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Mountains of Influential Madness
Aug. 28th, 2009 10:33 amI have just reread (though after decades, it almost counts as a first read again), H.P. Lovecraft's _At the Mountains of Madness_. I did remember that it was an effective horror story, but I had forgotten what an excellent SF story it was at the same time. And, as I read, I kept seeing echoes of influence in other works I've enjoyed.
Quite a few story elements from AtMoM turn up in John Campbell's "Who Goes There?", twice adapted for film as "The Thing". I suspect it is no coincidence that John Carpenter made both The Thing remake and a film adaptation of AtMoM itself. (I have not seen this. Any good?)
The description of the early stages of shoggoth technology made me wonder if the mysterious masters of The Village had used lost Old One tech to create Rover. Which would be hideously dangerous, of course -- but well within the realm of plausibility for arrogant, paranoid Cold Warriors.
Which leads us naturally to Charles Stross. Lovecraft in general is a clear influence on his work, but his "A Colder War" is nearly a direct sequel to AtMoM, though differing much in style and setting.
Yet Stross was not the one whose echoes I heard loudest while reading this. To my surprise, this book appears to have had a tremendously strong influence on Rosemary Kirstein, of all people. Discussing that influence requires some fairly major spoilers for her (excellent) Steerswomen books, so, if you haven't already, you should go read those before continuing.
( Read more... )
Last and least, there's one bit of AtMoM that quite tickled my fancy, and is a great example of HPL's occasional absurdist humor. It's what a horror movie fan would call a "cat moment", where the heroes are startled by something that turns out to be quite harmless. Only here, it's nothing so ordinary as a cat. No, our heroes get to be startled by six-foot-tall blind albino cave penguins Squaaawwwck!
Quite a few story elements from AtMoM turn up in John Campbell's "Who Goes There?", twice adapted for film as "The Thing". I suspect it is no coincidence that John Carpenter made both The Thing remake and a film adaptation of AtMoM itself. (I have not seen this. Any good?)
The description of the early stages of shoggoth technology made me wonder if the mysterious masters of The Village had used lost Old One tech to create Rover. Which would be hideously dangerous, of course -- but well within the realm of plausibility for arrogant, paranoid Cold Warriors.
Which leads us naturally to Charles Stross. Lovecraft in general is a clear influence on his work, but his "A Colder War" is nearly a direct sequel to AtMoM, though differing much in style and setting.
Yet Stross was not the one whose echoes I heard loudest while reading this. To my surprise, this book appears to have had a tremendously strong influence on Rosemary Kirstein, of all people. Discussing that influence requires some fairly major spoilers for her (excellent) Steerswomen books, so, if you haven't already, you should go read those before continuing.
( Read more... )
Last and least, there's one bit of AtMoM that quite tickled my fancy, and is a great example of HPL's occasional absurdist humor. It's what a horror movie fan would call a "cat moment", where the heroes are startled by something that turns out to be quite harmless. Only here, it's nothing so ordinary as a cat. No, our heroes get to be startled by six-foot-tall blind albino cave penguins Squaaawwwck!