Science-fiction, conspiracy theories and Lovecraft
This is an interesting blog post, which I found the link while reading this (also) very interest comment. If you’re picking one of them to read, go to the comment, imho.
It’s about how (science?)fiction and conspiration theories retrofeed one another based on the cultural paradigms of an era. For example how UFO tales draws from pre-WWII dreams of astronauts and junky pulp fiction and how these days they’re going back to early XX Century stories of demons and secret organizations that plan to unleash horror from other dimensions (Lovecraft, anyone?).
I think it’s a must read (specially the comment) for those interested in writing (science? supernatural?) fiction. If you’re feeling chatty, send me comments on this subject/post as I’ve been curious about fringe-science-supernatural-fiction since I’ve read The Morning of the Magicians as a kid.
Also, dear reader, you’ll get an extra credit if you read this article (originally published in Skeptic 10.4, 2004). It’s about how H.P. Lovecraft fiction influenced later authors with the concept of alien gods/ancient advanced civilizations. On the same subject, there’s this other blog post here. This second link was later expanded in the (free) ebook The Origin of Space Gods and also in the ‘actual’ book, The Cult of Alien Gods: H.P. Lovecraft and Extraterrestrial Pop Culture (Prometheus Books, 2005). I can’t comment on the book as I haven’t read it, but the table of contents look good. It dwells on how the fictional elements of his stories and mythos morphed and fuel not only über-paranoid authors but also the imagination of many ‘believers’.
