to be free of him or maybe she just wants time for herself, as for the missing girls. Still didn't attract anyone's interest...women run away every time, especially from kingdom like Saldonia.

However, when other women have been reported missing and some clues lead to the queen, that make everyone pays attention, King Magneto asks Excalibur to solve this problem, Captain Brain wonder, for a second, why he choose Excalibur if the X-men are available. When Princess Talia is speaking excitedly with Kitty about her last adventure Meggan shot a knowing glare to Brian and the man finally get the picture.

“King Magneto” Brian speaks once the King himself brief him in regards the situation “What will happen if the Queen is indeed the culprit?”

“In other times, I would have crushed them, but, my age makes me go soft, they are welcome to Genosha if they want, Saldonia has no heirs and the family tree really die with the king, unless someone decides to conquer the land the people will be in anarchy” King Magneto speaks as a matter of fact.

Exist lands that do not have leadership and Magneto, while not doing anything against, despite the idea of land without order or land for Doom to conquer even all Saldonia has, is memories of the golden days.

Saldonia really saw better days, that's all Kitty can think, as the group investigate the missing case. All the women are blonde, blue eyes and do not matter her background(poor, rich, magical or normal) they just vanish…

Meggan served as a decoy, blonde and now with blue eyes as she walks around pretending to be a lost tourist. Brian is in a limbo of worry for her and trusts her skills. The first day, the blue eyes Meggan didn´t vanish, however, in the second day, a man(wearing a helmet) manages to kidnap her, she didn´t struggle as he takes her to her supposedly final destination, Brian and Kitty follow their lead and Kitty wonders how Brian is handling this.

They stop in the Queen´s castle and in that moment both Meggan and Brian decide the man with a helmet need a reality check. Kitty let the couple have their flirting moment as she looks at the castle, something is off.

The picture Magneto gave show a different castle, it was white with one tower and it was very symmetrical, however, this one is completely different, is black, with two towers and asymetric...and Kitty notices the moon...even though is not night.

Once the guy in the helmet proved to be a zombie in total decay, Kitty got a bad feeling about this “Guys...I think someone in the castle did make a bad deal with a bad entity”

Kitty´s words are proven to be true as the inside of the castle is equally distorted as the outside. Spirals and Kitty, Meggan and Brian gulp, albeit comically, to a situation not funny. And the situation gets worse as Queen Elvira shows up, pale skin, bags under her eyes, and her red hair needs a wash, yet, that´s Queen Elvira.

She locked Brian in a cage where his super strength is useless. Meggan is morphed between a cat and into a woman, and can´t change back as Kitty is in a small cage as well made by adamantium. Kitty looks at the symbol higher on the Queen´s throne and Kitty has only one question to make.

Zaorva what did you saw in him?

Elvira is clearly working for HIM and Kitty has an idea, smirking as if this is no problem, this caught Elvira´s attention as she now sends her maniac gaze to Kitty. “Why are you smiling? I have him by my side! I´ll rule the world and have my husband back” the woman has a mad smile and Kitty only crosses her arms bemused.

“Is that all? Please, I could bring your dear husband back” now Kitty is watching her nails not paying the Elvira´s any attention “I´m a necromancer and I can bring your dear husband back and look at that my price is really good, but, if you want to take favours from HIM well be my guest...I´m sure your organs must be crunchy and delicious”

Meggan and Brian take a cue and immediately chided Kitty for daring to gesture her secret ability.

Elvira is mad, but, no one wants to be eaten. “you can bring my dear husband back?” she thinks about the situation “what´s your price?”

“Let my friends go and you´ll get your husband back” Kitty speaks neutrally as Meggan and Brian beg her to not help this woman. Elvira accepts the terms, Meggan is free as Brian, yet, the minions of Elvira make sure they won´t be staying here.

Meggan holds Brian´s hand. They only have one chance.

Elvira free Kitty as she takes the woman to the crypt where the husband is. Kitty looks as if analysing the situation and cames to a conclusion “in order to bring your husband back, I need you to be here with me” and gesture the queen where she must be “now, look at the ossuary art over there, I need to focus my energy and it is easier to bring someone back if there´s a person who loves the victim very much” Elvira is looking at the art and opens her eyes to see Kitty´s hand phasing into her chest.

“Now!” Kitty shouts and Meggan and Brian manages to knock down the minions, separated they didn´t have a chance, together they are powerful. “Darling, I rather fight villains with you than on my own”  “Oh, Brian, is not the time to flirt, we´re here to kick ass”

Kitty´s eyes harden as her hand didn´t move an inch “Now, I've got a new deal for you, how about you tell me where are the bodies of the women and I don´t phase your heart”

“All I did, I did for love”

“Well, you give love a bad name” Kitty can´t help herself and Brian rolls his eyes as Meggan, in her bubbly self, is happy the mission is over, less so when Elvira tell what happened with the girls and Kitty is considering phasing her heart out here...but no, she will have to answer to a worse deity, let HIM do this.

The people are happy to leave Saldonia, there´s some sadness in their eyes as Saldonia used to be a great kingdom, it fails when the King married that woman. King Magneto deem the land useless and Doom won´t really pay no mind to this place. Maybe someone will make this land into something good.

Princess Talia is talking excitedly with Kitty as by coincidence both women finish their mission at the same time.

“I knew your mission would be alright, cursed objects are your speciality and I´m always impressed by skills” Kitty compliment genuinely impressed, she saw Betsy, Brian´s sister, doing this work but Talia is another league. The blue woman blushes at that.

“That´s because Talia was always a tenacious one” the male voice cut the conversation and Talia look a mix to be happy and annoyed to see her father. Kitty remembers something and asked to speak with him.

“I don´t want to take your time, I just want to confess that in my mission I did pretend to be a necromancer, now, I didn´t say I was better than you or anyone else, but I know you prime to be a great necromancer and I don´t want bad blood among us” Kitty confess knowing how the man is very serious about being a necromancer.

Kurt gazes at her and the woman is always fascinated by his eyes. “I ´m not mad at you, I can´t be really, if anything I´m offended with this Queen going to HIM, instead of me, really!” Kurt complains and Kitty giggles.

“Careful, he´s Zaorva another half… for some reason, they love each other and we don´t need to understand this”

[neon-green-reagent]

Aquatic Horror Films that Float My Boat

Shout out to an IRL friend for shooting this title at me off the cuff when I mentioned the concept. It made me laugh, so it had to be the one. Watery horror! It’s one of my favorites, and other than Jaws, I don’t see a ton of love for it. So then it’s list time in that case, isn’t it?

Underwater | This is a more recent film than I tend to list, because I feel like recent films are on everyone’s radar. I’m not blowing the doors off telling you to watch a movie that came out two years ago. And yet. This movie got blasted and forgotten. I think maybe audiences forgot what creature features are, because if you’re familiar with that sub-genre, then this will blow you across the room and have you wondering what everyone hated. It goes full Lovecraft, and I don’t want to spoil anything, but if you love the giant unknowable-ness of those creatures, you’ll cream. The fight for survival starts within five minutes, and while we get necessary breathers, the tension really never lets up. Kristen Stewart proves yet again we did her dirty by dismissing her because of some teen romance movies. (Also, what a LOOK she has in this.) Just... watch this. Give it a chance. 

Dagon | More Lovecraft! But more traditional Lovecraft. Well. Stuart Gordon Lovecraft. Meaning lots of goop and sex. And goopy sex. While the name references another story, this is actually an adaptation of “The Shadow Over Innsmouth”, and it’s quite good. In fact, it’s better, especially in terms of backstory and motivations. Lovecraft has proven good for only base ideas, and everything else around it needs to be retooled to become a deeper story with less PROBLEMS let’s call them. Gordon was a master at that. Also, despite not being underwater per se, this movie is drenched in rain and flooded houses and sea creatures galore, so it fits the bill. 

Leviathan | The Thing underwater. That’s the easiest way to sum this movie up. With Peter Weller instead of Kurt Russell. Cast of likable characters discover a creature in the ocean that gets in their underwater base and wreaks havoc. It mutates, it infects, it kills, and I need more people to appreciate how good and fun that is. 

Deep Star Six | Um. Leviathan. But. With Miguel Ferrer? Okay, it’s slightly more different than that. The creature isn’t like The Thing, for starters. It’s definitely an unknowable monstrosity, but it chooses to just eat you rather than complicate things. This movie has a totally lovable cast, and I especially like how strong the female characters are. This one’s all about getting way too attached to cool characters who won’t survive. Particularly Miguel Ferrer. 

The Shallows | Every shark movie that’s come out since Jaws has gotten eye rolls. This one’s different. We’re not talking about a Jaws clone. This isn’t a boat full of guys semi-prepared to deal with a threat they are themselves hunting down. No, this is about a woman who just wanted to surf in a secluded spot and gets absolutely bodied by a shark. Who dominates the situation in a such a way that she can’t even get back to land. This one gets the blood pumping. Also, before you groan about a CGI shark, I gotta say this movie is very beautifully made, and you find yourself not even noticing the special effects because of how well they used them. 

Deep Rising | From the guy that brought you the 90s Mummy and Van Helsing comes THIS FUCKING THING. An extremely elite cruise liner gets attacked by a a massive and deadly deep water creature. Jesus fuck it just kills you in the worst way. It’s so goddamn violent, this monster. And the people left to face it are the nasty folks who wanted to rob the ship. So imagine Rick in The Mummy quipping with that level of gorn. It’s beautiful, truly. 

The Beach House | Oceanic body horror. A group of four people spending time together at a beach house all decide to get high one night. Probably it would’ve been better if they’d had all their faculties, because shit hits the fan, and they are entirely not ready for that. Disease and mutation happens thanks to some mysterious ocean life coming in off the shore. This one is a slow burn, but once it kicks into gear, it kicks hard. Highly recommended if you like a big sense of DREAD with your horror. 

And that’s all I got. In fact, if anyone has suggestions for me in this arena, I welcome them. 

