HP Lovecraft and Religion, a few thoughts as I drove to work.

HPL often makes the religious most susceptible to madness in his stories. They turn into absolute wrecks when confronted with things out of the ordinary. These things are not supernatural in nature and the person’s religious actions to protect them do not work. His creatures are natural but either ancient, alien, or trans-dimensional. So he is basing his monsters/creatures on science (or science fiction) that we don’t understand. The implication is that religious people are weak minded to start with.
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Yet many times he has people who were more rational and non-religious go to religious authority figures for help when strange things start to happen to them or around them. It is like he is saying that it is human nature to turn to religion when confronted by the unknown or the unknowable. Of course, anything suggested by or provided by these religious figures always fails. HPL’s views of religious are well known.
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His stories reflect a concept that those who are religious and depend on religion to start with are weak minded individuals but even those with stronger mental fortitude will turn to religion when faced with the unknown, that it is basic human nature. But since God doesn’t really exist, religion cannot solve the strange problems caused by life forms that science was unable to identify or that came from other places. But people’s reliance on religion makes using religion an easy way to take over a community in order to control people for ulterior goals.
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In fact, as I sit here running stories through my head, I can only think of one that uses a supernatural horror instead of one that could be considered natural if unknown or unearthly. That is Dreams in the Witch House. There may be others that I would find if I sat down and flipped through more stories. That’s just an off the top of my head recall.
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The fact that his horror seldom uses magical causes actually increases the horror. The idea that the world is much bigger and stranger than we can see in our ordinary reality and those things have no care for the structure of the world as we see it and have created it for ourselves is a more terrifying concept than supernatural horrors.

7:00 Movie Hour – The Thirteenth Floor

In 2000, this 1999 film was nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film, losing to The Matrix.   I’m guessing it is, in part, because The Matrix is more obvious and a bigger thrill ride.

The Thirteenth Floor is a murder mystery, pure and simple.  It is also a reality trip as you eventually realize that there are multiple realities going on and the reality you thought was ‘real’ may not be after all.

The movie feels slow.  In fact, it is not.  There is a lot going on and you switch scenes often and the plot starts fast and keeps going.  The reason the film feels slow is that so much of it has very little physical action and movement.  People are talking, People driving from point a to point be, people are standing at bars.  While the scenes change quickly, the physical activity of the actual people are minimal for most of the movie.  The result is the feel of a slow movie despite the rapid progression of the plot.

The movie starts with the murder of Fuller, an elderly gentleman who owns a massive computer company and had just created a new VR environment on a floor of his building.  His friend and protegé, Hall, wakes up to find a bloody shirt in his hamper and no memory of anything after he got back into town and when he woke in his bed.  He later meets a daughter of his friend that he never knew existed.  The film follows Hall as he goes in and out of the VR program of 1937 LA, tracking Fuller’s last movements, trying to find a letter Fuller left him.  Hall learns that reality isn’t what he thought it was.

The acting is well done and the movie is visually interesting as is partly a period piece.  The scenes set in the 1930’s are really nice.  But, overall, there is a muted, washed out quality to film.  It is more like the movie is done in sepia tones than anything vibrant.

While the story was interesting, the plot twist somewhat obvious but still engaging, and acting was good, the movie does not come off well.  The sensation of slowness, the lack of action, the lack of movement, and the dull colors and overall darkness (lighting issue, not mood issue) of the film brings it down.

If they were going to film it that way, the mental puzzles needed to be stronger.  I would say that if it is on sometime, go ahead and watch it, but it might not be the type of film you go out of your way to find.

7:00 Movie Hour – Phantoms

For a week now, I’ve sat down and watched a movie every night at 7:00. Mostly science fiction, horror films. Which means mostly bad sci-fi.

Last night I watched a fairly bad film with a lot of big names. Phantoms is a 1998 adaptation of a Dean Koontz book. I’m wondering if they managed to get all these big names because Steven King adaptations have gone over pretty well.

Peter O’Toole does a fantastic job as Dr. Timothy Flyte, a man who got drummed out of academia because of an outlandish theory on missing civilizations that turns out to be exactly what is happening in this tiny Colorado town. He now writes bizarre stories for a sensationalist news rag for the paycheck.