[ashleyetc]

Doesn’t it seem like a slippery slope to you to say that bad artists can make good art? If we say the art is good, then we are giving a passive endorsement to people who want to experience it. For example, if we condemn a racist but still laude aspects of their work, if we still stock their work in bookstores and libraries, and make it publicly available to anyone but experts on anti-racism, we are only ensuring that more and more poc will be harmed by exposure year after year, giving evil authors a way to victimize their chosen targets even from beyond the grave

not entirely sure what prompted this? but ultimately i kinda think no. like, partly because you cant simply eliminate all art from general public consciousness that was made by bad people- imagine trying to get everyone to forget r kelly exists, or writing a history of opera that excludes wagner while still being coherent, etc. i dont think censorship in the manner you seem to be suggesting is like, plausible, in the internet age, and i think its ethically dubious at best. i am an anarchist, and by this i mean that i am against all authority, and the idea of a specific group of people who get to decide what is Good and gets to stay and what is Bad and must be purged makes me shudder, regardless of any stated noble intention.

i think part of the problem too is you are viewing all art by bad people as targeted and malicious. this is definitely true in some cases, lovecraft's work isnt subtle for the obvious example(thats a little unfair to him but im fine with being unfair to the man), but i think a lot of bigoted art simply isnt intended to 'victimize a chosen target' as you put it. cat's cradle by vonnegut is an incredibly racist book, but i dont think thats due to malice as much as kurt being an ignorant white guy writing fiction in the 50s. i dont say that to excuse it, to be clear, but im mostly pointing out that the book doesnt exist as a racist diatribe (i would also point out that his later novel hocus pocus is pretty definitively antiracist- would that make a difference in your calculus?). the racism isnt the point, in other words (again not saying it doesnt matter).

i think a lot of artists who are awful people simply dont make art about that, too- sure, i find it pretty gross to listen to a love song sung by john lennon, but i think its a bonkers take to think anyone who doesnt feel that way is therefore an abuser themself, or endorsing abuse. for a lot of artists the ways in which theyre awful just dont actually show up in their work.

and i definitely think this is like, on a sliding scale, yknow. like, if someone is monetarily supporting an artist who lets say is using their wealth to push back against civil rights for a particular marginalized group they hate, then yeah, that sucks and they should feel bad. and i sure as hell dont wanna hang out with anyone who tells me 'yeah i know he (allegedly but come on) started his own neonazi hate group from prison but burzum is so good.' but like. i cant get too worked up about someone listening to some shitty old dead assholes music, or reading some old books that yeah are pretty racist. i mean, tolkien's shit is racist, in a similarly ignorant fool way to the vonnegut i mentioned, and i would feel ridiculous condemning anyone reading that when its so ingrained into culture.

idk im open to the idea that im wrong but i havent seen much reason to believe it and i dont think this line of thinking is helpful in the absolute like this, like sure there are important discussions to be had about this stuff, but i dont think youre really looking at it in a particularly useful way.

tldr: nah, its way too complicated for that kind of approach

[michelles-garden-of-evil]

SP Influences: The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and The Haunted Palace

CONTENT WARNING FOR DISCUSSION OF RAPE (NOT JUST THE FANTASY METAPHOR KIND) AND SLAVERY. ALSO SPOILER WARNING FOR THE HAUNTED PALACE (1963), THE CASE OF CHARLES DEXTER WARD, AND BOTH THE FIRST AND FINAL ARC (INCLUDING THE ENDING) OF STRANGE PARADISE.

Although it never directly copied from other works, the 1969-70 soap opera Strange Paradise appears to have drawn inspiration from several classic works of Gothic fiction. Unlike its more famous cousin Dark Shadows (1966-71), which lifted most of its major plotlines from public-domain horror classics like Dracula and The Turn of the Screw with relatively few changes, the influence of other works on the plot and characters of Strange Paradise generally took a subtler form. Many of the early advertisements and articles promoting the serial compared its protagonist Jean Paul Desmond and villain Jacques Eloi des Mondes (both played by Colin Fox) to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde from the Robert Louis Stevenson novel, but--as Curt Ladnier has pointed out--there are only superficial similarities between the plot of the serial’s Maljardin arc and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, making the two works less similar than readers likely expected. Instead, the plot more closely resembles that of another, lesser-known story about a protagonist controlled by his evil counterpart: the 1963 Roger Corman/Vincent Price film The Haunted Palace, a loose adaptation of the H. P. Lovecraft novella The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.

The plot and characters of Strange Paradise have too much in common with those of The Haunted Palace to be mere coincidence. In particular, the character of Joseph Curwen and his characterization in the film strongly resemble the portrayal of Jacques Eloi des Mondes, enough to conclude that Curwen must have inspired his backstory and his interactions with the other characters. While it is likely that Lovecraft’s original 1927 novella The Case of Charles Dexter Ward also directly influenced the serial, there is stronger evidence for indirect influence by way of the film adaptation.

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward

The plot of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward shares a common theme with the Maljardin arc: the evil ancestor from the seventeenth century who returns from beyond the grave and assumes the identity of his lookalike descendant. In both cases, the ancestor was involved in the occult during his lifetime and reviled for his rumored diabolical activities. During his lifetime--which he used magic to prolong--Curwen practiced necromancy, tortured knowledge out of the people he resurrected before murdering them again, experimented on living people, and summoned the god Yog-Sothoth for assistance in his occult activities using spells from the Necronomicon. Two fellow warlocks named Simon Orne and Edward Hutchinson assisted him with his occult studies, and were both still alive when his descendant Charles Dexter Ward brought him back to life. In the early episodes of Strange Paradise’s Maljardin arc written by Ian Martin, Jacques is portrayed as the literal Devil: an accusation about which he often jokes. He has many supernatural abilities, including possession, manipulation of electricity, telekinesis, the ability to magically alter messages written in sand, and--most importantly--the ability to resurrect Jean Paul’s dead wife Erica (Tudi Wiggins), which is why he frees his spirit in the pilot. He has an interest in voodoo, although he himself does not appear to practice it and instead fears its power. Unlike Curwen, no accomplices of Jacques’ return from the dead in the Maljardin arc, although it is possible that Martin intended for the seventeenth-century witch Tarasca, an earlier incarnation of wealthy widow Elizabeth Marshall (Paisley Maxwell), to fulfill this role after possessing Elizabeth.[1]

But these occult matters are not the only common interest that Joseph Curwen and Jacques Eloi des Mondes share. Both character were involved in the more earthly evils of the slave trade. A merchant by trade, Curwen also bought and sold slaves, importing enormous numbers of enslaved people from Guinea into his hometown of Providence, Rhode Island in 1766. He sold few of them, however, and Lovecraft heavily implies that he used most of them in his experiments. The televised version of Strange Paradise never explicitly references slavery (although Jean Paul’s immortal servants Raxl (Cosette Lee) and Quito (Kurt Schiegl) are implied to be Jacques’ former slaves), but the non-canonical book series by Dorothy Daniels does on occasion. In the second book Island of Evil, Jean Paul lists “black gold, another name for the importation of slaves” along with piracy and brigandage as one of the sources of the des Mondes’ family fortune.[2] A flashback sequence in Island of Evil confirms the past enslavement of Raxl and Quito, as well as an African voodoo priest whom Jacques forces to turn Quito into a zombie: the closest event in the Strange Paradise expanded universe to Curwen’s experiments.

Both Jacques and Curwen also met their ends at the hands of locals. In The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, Ezra Weeden begins spying on Curwen because he suspects him of illegal activities including witchcraft. Eventually, he turns most of the prominent figures in Providence society against him and they band together to raid and destroy Curwen’s Pawtuxet farm. During the raid, Curwen dies for the first time, but only after devising a spell for his future resurrection. Likewise, in Strange Paradise, Jacques dies after the natives of Maljardin turn against him, although the trigger and cause of his death are different. When Jacques murders his wife, the princess Huaco, by pushing her off the island’s cliff, a group of natives including Raxl and the Conjure Man band together to kill Jacques using a conjure (voodoo) doll and silver pin. These weapons curse Jacques to throw himself from the cliff and keep his spirit "shackled to the Temple [of the Serpent, Raxl’s god]” until the day he tricks his descendant Jean Paul Desmond into removing the pin from the doll, thereby setting him free.

Jacques’ disappearing portrait from Strange Paradise Episode 12.

Also significantly, both The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and Strange Paradise give the evil ancestor’s portrait a prominent role in the plot. In both cases, this portrait hangs at the ancestor’s former residence and disappears either temporarily or permanently when he takes control of the man who resembles him. When Charles Dexter Ward is researching the history of Joseph Curwen, his sources lead him to an eighteenth-century townhouse at Orney Court in Ward’s hometown of Providence, Rhode Island, where Curwen settled after fleeing Salem, Massachusetts. He hires a restorator to restore the painting, has it moved to his study, and discovers some documents of Curwen’s hidden in the wall behind it. When he finally succeeds in resurrecting Curwen, the painting disintegrates into dust: an end which Curwen himself later meets. On Strange Paradise, Jacques’ oil painting sometimes disappears when he possesses Jean Paul, but the show is inconsistent about this cue from episode to episode.[3] In contrast to Curwen’s painting, Jacques’ portrait always returns after he leaves Jean Paul’s body and appears to be indestructible: when Jean Paul sets fire to Maljardin in Episode 65, the portrait survives and later re-appears in the attic at Jean Paul’s childhood home Desmond Hall in Episode 131.

In spite of these similarities, I should note that the method of resurrection differs from one work to the other. In Strange Paradise, Jacques achieves this by possessing Jean Paul: after Jean Paul frees him by removing the silver pin from the head of his effigy, Jacques’ spirit can enter and exit Jean Paul’s body at will. In The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, the title character literally resurrects Curwen, his great-great-great-grandfather, using his essential salts, after which Curwen murders him. Ward behaves as though Curwen has possessed him--he has the speech and manners of a man of the colonial period and knows extremely specific details about the history of Providence--but the pit above his right eye which Ward did not previously possess and the lack of the olive birthmark on Ward’s hip indicate a different body. When Jean Paul opens his casket in the pilot, he finds only the conjure doll and silver pin; the absence of Jacques’ body is never explained and could be for any number of reasons, which we shall not discuss here.

The Haunted Palace

A lobby card for The Haunted Palace asking the question, “What was the terrifying thing in the PIT that wanted women?” (Source)

In 1963, American International Pictures released The Haunted Palace, a loose adaptation of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward written by Charles Beaumont and directed by Roger Corman. Due to alleged executive meddling (a theme which should already be familiar to regular readers of this blog), the film was marketed as an adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe poem of the same name, which Vincent Price quotes throughout the film. In the adaptation process, Beaumont made many changes to the source material, the most notable of which was the decision to have Curwen breed human women with the elder god Yog-Sothoth, as alluded to on the lobby card above.[4]

Though an entertaining and visually enthralling film, most of the changes made to The Haunted Palace weaken the plot. In my opinion, Beaumont added too many Hollywood horror conventions during the adaptation process, which did not always work effectively considering the unconventional source material, not to mention left many plot holes unfilled. The dated and sleazy sexual angle which he added to the film makes the cosmic horror of Yog-Sothoth less cosmic and more carnal; whether this makes him more or less frightening depends on one’s personal opinion, but I feel it contradicts his otherworldly characterization in Lovecraft’s works. For the most part, the talents of the director and the actors (especially Price, who is fabulous as always) make up for these problems, but I prefer--and highly recommend--the far more faithful radio drama adaptation by the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society.

The most notable influence of The Haunted Palace on Strange Paradise comes from its characterizations of Charles Dexter Ward and Joseph Curwen. Despite many similarities with The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, the characterizations of both Jean Paul Desmond and Jacques Eloi des Mondes owe far more to the portrayals of the protagonist and villain in the The Haunted Palace than in its source material. In The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, neither Ward nor Curwen shows any romantic or sexual interest in women whatsoever.  Lovecraft’s Ward only cares about antiquities, the local history of Providence, and the story of his ancestor; at twenty-six, he is unmarried and either asexual or simply too absorbed in his studies to pursue any romantic or sexual partner. The sexual orientation of Lovecraft’s Curwen is just as much of a mystery: although he took Eliza Tillinghast as a wife during his lifetime and their union produced a daughter, theirs was an arranged marriage for the sake of elevating Curwen’s social status within Providence society.

Both Price’s Ward and his Curwen, in contrast, show a marked interest in women. While their marriage is never outright stated to be a love match, Ward and his wife Ann (Debra Paget) appear to feel mutual love and devotion and have enough chemistry to imply a mutual sexual attraction. Like a dark mirror of Ward, Curwen shows a marked interest in the sexual and sexualized domination of women. In The Haunted Palace, the people of Arkham consider him a threat primarily because he lures local women to his palace to use in his rituals. While possessing Ward, Price’s Curwen rapes Ann--whom he later offers to Yog-Sothoth as well--and resurrects his former mistress, Hester Tillinghast (Cathie Merchant), who assists him in his sorcery in the film’s climax. If Lovecraft’s Curwen never did any similar actions, he does not mention them in his novella.

In Strange Paradise, romantic and sexual desire for women motivates both Jean Paul and Jacques. Jean Paul resurrects his ancestor neither out of an obsession with his history (as in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward) nor by accident (as in The Haunted Palace), but because Jacques’ spirit promises that, if the recently widowed Jean Paul frees him, he will restore life to his beloved wife Erica (Tudi Wiggins). Many episodes show Jean Paul mourning her death and narrating a tape-recorded journal to her, and he obsesses over protecting her cryogenically-preserved corpse from danger. Jacques romantically pursues several female characters over the course of the Maljardin arc--including Erica, her sister Dr. Alison Carr (Dawn Greenhalgh), and the wealthy widow Elizabeth Marshall (Paisley Maxwell) and her 20-year-old daughter Holly (Sylvia Feigel)--and makes many sexual innuendos about them. After resurrecting Erica, she obeys Jacques as though he were her husband and assists him by murdering most of the guests on Maljardin. This makes her character’s role comparable to that of Hester in The Haunted Palace.[5]

On a more superficial note, neither Jacques nor Curwen wears a costume appropriate to his era of origin. In his portrait and in flashbacks, Jacques wears a side-parted 1960s hairstyle and clothing, including a doublet and lace collar and cuffs, more appropriate for the 1630s than the late 17th century when he lived (1660-1689, according to the plaque beneath his portrait). Similarly out of place, Curwen has short hair and a beard and wears a historically inaccurate lace bib in his portrait and in the prologue at the beginning of the film. Unlike the others, this similarity is almost certainly coincidental.

An even greater similarity, however, can be found in the scene forty-five minutes into the film where Curwen speaks to Charles through his portrait.The scene occurs after the second instance of Curwen possessing him, during which he unearths Hester’s coffin and has his fellow warlocks Simon Orne (Lon Chaney, Jr.) and Jabez Hutchinson (Milton Parsons) deliver it to his cellar laboratory. Ann catches him down there and he sends her away, still possessed by Curwen. When Curwen leaves his body, they have this conversation:

JC: (from painting) "Charles Dexter Ward…" CDW: "Leave me alone! LEAVE ME ALONE!" JC: "I will never leave you alone. Your blood is my blood, your mind is my mind, your body is my body. It will do you no good to resist me. Your efforts grow weaker every day." CDW: "No! NO!" JC: "You cannot keep me out, Ward. My will is too strong." (he possesses Ward again) "Too strong for you, Ward. Too strong for you."

Similarly, most episodes from the Maljardin arc of Strange Paradise feature at least one scene where Jean Paul communicates with Jacques’ disembodied spirit, represented by his portrait. In some scenes, they use a shot of the portrait hanging in the Great Hall; other times, they superimpose Jacques’ painted face over that of his identical descendant. One of the earliest examples of Jacques referring to them as one comes in Episode 5, when he taunts Jean Paul about his attraction to Alison. “She’s so delectable a woman. How could I--you--we--ever resist or let her go?” he says, snickering throughout. During another such conversation in Episode 27, Jacques refers to Jean Paul’s body as “our body” and commands him to rest because he is tired. In still another scene ten episodes later, he complains to Jean Paul that he is “waiting for the use of our body” as Jean Paul begs him not to “enter”; the dialogue in the scene has undertones suggestive of fantasy-metaphor rape, which Jacques’ sickeningly sweet tone of voice underscores. These are only a handful of examples of the recurring theme of Jacques viewing Jean Paul’s body as his own and seeking to dominate it completely.

Comparison of a shot of Joseph Curwen glowering in front of his portrait with a similar one of Jean Paul glowering in front of the portrait of Jacques from Strange Paradise Episode 41.

Surprisingly, unlike in the novella, Curwen's portrait does not disintegrate when he possesses Ward. As Strange Paradise eventually started doing with Jacques’ portrait, Curwen’s portrait remains hanging until the end of the film, when it burns along with the rest of the palace (which begs the question of how it is even physically possible for stone to burn). Jacques’ portrait meets the same apparent end when Jean Paul sets fire to the château and flees Maljardin, but later returns to him at Desmond Hall, seemingly undamaged by the flames. It does not vanish for good until the final week of the show (Episodes 191-195), when a group of characters force him out of it by rubbing his brother’s ashes on his eyes and lips; this drives him out of the painting and into Jean Paul’s body, which he leaves at the end of the penultimate episode.[6]

Still another similarity comes from what is, in my opinion, Beaumont’s most ingenious change to the plot: the implication that all the human townspeople in 19th-century Arkham are reincarnations of identical people from the previous century, not just the necromancers. The same actors even portray their descendants: for example, Leo Gordon plays both Ezra and Edgar Weeden, and Frank Maxwell portrays both Dr. Marinus Willett and his ancestor Priam. Implied reincarnation figures heavily in the original outline for Strange Paradise, with Jean Paul, his sister-in-law Alison Carr, and the young heiress Holly Marshall all having dreams about previous lives on 17th-century Maljardin. Much like Jacques who possesses his descendant, Holly’s mother Elizabeth Marshall may have also been possessed by her previous incarnation, the native priestess Tarasca, under this outline, as foreshadowed in the clips in this video. The second Desmond Hall arc (Episodes 131-195), likewise, involves reincarnation from past ancestors (including the return of Jacques), but this final arc otherwise shares little in common with either The Case of Charles Dexter Ward or its adaptation.

Conclusion

There is strong evidence that Strange Paradise drew inspiration from both The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and The Haunted Palace for the story about Jean Paul Desmond’s possession by Jacques Eloi des Mondes. We see elements from both the book and its first film adaptation in the serial: Ian Martin’s characterization of Jacques, the possession, and the talking portrait owe more to the film, while the disappearing portrait and certain elements of Jacques’ backstory are more reminiscent of Lovecraft’s original novella. Despite this inspiration, Ian Martin added many other elements to the story of Maljardin that were not present in either work, including the conjure doll and silver pin, the strange circumstances surrounding Erica’s death, and secondary protagonist Holly’s pursuit by several male characters and victimization by a mysterious spirit. The result is a serial combining the plots of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and its adaptation with original ideas to create a unique and--yes--strange new story.

Notes

[1] For more information on the aborted Tarasca storyline, see “The Secret of Tarasca“ and the section of my review of Episode 40 titled “The Lost Episode 40.”

[2] Dorothy Daniels, Island of Evil (New York: Paperback Library, 1970), p. 45.

[3] The Paperback Library novels do not just portray this consistently, but portray the other characters as seeing an empty frame while Jacques is controlling Jean Paul’s body. See also my review of Episode 15.

[4] For an in-depth plot comparison, see the blog post “The Films of Charles Dexter Ward” by Fake Geek Boy.

[5] According to an early newspaper summary for Episode 35, Tarasca would have endangered the life of Jean Paul’s love interest Alison, also shows some signs of possible influence by this subplot. See also this video.

[6] Many of the events of the final month of Strange Paradise are unclear and/or unexplained, so this interpretation should be taken with a grain of salt.

[joanielspeak]

Hey, I love your writing! I really admire how precisely you write a character's feelings. I wanted to ask what your influences are writing-wise

Hello Anon, thanks so much, and I appreciate your ask! 

Influences. Geez. I take Ray Bradbury’s approach to writing and let everything I read or watch influence me, from classic literature to B movies to abandoned business cards found on a subway car. I don't know if that’s good or bad. It’s probably more confusing than anything.

I’m assuming you’ve read a little of Unhitched and that’s what you are wondering about. That ridiculous undertaking actually started as a writing exercise. I was trying to discover my own style and it was originally supposed to be crack. Unhitched gave me an outlet to explore the more artistic side of writing after I’d learned a lot of the technical aspects in the half a million words I wrote prior to starting it.

Over the course of the three (!) years I’ve been writing it, I’ve let a lot of authors influence my style, mainly as I was doing a lot of research, learning the “rules” of writing. You can’t break rules without learning them first and classics are classics for a reason. Since Hopper is a bibliophile, I had to read to keep up with him. He talks a lot about books – Alice in Wonderland, Sirens of Titan, Brave New World, even Peter Pan – and if you’ve read any Kurt Vonnegut, I call back to quite a few of Vonnegut’s books or characters in the early chapters. I can’t say anything in Unhitched is even remotely Vonnegut in style, but I do appreciate Vonnegut’s frank, brusque humor. It makes my heart cough and sing and cough again.

By about mid-2018, readers started commenting more often and some were comparing Unhitched to other novels they had read. From Anthony Burgess's A Clock Work Orange to Jack Kerouac’s On The Road. Someone mentioned a scene reminding them of a play and another mentioned a mystery author. 