Joanna Going is the local doctor who brings her sister to town to stay with her. She is an actress who seemed vaguely familiar. Looking her up, she has had an erratic film career from the early 1990’s until now, often going a year or two between films. 1998 was her busiest year in which she did 3 films.

Rose McGowan is the younger sister and plays a typical Rose McGowan character.

Liev Schreiber (Sabertooth in X-Men Origins: Wolverine) played the deputy sheriff, who has every indication of being a really creepy guy before he gets killed and becomes an extension of the monster.

Ben Affleck is the Sheriff.

The best performances seem to come from O’Toole and Schreiver. McGowan and Affleck give their typical performances. I don’t know much about Going but her performance was rather indifferent.

The special effects were reasonably well done. But the writing wasn’t the best. The opening scene was really weak. The story was so whittled down that the film seemed like it was made based on an outline what never had the details filled in.

The monster kills and eats people but absorbs their knowledge. The people, not knowing what it is, think it is a demon or satan. As a result, after killing a church full of people, the monster thinks that is what it is. It decides it needs a gospel of its own. One of the visitors to the town like to read a cheap news rag filed with fantastical stories. This person had read the theories put forth by Dr. Timothy Flyte. The result was that the monster lays a sort of trap to get him to the town. Flyte is its ‘chosen’ witness to write its gospel and make people worship it.

One of the problems is that it kills the deputy and later takes on that form. When it does so, it talks normally through the deputy. But when it kills other and takes their form, it just opens the mouth and words come out. Not normal speaking where you move the jaws and tongue and lips. Why can it talk normal one way but not the other?

The special effects, sound and film editing were all better than 100 Million BC that I watched the night before. But the story was more poorly developed. On the other hand, the transitions and resolution were all written and directed better in Phantoms. The Phantom also had slightly better acting, the best part being where Peter O’Toole taunts the monster into revealing the main portion of its body so they can try to poison it. Scheiber also had a good part where some people are talking about monsters and aliens in a bar and an officer a few seat down laughs. They want to know what’s so funny and the deputy says, “Do you want to see something?” So a part of the creature did survive after all.

So if you like B-Horror or B-SciFi, you may or may not want to give this movie a view. The decapitated heads and hands are not that well done, but the rest of the effects are good. The film does a pretty good job of building suspense. Nothing is too gory but it may make you jump. Acting is 6 of one, half a dozen of the other. If you like Peter O’Toole in general, you may want to give it a view.

BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS, yep, I like books.

I read almost every day.  But I do not spend ALL my free time reading.  I watch t.v. and stitch.  I spend a lot of time on computer games.  I cook sometimes.  And I go to movies.   Which means the number of books I’ve read in the First 18 days of 2013 seems amazing.  Some were re-reads.  So they went quickly.  And I often have more than one book going on at a time.  So I might read one book at lunch, one book at home, and one book in the bathroom.  I like a good long soak in the tub.

So here is what I’ve read in no particular order.

The Bride Wore Pearls by Liz Carlyle. Historical  Romance.  Part of a series that I have not otherwise read.  Pleasant read.  Half-English/Half-Indian woman, some slight supernaturalish elements, not too complex.   I liked it.

The Lady Risks All by Stephanie Laurens.  Historical Romance.  The back of the book gives little away but it is very good if a bit to straight forward as well.  I quite liked it.

Guards! Guards! Terry Pratchett.  Reread.  Fantasy Humorist.  I ALWAYS recommend Terry Pratchett.  Introduces the Guards books.  A young, idealistic new copper who happens to be a six-foot tall dwarf.  A dragon.  A very rich virgin.  Colorful characters and very petty people who cause bad things to happen.

Never Seduce a Scot by Maya Banks.  Historical Romance.  Entertaining.  Amusing.  I normally don’t recommend romance novels to anyone other than people who only read romances.  But this was interesting enough to say sure, why not, give it a try.

The Ugly Duchess by Eloisa James. Historical Romance.  Cute.  Simple.  Clear Cut.  A charming little read.

Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett.  Second Guards book.  The Watch is getting bigger with the addition of Trolls, Dwarves, and even a werewolf.  Oh, lets not forget the talking doggy.  It doesn’t pay to spend too much time sleeping around the Unseen University.  Ambient magic can do strange things to animals around there.

Corbin’s Fancy by Linda Lael Miller.  Historical Romance.  Okay book.  The Corbin family had a bunch of interesting titles in this series but they are all really simple and straight forward stories.  Obvious with no surprises along the way.  Linda Lael Miller’s books seem to get less and less interesting as she continues to write.  She comes up with really interesting characters but boring plots.

Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett.  Another Guards book.  The feminist movement hits the dwarven population, starting with one female dwarf who really doesn’t fit in, ends up in the watch, and starts wearing skirts and make up.  Of course other things happen, and a mystery is solved, and amusement is had.

Apocalypse to Go by Katharine Kerr.  Book four in a supernatural mystery series.  The main characters have gotten engaged in order to keep Nola O’Grady’s very religious family happy.  Ari, her Israeli boyfriend/bodyguard wants to get married.  Each book seems to move them a little closer to that eventuality.  Nola is technically in charge and that bothers him as he is used to being in control.  On top of it, he still isn’t totally comfortable with her psychic abilities.  They solve crimes across alternative universes.  The entire series is a good read.  Go now and buy it.

Jingo by Terry Pratchett.  Also another Guards book and also a reread.  How often does a Watch Commander get to start a war and arrest two armies?

The Key by Lynsay Sands.  Historical Romance.  You have to marry someone the king picks out, in order to save your mother, but you can control what happens next by wearing a chastity belt and keeping the key hidden.  Especially when your husband refuses to bath and only lets his people have one new plaid a year in order to save money and keeps a slovenly home.  While there is nothing terribly complex in this novel, and I wish there was, it is very funny and worth reading on humor value alone.

The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett.  A very good book of Mr. Pratchett’s.  Again, a Guards book.  Yep, I pulled them all from the shelf and started rereading through them.

Okay, I’m getting really sleepy now.

Lord of Temptation by Lorraine Heath.  Historical Romance.  Middle book of a set of three. Only one I read.  I liked it.  It was good.  Made we want to go and read the first and third ones now.

Threadbare by Monica Ferris. Mystery  Monica Ferris is a great mystery writer and this series is about a woman who owns a needlework shop.  At the end of every book is a pattern in one form of needle craft or another.  This is a good book and well worth the read but there is only one thing bothering me about it.  She spends too much time plugging designers and mentioning specific patterns.  Sometimes this worked in the past books because it had a bearing on the story and the solution to the crime.  Now it is getting tedious.  It felt like to many product placements in a movie.

Thud by Terry Pratchett.  Okay, yet another Guards book.  Reread.  Highly enjoyable.  Somewhat darker.  I highly recommend it.

Snuff by Terry Pratchett.  The latest guards book out in paperback.  I finished it a couple days ago.  Really good.  Go now and buy a copy.  But you have to make sure you have read all the ones I’ve already mentioned for it to really make sense.  Or Thud at the very least.  And Jingo or else Willikins won’t make as much sense.

I have also read three romance novels on the Kindle.  Really fast, really short, and really simple romance novels that I won’t bother to name, even if they were good enough.  They were more like novellas.

The last is Time Traders by Andre Norton.  I didn’t realize she wrote science fiction.  I always thought of her as a fantasy novelist.  This was a very early book of hers.  There is some awkwardness in her writing that I’m not used to seeing because I was more familiar with some of her later work.  Even with this early work, you can never go wrong reading Norton.

That is 19 books completed since the start of the year.  I did not count any in progress books.  Just ones I’ve finished.  19 books in 18 days with a few days where I didn’t read and I never had any solid days of reading.  This is why I keep books.  I have to reread books.  Otherwise I can’t afford my reading habit.

Now I will put these away and reorganize my book shelves, finding a few other books to pull for rereading purposes.

Strange Dreams

Lebbeus Woods ship for Aliens 3

(Apologies, I will have to tidy this entry up a bit latter.  But I burnt lunch twice while doing this and I don’t really want to waste anymore food.)