After a bout with writer’s block, I ended up reading On The Road to get that traveling feeling again and it sent me on a Beat Generation binge. I read anything I could from William S Burroughs (whose influence will pop up later in Unhitched) and Ginsberg’s poems. That’s all mid-20th century American literature which plopped me back in Vonnegut territory and rummaging through stacks of old sci-fi. I really appreciate the original sci-fi greats – Shelley, Huxley, Orwell, H.G. Wells and Lovecraft; the sci-fi writers who were more atmosphere driven (Philip K Dick) or emotion driven (Ray Bradbury). All consumed with great haste. These authors have greatly influenced my next big project titled Charm City, which will be released (hopefully) in the coming year. It's already 180k words and what I have been working on while Unhitched is on hiatus.

So those are the authors who influence my style. But there is a whole host of other junk that weasels its way into my stories – art I see (I write about some of it in my chapter notes), or music I listen too. And for Hopper, I had to do a lot of research into philosophy. His whole arc is just a self flagellating circle jerk of sorts. Think Nietzsche or Kant. Philosophy sieved through the jumbled up grey matter of a sexually confused, rabid bunny rabbit with a budding hero complex.

Also, the whole fic is set in the 70s, of course, so I use a lot of crap Freud and Jung when Butcher speaks because A. I like making his character seem high and mighty when everything he says is just psychobabble; and B. that was what everyone was discussing in the field of psychology. We are talking the age of lithium and lobotomies. Sanitariums were still a thing, especially when Hop would have been growing up.

A lot of my best sections come from my own interpretation of old asylum stories either found online or told to me by the members of my family who spent time in sanitariums in the 50s, 60s or 70s. They were wild times. Anyway, I hope that even remotely answers your question. ❤️

[practicallynonsensical]

Some of my Favorite Movie/TV Releases of 2020

(in no order)

The Invisible Man 

“Adrian was brilliant. But it wasn’t because of anything he invented, it was how he got in people’s heads.”

I May Destroy You (HBO Series)

“Nobody gives a fuck that it's a mistake, Terry. We all make those. Do we make deceitful, destructive, narcissistic, sick, inconsiderate mistakes?”

Charm City Kings

“People like us don't get no second chances, Mouse. Just promise me you're going to do right.”

The Lodge

“God is punishing us for what we did.”

The Old Guard

“We don’t get a say on how it ends, we never have. But we can control how we live.”

Swallow

“Are you happy, or are you pretending to be happy?”

The Wilds (Amazon Series)

“It was protection, she was throwing herself in front of the world for me.”

Spree

“Hey, guys. What's up? It's Kurt here from Kurt's World.”

The Outsider (HBO Series)

“If I believe something to be true, then I have to deliver that truth no matter what.”

We Are Who We Are (HBO Series)

“Surprise, I exist out of your mind.”

Honorable Mentions: 

Lovecraft Country, The Assistant, Uncle Frank, Unpregnant, Uncorked, Miss Juneteenth 

My Letterboxd  | My Twitter

[revelation19]

So I don’t think I mentioned it on here, but last year I undertook the challenge to read 100 books in a year. I figured I’d drop the list of books that I read here. Almost all of them were good books that I’d encourage you to read. It’s a pretty wide range of topics. Some Sci-Fi, some Fantasy, some History, some Politics, some Economics, some Philosophy, some Theology, etc. 

-Starship Troopers — Robert Heinlein

-Foundation — Isaac Asimov

-Herman Bavinck on Preaching and Preachers— James Eglinton

-Foundation and Empire — Isaac Asimov

-Second Foundation — Isaac Asimov

-Left, Right, & the Prospects for Liberty — Murray N. Rothbard

-Democracy: The God That Failed — Hans Herman Hoppe

-The Forever War — Joe Halderman

-Forever Free — Joe Halderman

-Wolverine, Volume 3: Wolverine’s Revenge — Jason Aaron

-Slaughterhouse-Five — Kurt Vonnegut

-A Separate War — Joe Halderman

-Foundation’s Edge — Isaac Asimov

-The Prince — Niccolò Machiavelli

-Nemesis — Isaac Asimov

-Citizen of the Galaxy — Robert Heinlein

-Hatching Twitter: A True Sotry of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal — Nick Bilton

-Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep — Phillip K. Dick

-The Religious Life of Theological Students — B.B. Warfield

-Out of the Silent Planet — C.S. Lewis

-The Great Divorce — C.S. Lewis

-Behold a Pale Horse — William Milton Cooper

-Confessions of an Economic Hitman — John Perkins

-The Abolition of Man — C.S. Lewis

-Geerhardus Vos: Reformed Biblical Theologian , Confessional Presbyterian — Danny Olinger

-Foundation and Earth — Isaac Asimov

-Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God — Jonathan Edwards

-A River in Darkness: One Man’s Escape from North Korea — Masaji Ishikawa

-Annihilation — Jeff Vandermeer

-Authority — Jeff Vandermeer

-Acceptance — Jeff Vandermeer

-Commentary on 1 Corinthians — John Calvin

-Education, Christianity, and the State — J. Gresham Machen

-Machinery of Freedom: Guide to Radical Capitalism — David Friedman

-The Federal Reserve Conspiracy — Anthony Sutton

-A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy — Miyamoto Musashi

-Apology — Plato

-Odd and the Frost Giants — Neil Gaiman

-The Universe in a Nutshell — Stephen Hawking

-Prelude to Foundation — Isaac Asimov

-Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Il — Michael Malice

-America before: The Key to Earth’s Lost Civilization — Graham Hancock

-The New Right: A Journey to the Fringe of American Politics — Michael Malice

-The Enchiridion — Epictetus

-The Punisher MAX, Vol 1: In the Beginning — Garth Ennis

-The Machieavellians: Defenders of Freedom — James Burnham

-End the Fed — Ron Paul

-Serenity: Those Left Behind — Joss Whedon

-Ego and Hubris: The Michael Malice Story — Harvey Pekar

-The Art of War — Sun Tzu

-A Renegade History of the United States — Thaddeus Russell

-The Prose Edda — Snorri Sturluson

-My Hero Academia, #1 — Kohei Horikoshi

-My Hero Academia, #2 — Kohei Horikoshi

-Tokyo Ghoul, Tome 1 — Sui Ishida

-Selections from the Table Talk of Martin Luther — Martin Luther

-Animal Farm — George Orwell

-Pointiac: The Life and Legacy of the Famous Native American Chief — Charles River Editors

-Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Project that Brought Nazi Scientists to America — Annie Jacobsen

-Neuromancer — William Gibson

-The Last Wish — Andrzej Sapkowski

-Sword of Destiny — Andrzej Sapkowski

-Better Days and Other Stories — Joss Whedon

-The Stranger — Albert Camus

-Christianity and Liberalism — J. Gresham Machen

-Count Zero — William Gibson

-Blood of Elves — Andrzej Sapkowski

-Tokyo Ghoul 2 — Sui Ishida

-The World That Couldn’t Be — Clifford Simak

-The Austrian Theory of the Trade Cycle and Other Essays — Richard Ebeling

-Anarchy — Errico Malatesta

-Anarchism and Other Essays — Emma Goldman

-No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority — Lysander Spooner

-Propaganda and Control of the Public Mind — Noam Chomsky

-The Time of Contempt — Andrzej Sapkowski

-The Communist Manifesto — Karl Marx

-Mona Lisa Overdrive — William Gibson

-The Metamorphosis — Franz Kafka

-The Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Love — Augustine

-The Structure of Scientific Revolutions — Thomas Kuhn

-The Dunwich Horror — H.P. Lovecraft

-The Machine Stops — E.M. Forster

-Rip Van Winkle — Washington Irving

-The Screwtape Letters — C.S. Lewis

-Self-Reliance — Ralph Waldo Emmerson

-Perspectives on Pentecost — Richard B. Gaffin Jr.

-Wanted: 7 Fearless Engineers! — Orlin Tremaine

-Norse Mythology — Neil Gaiman

-The Whole Armor of God: How Christ’s Victory Strengthens Us for Spiritual Warfare — Iain Duguid

-Bushcraft 101: A Field Guide to the Art of Wilderness Survival — Dave Canterbury

-God With Us: Divine Condescension and the Attributes of God — K. Scott Oliphint

-Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West — Cormac McCarthy

-Why I Believe in God — Cornelius Van Til

-Paul at Athens — Cornelius Van Til

-Astrphysics for People in a Hurry — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

-Real Dissent: A Libertarian Sets Fire to the Index Card of Allowable Opinion — Thomas E. Woods Jr.

-City of Glass — Paul Auster

-The Articles of Confederation — Continental Congress

-The Temptation of Our Lord — John Bale

-Fool’s Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan — Scott Horton

[roses-ruby]

5, 14, and 46 if you don't mind. I know you've mentioned at least Mary Shelley before but I want to know more!

5. Books or authors that influenced your style the most.

Tons and tons I don’t think I can name them all idkk I love how Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, I still obsess over it. Edgar Allen Poe is a personal favorite, he’s a genius also kinda psychic. Kurt Vonnegut makes me feel like no one else. I love how much of a shit Kate Chopin does not give. HP Lovecraft, Ambrose Bierce, hell even Algernon Blackwood are legends. Maya Angelou is so powerful, every word is pure gold. OMG Haruki Murakami and his STORIES AAAHHH and I’m gonna stop here oof

14. What’s the most research you ever put into a book?

Obscure Twilight definitely~ I deep dived into Victorian culture and there are SO many fucking references. I reread Frankenstein because OF COURSE. It is pure 100% how life was in the Victorian era and I’m so proud of it. I even used a bit of Shakespearean era references for reasons I cannot disclose (spoilers!) A friend of mine who had a special studies course (?) in the Victorian era (she was obsessed with it) said she was going to read it and I was so happy that I would get a professional opinion on my assignment basically shkhaka but then let’s just say we’re not on talking terms anymore and I hope she can stop lying and playing the victim for pity :) sigh I still want another expert’s opinion 🤧 someone who’s honest with her friends this time hakhskahj anyWAY

46. What would your story _______ look like as a tv show or movie?

I’ll try them all since it wasn’t specified!

CHTMD - A season long Kdrama where the OC learns self love through each episode. The first three or four episodes of sad Kdramas are especially terrible to watch so ya’ll are gonna cry while OC mourns herself! Imagine the end of episode 1 where OC is going to deliver Jimin pizza just for her to quietly stumble on her husband and his mistress fucking and then bam it has that stupid flare effect and a melodramatic song plays🤧

Bunny Cam - A 2 hour movie that is built like the series YOU but instead of Jungkook flaking from one woman to another, he’s just lovesick over OC and everything she embodies for two hours and decides to get rid of anyone else in his way as his proposal to her. And she accepts ofc. 

Devil’s Fair Share - This really gives me Fatal Attraction vibes or basically every thriller Sharon Stone played in the 90s. A 90s thriller definitely. 

Obscure Twilight - This basically IS a movie. I have it set up like one SERIOUSLY. It’s supposed to feel long and drawn especially on paper. It’s based off of Freddie Kruger so kind of an 80′s horror. Except it has many influences from Candy Man so there’s also THAT. It’d be a huge occult hit~ 

DOAN - Something sad. I can see it being like an hour long movie. An erotic angst. While Speak Softly Love by the Godfather plays in the background the whole time.

CMLT - A hip 90′s TV show! Quirky, lovable characters, college life, too many couples AU. Everyone’s got a thing going on. OC and Namjoon being apart of the popular kids and just getting into shenanigans with their other popular friends the SeokBitches, Sana, Yoongi and a few others. Their relationship going through trials and tribulations but they always make it back together again uwu It was super popular but got cancelled after just two seasons because of network drama

[unmourned-unremembered]

I finally had the chance to see Barry Jenkins' adaptation of If Beale Street Could Talk yesterday and loved it. I'm both a film buff and an avid reader so I'm subject to the irritating snobbery of both where screen adaptations of books are concerned, and this film is the rarest kind of experience for someone like me: the unique satisfaction of seeing a gorgeous and very faithful film adaptation of a much loved book. It got me thinking about how rare this is and when exactly I can remember experiencing that surprise and elation watching other films based on books I liked. The following list is more reflective of my own tastes than any absolute measure of greatness but anyway, here goes.

John LeCarre', The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963)

Martin Ritt, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965)

My personal all-time favorite (although now perhaps my second favorite, after If Beale Street Could Talk) is this relatively little-known gem starring the great Richard Burton. I loved the novel and read it twice, once when I was around 10 or 11 years old and again a few years ago. It's a tremendous espionage novel and while it doesn't represent LeCarre's style at its most refined (see the next entry for that), it's a great introduction to what makes his books so engaging. They're unflinchingly realistic and pay very close attention to the actual tradecraft of spying, which you would expect from a writer who was a British secret agent in real life. The film manages to capture so much of the flavor of the source material, and a great performance by Burton translates the internal thought processes of the main character in all their subtlety. In my favorite scene, Burton's character sees a news article about himself in a London paper and realizes his cover's blown and he's completely screwed. You can see all of that registering on Burton's face in a single shot.

John LeCarre', Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1974)

John Irvin, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (BBC TV miniseries, 1979)

Some writers are luckier than others. I was completely absorbed by LeCarre's rich and detailed account of British intelligence officer George Smiley's hunt for a highly placed Soviet mole within MI6. I just couldn't put it down and I was TERRIBLY disappointed by the 2011 Tomas Alfredson adaptation, which conveyed none of the nuance or atmosphere of the book. It was a crass and irritating film that wasted several good performances, including an excellent turn by Gary Oldman as Smiley. I stayed away from the miniseries for years before my wife and I began it one morning, and we were so drawn in that we binged all seven episodes the same day. I could not have been happier with it. John Irvin's subdued and skilled direction allowed the performances to take the fore and moved the plot—the most important element in any LeCarre' book—accurately and addictively. Alec Guinness totally inhabited the role of Smiley, to the point that I'm now incapable of thinking of anyone else's face when I read LeCarre's other novels.

Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five (1969)

George Roy Hill, Slaughterhouse Five (1972)

Two things surprised me when my mom told me that she'd seen this movie and that it was good: 1) it exists; and 2) it’s a good movie despite being based on an unfilmable novel. Vonnegut's work hasn't had the best of experiences on the silver screen. The 1990s produced two highly regrettable adaptations of great Vonnegut novels: the awful Nick Nolte Mother Night directed with zero flair by ham-and-egger Keith Gordon and the risible Breakfast of Champions starring Bruce Willis and directed by some guy named Alan Rudolph. Given that both of those books had vastly simpler narrative structures than Slaughterhouse Five, the fact that George Roy Hill's film is effective is really a testament to his skill. With the nearly unknown Michael Sacks anchoring a cast of other 1970s no-names and small-timers, this is a surprisingly affecting and satisfying film for a fan of the novel. Its odd time shifts and alien abductions/interactions are done very well, albeit without nudity. It's not considered a career highlight for Hill but it really should be. He stuck the film treatment equivalent of the triple axel.

George Orwell, 1984 (1949)

Michael Radford, 1984 (1984)

1984 is another novel that I read first in childhood and then again much later, in around 2004, at the height of the war in Iraq when my hatred of the US government under George W. Bush was at its apex. I remember not being able to connect with the experience of Winston Smith on the first reading, when I took the book to be a pretty straight-up criticism of the Soviet Union (still in existence at the time…). The paranoia and dystopian insanity of the Bush era, with its baleful exhortations to patriotic fervor and national unity and demands for submission to an ever-expanding police state, made the second reading a surreal one. I totally identified with Smith's alienation and the book worked for me in a whole new way. I stayed away from the screen version for a long time. I just didn't see how it would be possible to render the novel faithfully in visual form when so much of it takes place inside Smith's head. Radford did a remarkable job. Oceania's oppressive visuals bring Orwell's descriptions to stunning life, and the casting could not have been better with John Hurt as Winston Smith and Richard Burton as O'Brien. The largely unsung Cyril Cusack is also great as Charrington. In a point of trivia, he also plays Richard Burton's boss in the above-mentioned Martin Ritt The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and is part of James Mason's IRA cell in Carol Reed's Odd Man Out. Great British character actor.

Honorable mentions:

James M. Cain, Double Indemnity (1943) / Billy Wilder, Double Indemnity (1944)

James M. Cain, The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934) / Tay Garrett, The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)

James M. Cain, Mildred Pierce (1941) / Michael Curtiz, Mildred Pierce (1945) / Todd Haynes, Mildred Pierce (HBO miniseries, 2011)

Mary Shelly, Frankenstein (1818) / Kenneth Branagh, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994)

H.P. Lovecraft, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (1927) / Dan O'Bannon, The Resurrected (1991)

H.G. Wells, The Time Machine (1895) / George Pal, The Time Machine (1960) / Simon Wells and Gore Verbinski, The Time Machine (2002)

H.G. Wells, War of the Worlds (1897) / Byron Haskin, War of the Worlds (1953) / Steven Spielberg, War of the Worlds (2005)

[jakey-beefed-it]

12: Who is your favorite author?

That’s actually... an extremely difficult question for me. How about one per major genre that I read? Bearing in mind that my SF&F choices are always in fluxFantasy: Brandon Sanderson at the moment. Both Rothfuss books have been good so far, but he’d need to write more for me to declare him a favorite. Been meaning to read more N. K. Jemisin, too (only read one book of hers so far; was good).Sci-Fi: David Brin, probably. Never read a book of his I didn’t like at least a little. Other SF authors vary a lot more between ‘holy shit this is amazing’ and ‘god damn it, Bob, you went full libertarian misogynist on this one’.Horror: Edgar Allan Poe. Honorable mentions to Matheson, Ligotti, Machen, and while Stephen King is very hit or miss, he’s so damn prolific that some of his stuff is ‘hit’ for me. Lovecraft is... I like a lot of his premises, and sometimes his writing is kinda spooky, but... jesus christ the real horror is what a virulent racist he is.'Literature’: Kurt Vonnegut, probably. Went through a Palahniuk phase as a young adult around the turn of the millennium and still am fond of aspects of his work but dear god have other people ruined that for me.‘Classics’: Chaucer or Shakespeare; I’m boring.

[kurtty-drabbles]

Nation au

N/A: Ever since I learned that Ultimate Jean was the leader of a nation, this idea blossom into my mind, now, this au is a bit different from the others as Kitty never joined the X-men.

@djinmer4 @dannybagpipesarecalling @sailorstar9 @discordsworld @look-ma-no-hands336

The ONU is a bit perplexed with the situation the mutants are causing, in a moment of desperation and to be at peace with Magneto, many global leaders give Genosha to him, of course, the land had nothing and the global leader was under the impression Magneto would make a house there and nothing more, how utterly wrong they are. Now, Genosha is a potency that is overshadowing the USA.

And now, to add salt to the injury, a new island appears out of nowhere, Gosmein, as many are calling, and is a first world place, not even most advanced Europeans countries can compete with this new island, that again, no one had any prior knowledge.

This island takes the poor, the hurt, the human and the mutant and is insulting to them as no one can see who the leader of the island is. There´s a higher command that obviously commands everything, yet, no one knows who it is.

And more and more mutants are crafting more powerful countries, which, is boosting the positive image of mutants that the Avengers so much wanted to prevent.

Jean Grey is now the leader of her own nation, in her own words, is a paradise on Earth, however, the new island, Gosmein, is a real beauty and a real mystery. Many countries wanted to know who the leader is and how to increase commercial deals with Gosmein.

"Who is the leader?" the new president of the US asked, the previous one was killed by an alien invasion and thankfully, the alien managed to kill all his entourage.

The Brazilian´s newest president is silent as trying to study the situation, they do have mutants and they need to value their own. The Brazilian mutants with light skin, with brown skin and the ones that may be aligned with LGBT groups.

"We need to know what´s going on with Gosmein" and soon a plan is asked, a diplomatic one, where a selected person will try to make contact with the leader. They decided already who will make contact.

"Minister Wagner" a man speaks with utter respect to the young man who is studying his notes diligently "you´re the best candidate for this case, please, would you accept this mission?" Kurt Wagner, the minister of Bavaria that is along with the chancellor of Germany offers a polite smile back and accept the mission.

No one notices the creepy smile on his handsome face. Time is relative to Kurt Wagner and he has all the reasons to go to Gosmein.

______________________________________________________ Gosmein is a wonderful place and has opening arms to humans and mutants, however, the leader is unknow. IT exists, but, IT presence can be felt.

Gosmein has beautiful green mountains, two beaches, a wild range of green and a lake that is connected to the ocean pacific. An idyllic place, so, perfects that the simple draw is not enough.

"Oh, the draw is so similar, but, childish" Kitty mutters to herself as she is now in Gosmein. Her parents weren´t thrilled to her decision, but, Kitty argues that this is the best decision for her, as she can never forget, Kitty is a mutant.

The draw did take attention of others mutants, one named Blink, watches and make a simple conversation. "Oh, did your little brother made the draw?"

Kitty blinks and shakes her head "No, I did when I was little, is a funny coincidence this island exists" the conversation changes to topics about mutants and their experience in the US. Some were good, some were bad.

No one is paying the draw any attention, but, no one pays attention to the big house in the draw that is exactly like the house in real life, this is where the leader stays.

_______________________________________________________________

Kitty Pryde also didn´t meet the leader, but, unlike the others, she´s alright with that. Her new house is a bit similar to the big house, the lonely one in the big picture of Gosmein.