I had a dream about a planet ship built on earth. There was NOTHING really new in this dream.  But that is  usually how the subconscious works.  It pulls from a variety of sources.  Usually from things watched, read, or thought about recently.  Since I’ve been watching comedies and Korean horror, reading fantasy and children’s fantasy, and working on non-fiction and some fantasy, this extremely Sci-Fi focused dream has to have been inspired by the only source of Science Fiction I’ve had the past month.  Thanks StoriesbyWillaims, Sci-fi is invading my sleep.  Also credited are Star Wars the Old Republic and Alpha Centauri.

It was partly built with technology from ‘somewhere else’.  The dream didn’t specify.  Perhaps another planet, fleeing the ravengers came across earth and a joint project enabled the two to build something beyond what their individual technologies would allow.  The technology and programing itself was highly adaptable so that it would update itself.  It was intuitive so that it could see connections between two lines of study and research and be able see where the results could be connected to create new things.  But it stopped just short of being self-determination and self-awareness.  People were loaded onto this craft and sent out into space.

People need purpose so we set up city like communities.  People had homes, jobs, and mostly replicated the normal lives they left behind.  I am myself in this dream and I have no idea what my job was exactly.

We encountered others who needed to be saved and were able to save portions of populations.  The ship ended up in districts where certain, more compatible races, lived.  Shortly after this ship takes off from earth, robotic and medical joint research enables the ship to see a way to create cybernetic bodies and download personalities into them with some reproductive capabilities.  People still desired children. It would massively extend life spans, slow down childbirth rates, control population growth without legislating it, and even enable people to cross over to a different species.

I took advantage of this tech as did many people.  Some people did not.  It was too strange, to scary, or denied God too much.  But most of the overly religious never got onto the ship to start with.

But for some people, the reproductive functions didn’t.  Some people greatly pitied those who realized they would never be able to reproduce.  Some of them fell into a deep despondency.  Other didn’t care.  It created an almost eternal life span for the people to went into it early on. This was soon seen as a flaw and some limitations on life spans were incorporated into the design.  With a long time to live, some who realized they wouldn’t be able procreate took the view that it was simple a matter of time before the weird glitch would be found and corrected.

This saw an upswing in people from less human-like looking races towards more human like races.  Or adapting  the particular physical attributes the races prized most to a more human-like base structure.  Not out of any idea that ‘human’ were better but because, off of the native planets and on a ship, even a planet sized one, it simply had better functionality.

I was in one of the early batches with nearly unlimited life span and ended up in some sort of military capacity.  At a shop one day I ran into the first person I had known in childhood who also made it onto this ship.  Eric Hansen.

Eventually, the districts came to represent different political ideals and world views.  And the natural progression was, of course, war.  It was bad enough having to deal with war between our various ideals but there was also the ravengers to deal with.  As the scientists and the labs were busily churning out research to find a way to deal with them, the ship puts two and two together and creates a new drive and shooting use far away and beyond anyplace we could identify.  And a new internal transport vehicle is produced based on the Kia model my roommate recently bought.

Custom Kia Soul (in my dream, it could fly)

The thing is, during this ‘jump’ the ship pretty much put every one to sleep.  But there were some damages when coming out the other side.  Various areas were woken up at different rates.  Some of the districts took advantage of it to advance their war efforts.

We were fighting off a unit with newly adapted, close quarters weaponry.  Cutting weapons for up close, personal, fighting.  I grabbed two pieces from a downed enemy and was trying to figure out how to use them when a new surge was pushed forward, largely civilian cannon fodder.  I was told to fall back and give them to someone else when I finally got the hang of it.  These were ugly, brutal weapons causing pain and suffering rather than a quick death.  Once I figured them out, it was basically a bloodbath.

Only I don’t like slasher films so my brain, which dreams in vivid, color, movie-like patterns kindly avoided letting me actually see some of that stuff.

Anyway, it was a very detailed, elaborate, drawn out dream with lots of elements from many sci-fi movies, books, and t.v. shows.  Opps, and games.

Inspiring Blog Award

Wonder

Hey, I got nominated this!  WOW.  I never thought of myself as inspiring.  The thanks for this nomination go to storiesbywilliams who has an amazing wealth of knowledge about science and science fiction that just puts me in awe.  The amount of research it must take, with the amount of writing and blogging he does, I don’t know how he finds the time to do things like work, eat, sleep, and generally live.  He always reminds me of things I’ve forgotten and challenges me with things I didn’t know.

Now is the part where I talk about myself.  Ouch.

1. Canon.  To the annoyance of some of my friends, I sometimes get a little too caught  up in the idea of ‘canon’ and get annoyed an non-cannon stuff in films based on books, comics, or older films.  I’m not good at pretending it is an alternate universe. I have no problem with suspension of disbelief until the universe contradicts itself.  Then it all comes crashing down on me.

2. Tea.  I drink a lot of it.  I am, at this moment, sipping on Pumpkin Spice Warm up the Day Tea from The Republic of Tea.

3. Cosplay.  My unit at work wanted to go a group costume idea for the Halloween contest.  But I didn’t care for the idea.  It wasn’t elaborate enough.  Over the past years, I’ve set an expectation of fairly elaborate costumes.  The Fairy Goth Mother, A Kabuki Ghost, Marie Laveau – Voodoo Queen of New Orleans.  I didn’t want to go dressed up as a computer, a headset, a mouse, a new loss form.  So I am doing my own thing.  Either a representation of The Raven or a Death Maiden.

4. Cooking.  I love to cook.  Lately, I haven’t been doing too much of it.  The budget has been tight, so elaborate dishes have gone by the way side for a while.  I really want to post some more cooking blogs, but I’m just not here with it right now.  Maybe after I meet a few other goals I’ll get back into it properly.

5. Temper.  I have one.  It doesn’t come out to play much.  But one morning, a person I actually value ticked me the hell off and I sorta unleashed.  He didn’t like it and deleted and blocked me on Facebook.  I’m a little sad but I admitted I over reacted.  I could admit that but he is the one who decided to take his ball home and not play with me anymore, to use a childhood metaphor.  It will probably take another 10 years to reconnect again.

6. Cats. I have two.  They are almost as anti-social as I am.  But the one likes to lay across my boobs when I’m working on the computer.  This requires me to use both arms to hold him so I can’t get anything done.  He had gotten me killed many times in online games.  Maybe I ought not to have named him Puck?

7. Tarot Cards.  I have a Tarot Card addition.  I love to accumulate them.  There are so many lovely sets out there.  So I stay away from places that sell them when I have no money.  I think I have about 8 sets right  now.  I just love seeing all the different interpretations of the cards that people draw.

Here is the part where I nominate a bunch of other people who inspire me.

1. Fogs’ Movie Reviews. This reviewer is one of my favorite all time movie reviewers.  We have a blend of similar and dissimilar tastes in films.  He reaffirms some of my thoughts on movies while also, occasionally, getting me to give something a try that I had planned on skipping.  Even when we disagree on a film, I can appreciate where he is coming from on his assessment of it.  My movie reviews are nowhere near as detailed and in-depth as his and me makes me realize how I could do so much better an makes me want to improve my style of reviewing.

2. Gin & Lemonade. This lady writes some of my favorite posts about everyday life.  She reminds me that nothing is to big or to small.  It all deserved to be valued and appreciated.  But perhaps the small things need it most of all.  Because the big things are all made of small things and we tend to ignore or brush aside the small things most often.

3. Kloipy Speaks.  This gentleman fluctuates between movies and life, much like I do.  His focus is a bit narrower and he comes across titles that I haven’t seen and really should.  Although I think our taste in horror is a little more divergent than, say my taste in movies when compared to Fogs.

4.  Madame Guillotine‘s amazing quality of research reminded me how much I used to like researching things.  (right after college, I continued to research stuff just for the fun of it.)  The really weird thing is that I want to write fiction and I keep getting really great ideas for non-fiction projects anymore.  She also posts about things she buys or her husband has given her that I drool over; weird and wonderful gothy sorts of things that the average person just doesn’t get or understand.