"I´m here now...I´d hope Gosmein is just like I ever dream of" Kitty mutters to herself.

Her dreams are filled with hope for this place, so many ideas, but she has the impression someone is watching her in her own dream. Again.

[aion-rsa]

Stephen King: 10 Best Supernatural Villains

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Know the terror and madness of Stephen King's 10 greatest supernatural villains!

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The name Stephen King conjures up images of horrific creatures, monsters, places, and some of the most enduring villains in fiction. These are beings of unimaginable evil that test the limits of the protagonists' will to survive, and some of these villains have gone on to become almost as famous (or infamous) as the writer himself.

While many King villains are monsters of the human variety (serial killers, power hungry despots, nihilists, etc.), his most memorable are the supernatural ones who use their dark powers to twist the orderly world around them into chaos and pain.

Pennywise the Clown isn't the only monster you need to fear at night. King has created plenty of other horrific things that go bump in the night. Here are just a few of his best supernatural madmen and monsters...

10. Gage Creed and the Pet Sematary

Pet Sematary (1983)

“Don’t go beyond, no matter how much you feel you need to, Doctor. The barrier was not made to be broken. Remember this: there is more power here than you know. It is old and always restless. Remember.”

When Louis, Rachel, Eileen, and Gage Creed moved to Ludlow, Maine from Chicago, their cat Winston Churchill in tow, they wanted a peaceful new life in the more rural locale. What they got was a descent into death and madness almost unmatched in modern horror fiction. In the novel, the Creed cat is killed. Louis fears telling his daughter and buries the beloved pet at a nearby “Pet Sematary,” an old Micmac Indian burial ground. The cat returns home, much to Louis’ shock and delight, but it’s not the same friendly animal. It’s a listless, mean, half-alive creature that does not have a fondness for life.

Further Reading: Every Stephen King Film and TV Adaptation Currently in Development

When Gage is killed by a truck, overcome with despair, Louis buries his son in the Sematary. What comes back is a true horror of epic proportions. Gage is such a disturbing villain because he once existed as an object of purest affection. The once totally innocent soul is now corrupt and ridden with supernatural darkness. The Pet Sematary itself is rumored to once have been a burial place for cannibals, and the spirit of a Wendigo dwells in the soil.

Now, Gage is back with the most ancient of curses coursing where blood once flowed. Every father’s nightmare turned even darker. King felt the book was too dark even for him and shelved it until his wife, Tabitha, and his friend, the author Peter Straub, encouraged him to share his bleak vision of paternal loyalty with the world.

9. The Leatherheads

Under the Dome (2009)

“God turned out to be a bunch of bad little kids playing interstellar Xbox. Isn't that funny?”

Much more frightening than typical villains, the Leatherheads are an alien race responsible for the construction of the Dome that covers Chester’s Mill. They are in the same vein as H.P. Lovecraft’s cosmic horrors, beings much older and more powerful than humanity. The mere sight of them could drive a man mad. They are beings with the power of gods but no connection to or feelings for humanity. Just cold observers that exist on a different layer of reality.

The Leatherheads construct the Dome the same way a child makes an ant farm, out of a morbid curiosity to watch how lesser creatures exist. Their casual disregard for humanity makes them truly terrifying because, unlike some of King’s other antagonists, there is really no way to fight them.

The Leatherheads are mentioned in King’s chilling short story N., but it is in Under the Dome where readers get to experience the sheer paralytic terror that would occur if an alien species of ancient intelligence turned their attention towards our little backwater planet.

Read More: It Chapter Two Easter Eggs and Reference Guide

8. The Raggedy Man

Cell (2006)

“What Darwin was too polite to say, my friends, is that we came to rule the earth not because we were the smartest, or even the meanest, but because we have always been the craziest, most murderous motherfuckers in the jungle.”

Fans of The Walking Dead need to recognize. King does zombies too, and they are sphincter-tighteningly scary. In Cell, a pulse travels into cell phones all over the world. Anyone on their phone at the fateful moment is turned into a zombie. These villains are a different breed than the popular Romero clones, as the pulse also unlocks latent powers of the human mind like telepathy and levitation.

The Raggedy Man is the leader of the zombies. He thinks, organizes, and commands. He has all the nihilistic hunger of a zombie, but he has planning skills and foresight which make him a truly frightening antagonist. His goal is to spread his people around the globe and take the planet for his horde. He sees humanity as a threat to his people and seeks to destroy them to protect his new race, which could make him literature’s first sympathetic zombie villain. He is often seen wearing a crimson Harvard hoodie giving the creature an atypical zombie air of intelligence and capability.

The name of Harvard’s sports teams by the way? The Harvard Crimson. Well played Mr. King, well played.

Read More: How It Chapter Two Differs from the Book

7. Kurt Barlow

‘Salems Lot (1975)

“That above all else. They did not look out their windows. No matter what noises or dreadful possibilities, no matter how awful the unknown, there was an even worse thing: to look the Gorgon in the face.”

King’s only foray into vampires (the classic ones, anyway), Barlow was the writer’s way of getting the whole mythos right the first time. ‘Salems Lot was King’s second published novel and his first of many novels centering on the idea of a preternatural creature releasing the beast inside of regular people. It was also his first small town novel, a setting King would return to many times over the decades.

Barlow’s story mirrors that of Dracula, from the shipment of his coffin and native soil from overseas to his arrival and reign of terror in a contemporary setting. He even has his own personal Renfield, Richard Straker, his own gothic mansion, his own legion of dark minions, and a twisted grip on the residents of ‘Salems Lot.

Further Reading: 10 Best Stephen King Horror Novels

Barlow was more of a catalyst, using embraced residents as pawns to tighten his grip on the town, but his very presence on the page was accompanied with a sense of urgency and dread.

In a 1995 BBC radio drama of ‘Salems Lot (that is well worth seeking out), Barlow is played by Pinhead himself, Doug Bradley, which automatically gives the vampire tons of villain cred.

6. George Stark

The Dark Half (1989)

“Cut him. Cut him while I stand here and watch. I want to see the blood flow. Don't make me tell you twice.”

Stephen King once wrote under the pseudonym Richard Bachman and published some of his more experimental works like The Running Man, The Long Walk, and Thinner. His experience as somewhat existing as another person inspired King to write the Dark Half and inspired the creation of one of his most cold-blooded killers, George Stark. 

In the novel, Thad Beaumont was a successful author who wrote violent crime novels under the pen name of George Stark. After revealing to the world he was actually Stark, Thad and his wife stage a mock funeral for the author to symbolically cut ties with the violent crime fiction Beaumont wanted to leave behind. This is where King brings the terror.

Further Reading: Stephen King's 10 Most Terrifying Human Villains

The novel started with a flashback that dealt with the removal of an eye from the brain of a young Thad. It was the eye of a twin that was conjoined in the womb to the writer, an incident Thad had all but forgotten about. It was actually the eye of George Stark, who later rises from the mock grave the Beaumonts planted him in to go on a killing spree that leaves even the most seasoned reader with PTSD.

Stark is the embodiment of the darkness in the hearts of all men. The most frightening part of the book is that, even though Beaumont is desperate to rid the world of Stark, part of him is attracted to the freedom evil gives Stark and the realization that the evil is a part of him.

5. Rose the Hat

Doctor Sleep (2013)

“She's the Queen Bitch of Castle Hell. If you mess with her, she'll eat you alive.”

Rose the Hat, an immortal energy vampire from the 18th century and the leader of a cult of killers known as the True Knot, is one of King's scariest villains to date. Manipulative, ethereal, beautiful, and hungry for the "steam" -- psychic energy -- that keeps her and her band alive, Rose will whatever it takes for her next meal, even if it means torturing little children and killing them. 

In Doctor Sleep, the sequel to King's The Shining, Rose becomes obsessed with hunting down Abra Stone, a young girl with a powerful Shine, which puts her at the top of the True Knot's list of potential food sources. Rose hatches a plan to kidnap Abra, but the girl proves elusive, especially after she teams up with Dan Torrance, a survivor of the horrors of the Overlook Hotel with his own Shine. Together, along with some help from some friends and one surprise guest from the afterlife, Dan and Abra are able to fight back against Rose and the True Knot.

But the road to the end of the book is soaked in blood, as Rose claims victim after victim. She might not look like a monster but Rose is as monstrous as they come. 

4. The Overlook Hotel

The Shining (1977)

“This inhuman place makes human monsters.”

If there is one thing King’s constant readers have learned after decades of nightmares is that places can be as evil as people, an idea that is personified in the Overlook Hotel, the setting of The Shining. On the surface, The Shining is a classic haunted house tale, but beneath the surface, it is so much more. It is a deep look into the fragility of fatherhood, the bond of trust between father and son. As Danny Torrance, the psychic child who journeys to a secluded Colorado hotel with his caretaker father and loving mother discovers when the father he trusted is transformed in a raging madman by the power within the Overlook.

Further Reading: How The Shining Examines the Immortality of Evil

The novel’s most riveting sections feature past accounts of other times that the Overlook weaved its dark magic, transforming good men into monsters. The walls of the Overlook can barely contain the rage within the heart of the hotel, and as The Shining plays out, readers discover just how corrupt the place is. Make no mistake, it may not have arms to swing an ax, or legs to chase down its victims, but the Overlook is a hungry sort of evil that demands to be fed. Just try staying at a Motel 6 after reading King’s classic. I dare you.

3. The Crimson King 

Insomnia (1994), Black House (2001), The Dark Tower series

“I am the Eater of Worlds.”

The Crimson King is often mistaken for It, and it is not completely clear if they are the same monster, but the regality and level of reverence the King’s minions hold for him seem to suggest that he is different than the sewer-dwelling eater of children. This beast is the embodiment of evil in King’s shared fictional universe. He is first introduced in Insomnia, where he tries to kill a child prophesied to topple the rule of the King forever.

The King is later revealed as the monster behind the events of the novel Black House, and he is the overarching villain of the Dark Tower series, the monster responsible for trying to bring down the structure of reality.

Further Reading: A Reading Guide to the Stephen King Dark Tower Universe

Stephen King suggests that all his villains, supernatural or otherwise, are pawns of the Crimson King. The name itself carries some great metatextual flavor as, of course, Stephen King himself is the one truly responsible for the evil in his worlds. The half of the writer that creates and is responsible for these horrific monsters is also named King. Stephen King is the writer, father, husband, and Red Sox fan. The Crimson King is the dark overlord of the fictional universe and the monster maker.

2. Pennywise the Dancing Clown

It (1986)

"Float?" The clown’s grin widened. "Oh yes, indeed they do. They float! And there’s cotton candy..."George reached.The clown seized his arm.And George saw the clown’s face change.