5. Meanwhile, back at the farm. . . .  This blogger is probably on with whom I have the least in common.  Her photography is wonderful.  Her blogs remind me of home despite the fact she is from the Dakota plains and I am from the mountains of North Idaho.  Her blogs often make me think of my father, who grew up on a farm in South Dakota.  She makes me miss my old camera that broke when it got caught in a door and hate my new camera which was the closest in comparison to my old one but simply fails at taking as good of shots at that one did.  Still, thanks to her, I’ve started carrying it with me at all times, like I used to do.

6. Rantings of an Amateur Chef is my favorite food blogger.  Not only does he post the most amazing things, his food has even gotten me to try food items I normally hate.  Oddly enough, I still hate them, but I keep on trying them.  He is better than a lot of the cooking shows out there.  I’ll take his blog, any day, over the food network.  Well, over anything except Without Reservation.  But that isn’t a cooking show so much and an interesting food and travel program.

7. Sweet Mother has to be the funniest blogger I’ve come across.  She cracks me up.  I appreciate this a lot because I just do not think I can do funny.  And we all really need a good laugh at least once a day.  More is preferable.  And she is guaranteed to produce at least one good laugh, if not more, out of nearly every posting she does.

 

The Dream of Warp Drive and Interstellar Travel

Warp Drive is a thing we thought was fantastical, a science fiction contrivance beyond the realm of possibility.  How would one even begin to warp space-time anyway?  Setting aside the ‘time’ aspect of it, would it be possible to warp space?  To warp sometime means it has to be physical and space is a whole lot of empty with bits of matter floating about it in. 

Turns out, back in 1994, a physicist by the name of Miguel Alcubierre actually came up with calculations that would do just that.  The problem was that it the required energy use to make it happens was so huge as to make it essentially impossible on the grounds that we couldn’t create the power to do it.

Not impossible.  Just improbable.   That alone should blow your mind.  That in 1994 the math alone showed it could be possible.  Wow.

18 years later and more advances in science and scientific thought bring us to a new place and people are taking a look at this again.  Because tweaking this idea is making it more possible. 

Originally, the ship would be shaped like a football with a large ring around it.  This ring would warp space-time around the ship while leaving the ship itself inside a bubble of non-warped space-time. 

The article doesn’t say, but because this is a ‘ring’ around the ship, I imaging it will be spinning and turning in some fashion to create this phenomenon. 

To reduce the energy usage, they altered the ring shape from a flat ring to a round donut.  I’m guessing that simply means the mathematical formula would not account for a round ring rather than a flat ring, as there is no actually item yet to be altered.

Alcubierre’s formula would require energy that was equal to the mass-energy of the planet Jupiter.  The new formula could now be powered by a mass comparable in size to the Voyager 1 probe.  If the intensity of the space warps could be ‘oscillated over time’ it would further reduce the energy requirements. 

To get the idea of what oscillation might look like, find that 1940’s video of the Tacoma Bridge coming down.  I hope that is the right one.  It’s a video I’ve not seen for 6 or 7 years. 

I find the fact that they used Voyager 1 as a comparison to illustrate this very fitting.  I’m sure I am not the only one. 

((So V’Ger was actually 6 instead of 1, but the concept creates a feeling of ideas coming full circle.  Not related to anything in the article that I’m paraphrasing, back in the early 1990’s and pre-blogging days, I wrote an essay on the connections between V’Ger, the mechanical race, V’Ger’s Ilia-avatar (Ilia was a ‘Deltan’), and the Borg.   I should rewrite that.  The original article is probably where ever old computer discs went to die.))

To think that something that was so prohibitive that is was impractical to the point of impossibility has become possible and worth doing more studies on to see if it might actually work. 

The only flaw in the plan now is that the ring would likely have to be made out of ‘exotic’ matter.  Exotic matter tends to be hypothetical.  It is either known matter that is somehow altered to have properties that it didn’t have before or matter not of this planet and not identified as of yet.  It could also be known matter that is in a different state than we know about at this time but is within the realm of possibility using current physics or it could be matter that is known but so poorly understood that it might was well be from another planet.

Thrusting the entire concept right back into the realm of science fiction rather than science fact. It’s worth keeping half an eye on it, in case it pops into the realm of possibility again.  Maybe the next alteration could come in less than the 18 years it took for the last one.  But I’m not going to hold my breath.

 

Most of this was taken from this article.