Every twenty-seven years It rises to devour the children of Derry. It awoke when a homosexual couple was beaten by a gang of thugs in 1984 to again reign terror on the children of Derry. It was put to rest by the Losers Club, a group of misfit teens, in 1958 only to rise again, decades later. It killed the leader of the Losers’ (Bill Denbrough) little brother in one of the most hair-raising prologues in horror history.  

It is another of King’s manipulator villains, as It controls the darker residents of Derry, such as bully Henry Bowers to do Its bidding. It is a cannibalistic clown that lives in the sewers, a leprous mummy, a giant spider, or a series of orange lights called the Dead Lights that drive people mad when gazed upon.

Unlike the similar creature, the Crimson King, It does not commit evil for glory or power. It devours because It hungers. The lives of innocents exist only to fill the void of It's being. And let’s face it, nothing, NOTHING is freakin’ scarier than a hungry clown in a sewer.

Read More: It Chapter Two Ending Explained

1. Randall Flagg

The Stand (1978) Eyes of the Dragon (1986) Hearts in Atlantis (1999) The Dark Tower series

“My life for you.”

Not so much a single villain, but the archetype of all villains, Randall Flagg is King’s greatest singular creation of evil. Flagg first appeared in The Stand, the Dark Man who gathers the worst of humanity to rebuild a new civilization in his own dark image. The Walkin’ Dude had a propensity for crucifying any whose beliefs ran contrary to his.

Flagg is the greatest of King’s manipulators, able to inspire loyalty in those with dark hearts, as seen by the Trashcan Man in The Stand and even Mother Carmody in The Mist. All they have to do is say “My life for you,” and mean it, and Flagg will be there to inspire their dark deeds.

He was revealed to be the main antagonist to Roland in the Dark Tower series and is the ever-present evil in all men. Flagg is walking the back roads of reality just waiting for a chance to whisper in humanity’s ear and stir up some good, old fashioned chaos.

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Feature

TV

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Marc Buxton

Nov 11, 2019

Stephen King

Horror Movies

from Books https://ift.tt/2ZWR727

[hermanwatts]

Sensor Sweep: Wanderer’s Necklace, A. Bertram Chandler, Hyperborea RPG

Anime (Kairos): Contrary to many anime fans’ hopes, the fanatical, totalitarian Cult that’s usurped pop culture isn’t letting a little thing like an ocean get in the way of their conquest. Funimation, the American dubbing and distribution house that made news last year thanks to a defamation lawsuit brought against them by voice actor Vic Mignogna, now has a seat on the production committee of three anime series slated for 2020.

Fiction (DMR Books): Haggard wrote many different types of stories, which Deuce groups into the category of “exotic adventure stories,” a label that works as well as any. Among his stories were the Icelandic Saga-inspired Eric Brighteyes, and the Viking historical adventure The Wanderer’s Necklace (1914). While we don’t have much evidence that writers like Fritz Leiber or Michael Moorcock themselves read Icelandic Saga (though both have cited the influence of Norse mythology on their works, and we do know that Robert E. Howard read at least one of the Sagas as early as 1926).

SFWA (This Way to Texas): Tempest Bradford jump started the hate campaign against me, then Jim Hines jumped in. Bradford is Joe Goebbels to Nora Jemisin, who’s basically turned the SFWA into her own self-promotion racket, just like Tor Books turned the Hugo awards into its own little scheme. Hines is the same to John Scalzi, who is the single person the most responsible for the politicization of the SFWA. Most recently, Teresa Neilsen-Hayden jumped into the fray.

Fiction (Strange at Ecbatan): Today would http://rrhorton.blogspot.com/2020/03/birthday-review-stories-of-bertram.htmlhave been Arthur Bertram Chandler’s 108th birthday. He was born in England, became a seaman and eventually settled in Australia. He started writing SF in the 1940s. By the ’60s he was producing novels at a high rate, many of them about a spaceship captain named John Grimes. Here’s a look at a few of his early stories, and one 1967 Ace Double.

Review (Don Herron): When I was young I read everything I could find on ancient civilizations. Edith Hamilton, with her books on the great mythological hero-warriors, only furthered my desire to read of fabled, half-forgotten kingdoms that never were, but should have been. So, around 1966, when I discovered Robert E. Howard and Conan through the Lancer paperbacks, it was apparent to my youthful mind that truly I had been born at the right time.

Robert E. Howard (John C. Wright): Jewels of Gwahlur is neither the best nor the worst of the Conan Canon, but is somewhere in the middle. There is little to make it stand out from the other Conan stories, aside, perhaps, from the number of unexpected turns of the plot. There is a web of deception, with the deceivers being deceived in turn. Conan prevails due to his catlike stealth and lionlike courage more than his cunning wit — which he also uses. The side of the mighty Cimmerian on display in this yarn is the pilfering scoundrel rather than the barbarian mercenary or world-weary king.

Robert E. Howard (Adventures Fantastic): In a letter to Lovecraft from October 1931, Howard relates the story of Mrs. Crawford, a woman who survived a Comanche raid, and whom he knew that shows up in both of these women’s characters, and even in details in BBR involving other plot points. Again, the telling starts off with a restatement of the savage fighting history in the area of Texas between the two rivers.

Comic Books (Tentaculii): Back Issue! #121 (due in two months, 10th June 2020) is in Previews, and will be a special issue on Conan and similar in the comics. Includes among other items…the 50th anniversary of Roy Thomas’s Conan #1, the Bronze Age barbarian boom, top 50 Marvel Conan stories, Marvel’s not-quite Conans (from Kull to Skull), Joining Roy Thomas are Kurt Busiek, Ernie Colon, Chuck Dixon, Mike Grell, Ron Randall, Dann Thomas, Timothy Truman, Marv Wolfman, and many more.

Review (DMR Books): Although DC certainly followed suit once this successful formula became codified. Will Murray’s Tarzan, Conqueror of Mars is such a crossover event, which has been a hundred plus years in the making. Murray’s novel is a classic fish out of water tale, which slowly builds up steam, culminating in two Edgar Rice Burroughs protagonists, Lord Greystoke and John Carter, locked in a collision course. Conqueror is basically an Edgar Rice Burroughs universe crossover story in the tradition of Marvel Team Up or DC Comics Presents.

Fiction (Pulp Archivist): The Kickstarter for Jim Breyfogle’s Mongoose and Meerkat as now live. He’s a bit of a bravo, ready to knock a few heads for some coin. She’s a mysterious wanderer with more than her share of street-smarts and a head for ancient history. Together, the Mongoose and the Meerkat are a pair of rogues looking for coin to keep their bellies and wine skins filled and are sure to appeal to fans of classic Sword & Sorcery. This volume collects Kat and Mangos’ first five adventures with illustrations by the incredibly talented DarkFilly and is available in four formats.

RPG (Jeffro’s Space Gaming Blog): Well I don’t think I have ever run AD&D before unless you count that one disastrous attempt to run “Roarwater Caves” from Dungeon Magazine issue #15 a long, long time ago. Times have changed! With many years spent studying the ancient texts and an all star crew of players on hand, now was a great time to seize hold of gaming dreams from another time.

Pulp (Karavansara): What happened was this: Pro Se Productions, a publisher so reckless they even publish my stories (I mentioned Explorer Pulp a few days back, but there’s more), apparently went and licensed forty-two characters that were intended to form the stable of a little-known pulp magazine publisher based in St Louis, Missouri, a fly-by-night publishing company that was born and fizzed out in a matter of a few months, back in ’38. And I say “were intended” because the whole thing was over before it began, transitioning in the blink of an eye from the newsstands to the hazy memory of footnotes in pulp-collectors’ fanzines.

Cosplay (Tellers of Weird Tales): I noted in July last year that 2019 was the 80th anniversary year of what is now called cosplay. The first cosplayers were Forrest J Ackerman and his friend Morojo, who went to the first World Science Fiction Convention dressed in character. The dates were July 2-4, 1939. The place was New York City, including at the World’s Fair. What I neglected to mention is that the characters they were portraying were from Things to Come, a movie that had been in theaters just three years before. What a powerful influence it must have been on young science fiction fans of the time.

Gaming (Elf maids and Octopi): Will do a few more d100s for this space archaeology. Alternative for Traveller, star frontiers or other exploration SF. So this is some simple notes for a space archaeology campaign. Characters are mission specialists or ship crew (ex scouts). Funding bodies often nominate chosen experts for key jobs. Juggling funds and sponsors is mostly administered before an expedition. Factions continue to get involved in onboard conflicts. Expedition leader can usually veto votes from rest of the expedition. Ship crew in matters of safety and flight of ship are senior. Crew or team might have the past experience you wouldn’t expect.

Gaming (Swords and Stitchery): Today is one of those days where thoughts have been turning to introspection & especially about Jeffrey P. Talanian ‘s ‘The Sea Wolf’s Daughter’. The reason why is the implications that this module has for the future course of Hyperborea as a setting. A player of mine & I got into a discussion of this module last night via the phone. The question became what the Hell happened to Nodens & why are the nightgaunts attacking people in ‘The Sea Wolf’s Daughter’? The short answer is that Nodens is dead & the nightgaunts are running amok in Hyperborea.

Publishing (13th Dimension): But now the company is in a bit of a jam. Earlier this week, Diamond announced that next week it would temporarily suspend shipping new books because of the coronavirus crisis. Companies like Marvel and DC will be hurt by this, but they’re likely to survive. Smaller companies, however, face an even greater challenge. Right now, to help things along, TwoMorrows boss John Morrow has instituted a 40 percent off sale on all print mags, except new and upcoming releases and subscriptions.

Creativity (DVS Press): The Corona-Chan quarantine might bless us with a baby boom, but it will also bless us with a creative boom, and in the “right” direction. Hollywood has had to halt its productions. They might lose 20 billion dollars. They’ve put their feature movies onto streaming platforms, just so that they get seen and the brands can maintain some value. Hollywood and its giant apparatus represents the last remaining tower, however dark and menacing, of the corporate period in art.

Sensor Sweep: Wanderer’s Necklace, A. Bertram Chandler, Hyperborea RPG published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/

[clemsfilmdiary]

The Best of December 2019

Best Rewatch: Psycho

          Runners Up: Batman Returns, Choose Me, Frances Ha, From Beyond, Legal Eagles, Manhattan, Mike's Murder, Nutcracker, Slipstream, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Wolf

Best Discovery: Cats

           Runners Up: The Color Out of Space, Microcosmos, Out of Mind: The Stories of H.P. Lovecraft, Ray Meets Helen

Most Enjoyable Fluff: Tango & Cash

          Runners Up: Bottoms Up, Nim's Island

Best Male Performance: Anthony Perkins in Psycho

           Runners Up: Antonio Banderas in Pain and Glory, Keith Carradine in Choose Me, Gene Hackman and Al Pacino in Scarecrow, Charles Fleischer and Bob Hoskins in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, David Keith in Bottoms Up, Nick Nolte in Mother Night, Robert Walker in Strangers on a Train

Best Female Performance: Lesley Ann Warren in Choose Me

           Runners Up: Geneviève Bujold in Choose Me, Kirsten Dunst in Marie Antoinette, Greta Gerwig in Frances Ha, Diane Keaton in Manhattan, Janet Leigh in Psycho, Michelle Pfeiffer in Batman Returns, Debra Winger in Mike's Murder, Renée Zellweger in Judy

Best Supporting Performance or Cameo: Christopher Lloyd in Who Framed Roger Rabbit

           Runners Up: Danny DeVito in Batman Returns, Gavin Grazer, S. Epatha Merkerson, Christian Slater and Jeffrey Tambor in Slipstream, Grace Gummer and Mickey Sumner in Frances Ha, Richard Marcus in Deadly Friend, Meryl Streep in Manhattan, Paul Winfield in Mike's Murder

Most Enjoyable Ham: David Keith in Bottoms Up

          Runners Up: Jeffrey Combs in From Beyond and Re-Animator, Judi Dench and Rebel Wilson in Cats, Daryl Hannah, Robert Redford and Debra Winger in Legal Eagles, Michelle Pfeiffer in Batman Returns, John Lithgow in Daddy's Home 2, Kurt Russell in The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes and Tango & Cash, Sylvester Stallone in Tango & Cash, Michael Teigen in Snowcapped Christmas

Best Mise-en-scène: Nutcracker

           Runners Up: Batman Returns, The Color Out of Space, Frances Ha, From Beyond, Hardware, Manhattan, Marie Antoinette, Microcosmos, Psycho, The Rescuers, Slipstream, Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Best Score or Use of Music: Psycho (Bernard Herrmann)

           Runners Up: Batman Returns (Danny Elfman), Choose Me (Teddy Pendergrass), Frances Ha (various), From Beyond (Richard Band), Hardware (Simon Boswell), Legal Eagles (Elmer Bernstein), Re-Animator (Richard Band), Slipstream (Anthony Hopkins), Wolf (Ennio Morricone)

Best Homoeroticism: Strangers on a Train

           Runners Up: Pain and Glory, Scarecrow, Tango & Cash

Best Hunk: Bob Hoskins in Who Framed Roger Rabbit

           Runners Up: Christian Bale in Batman Begins, Gerard Butler in Nim's Island, Brian Dennehy in Legal Eagles, John Gavin in Psycho, Niall Matter in Christmas at Dollywood and Christmas Pen Pals, Dylan McDermott in Hardware, Patrick O'Day in The Call of Cthulhu, Kurt Russell in The Christmas Chonicles and Tango & Cash, Mark Wahlberg in Daddy's Home 2

           Honorable Mention: John Littlefield in Slipstream

Assorted Pleasures:

            -Kristin Chenoweth's effervescent virtuosity in Leonard Bernstein’s Candide, a Comic Operetta in Two Acts

             -Daryl Hannah's fire-themed performance art piece in Legal Eagles

            - Use of color in How the Grinch Stole Christmas

            - Costumes and use of pastels in Marie Antoinette

            - Close-up footage of water in Microcosmos

            - Production design by Maurice Sendak in Nutcracker

[swipestream]

Sensor Sweep: August Derleth, Mack Bolan, Fandom History, Bill Crider Prize

Authors (DMR Books): One thing that A Look Behind the Derleth Mythos really clarified for me was just how much impact Derleth and his publishing business, Arkham House, had on the weird fiction scene from 1939 to 1971. Arkham House didn’t just publish HPL in fine hardcovers and keep his name and works in front of the public. Derleth, in the ’40s and ’50s, was easily the most high-profile and well-respected author to emerge from the Weird Tales stable.

      Fiction (My Drops of Ink): 50 Years Ago, Don Pendleton envisioned a fictional character that would soon become a literary bestseller and a phenomenon through which the new action/adventure genre emerged.  Mack Bolan, a professional soldier, highly trained and skilled in the use of military tactics and weapons makes a life-altering decision after the tragic death of his family—his war is at home, not in the bloody fields of Vietnam.  Mack Bolan takes on a one-man war against the evils and corruption of the Mafia.

  RPG (Euro Gamer): Developer Red Hook Studios has announced that it’s working on a sequel to its brilliant but brutal Lovecraft-inspired RPG, Darkest Dungeon.

The original game released in 2016, and tasked players with exploring numerous trap-infested environs, seeking out riches, and battling – in time-honoured turn-based fashion – a relentless procession of cosmic horrors. Each encounter with the unknown would send adventurers in a party to the brink of madness, eventually lumbering them with (usually) negative quirks and making future excursions that much harder.

  Fandom (Between Wasteland and Sky): Welcome to the third part of this incredible journey through Fandom’s history. I did not expect quite so much material to come from this book when I first found the thing packed away on a shelf in that store, but here we are entering part 3 of 5.

It turns out Star Wars releasing the same year as this book in 1977 really was a watershed moment. That one movie destroyed a number of delusions Fandom had about their genre as many of the claims in this work vanished overnight.

  Fandom (Between Wasteland and Sky): For the fourth part of our series we touch on two of the biggest tropes in science fiction and fantasy, and we deal with what brought them about. Of course because we are being guided by Mr. Lundwell we have to be reminded at just what a great and marvelous time we are (were) living in.

The 20th century was a hot mess of good intentions and brazen attempts to seize the new throne in the expanding wild west of civilization. Whereas it started with wars, sparks of ideas, and hope, it ended in wars, decadence, and pure nihilism. In every respect that counted it was an utter failure.

  Fiction (Pulp Archivist): Previously, I discussed Asimov’s three kinds of science fiction: gadget, adventure, and social.And while this trio better describes the wild and wooly mess of science fiction than the binary set of hard and soft science fiction, new sub-genres have cropped up that don’t quite match the categories Asimov created. Now, Asimov’s categories are descriptions based on function, so many hybrids exist. But there still remains one category outside this spectrum.

  Fiction (Pulprev): It is fashionable in modern SFF to denigrate religion as oppressive and outdated superstition. Priests are corrupt hypocrites, gods are dead or evil or both, religious doctrine is a lie — and the worst offender is always Christianity in fantasy dress. Science fiction goes one step further, portraying technologically advanced societies that have outgrown religion — including Christianity. Alternatively, religion is treated as window dressing, or as an afterthought plastered on to the setting.

  Writing Contest (Bouchercon): Debuting at the 50th Anniversary of Bouchercon, Carol Puckett and the 2019 Bouchercon Dallas committee launched the Bill Crider Prize for Short Fiction to celebrate this treasured literary form, both the short story and the widely-admired mystery author and reviewer, Bill Crider. Designed to encourage writers from all over the world, these distinguished prizes award stories with fascinating characters and twisty plots, all in the mystery genre.

  Fiction (Pattinase): I think a second subtitle might be “with Alpha Males.” Because the writers interviewed here are certainly that. All were popular when the book was written in 2009 and remain at the top of their profession 10 years on. The writers include: Crumley, Leonard, Woodrell, MacLeod, Ellroy, Collins, Cannell, Holden, Dexter, White, Russell, Friedman, Sallis, Bruen. I bet you didn’t have much difficulty in identifying any of them. Leonard, McLeod and Crumley are gone, I hope all the rest remain.

  Military History (Tom McNulty): My father bought this book in 1969, and this is one of the rare non-fiction books that he read. The Mickey Spillane novels were the only fiction that he read, but when it came to non-fiction he read about WWII or Popular Mechanicsmagazine. He wasn’t alone. Iron Coffins was the talk of the neighborhood when it was published, and the book’s reputation is secure all of these decades later. This book is often mistaken as the inspiration for the 1981 film, Das Boot, directed by Wolfgang Petersen, but that excellent film was based on the novel of the same name by Lothar-Gunther Buchheim.

  Gaming (Brain leakage): Case in point: I’m a big fan of the pulpy, Weird Tales type fantasy that makes up most of Gary Gygax’s famous Appendix N. As such, my campaign’s cosmology is ripped straight from Michael Moorcock. My game’s elves owe more to his doomed Melnibonéans than to Tolkien’s ethereal forest dwellers. I like Vancian Magic. One of my players is currently under a curse inspired by an unfinished Robert E. Howard fragment.

  RPG (Matthew J. Constantine): Like most pre-published Chaosium campaigns for Call of Cthulhu, this one lacks focus.  There’s really no reason to deal with Mi-Go, Tcho-Tcho, ancient spiders, Hastur worshipers, and Ghouls, not to mention a ghost and some Sasquatch…Sasquatch?! in one, fairly short campaign.  I’m not a fan of putting traditional monsters (vampires, werewolves…Sasquatch…into Call of Cthulhu either, but that’s a discussion for another day).  It’s a bit of what YouTube reviewer Kurt Wiegel refers to as a ‘mythos hoedown.’

  Fiction (Superversive): There is a prejudice in modern SF so nearly ubiquitous that it can be considered a trope. I’m talking about the assumption that the more technologically advanced a civilization becomes, the less religious it will be. While this prejudice is normally implicit in a lot of science fiction, the assumption was stated explicitly not too long ago in the sixth episode of The Orville’s first season, The Krill.

  Art (Aleteia): The books of J.R.R. Tolkien are full of surprises. An exhibit in New York about Tolkien’s artwork has some nice surprises as well, and one of the best has to do with his fatherhood.

Long before John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973) published his Lord of the Rings trilogy, he was honing his craft as a storyteller with his four children.

  Interview (R. D. Meyer Writes): I’ve dialed back a lot of stuff in order to just focus on fiction writing lately. That means less journalistic writing, because this is what I’ve set out to do—change culture, and now I’m finally in a position with a platform to where I can do it. It doesn’t get my name out there as often (cuz it’s usually only on releases and novels take time), but I want 2019 to be a body of work which blows others out of the water in just how much great fiction I can produce.

  Indie Business (Kairos): The solution is very simple. Just add a storefront to your web site. And learn to code a custom version of that site so you don’t have to deal with Blogger or WordPress. And build your own distribution network to get your books to retailers, which you’ll also need to build. You’ll also need to build your own payment processor, and you should probably found your own international bank while you’re at it so you can issue your own credit cards. Oh, you’ll also need your own domain registrar because the existing ones can just yank that puppy if they don’t like the cut of your jib.

      Sensor Sweep: August Derleth, Mack Bolan, Fandom History, Bill Crider Prize published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames