THE STAR-SEED (Please read and comment!)
james ambuehl
now redone as part of my Braving, MN mileu. Anyway, please let me know
how this new version reads, won't you? Thanks!)
THE STAR-SEED
by James Ambuehl
If not for my morbid fascination for things out of the ordinary, I never
would have ventured into the woods near Laren, and entered that blasted
house. And I would never have dared to fathom the dark mysteries of that
house, thus having my mortal soul seared so utterly in the doing.
Being a professor of Mathematics, I was enjoying my summer off from
Royceton University, and had been enjoying a few beers at the local
college hangout -- the colorfully named Keg 'n' Cork -- when I overheard
a few of my students at a nearby table, shouting over the din of the
local band setting up and plugging in their equipment for that night's
show.
"'Hey, Jon. Are you game for a bit of adventure?" asked Dennis Mallory,
a tall, long-haired youth in a leather jacket,
"What do you have in mind?" answered Jon Sellon, a bright, studious
youth, if a little reckless now and then (I'd had both in my 8 o'clock
class last semester).
"Well, we could go look for that house near Laren, the one where those
kids went off to find last year." I knew he had been referring to a
party of students from Royceton who went off last fall, toward a haunted
house on the outskirts of Laren. They never returned, seemingly
disappeared into thin air. And they hadn't been the only ones. There had
been a couple the year before, and still more a few years back, and so
on. The house had quite a history in the Braving area, and in fact had
even been the subject of an amateur ghost-hunting society from nearby
Templeton. (The Templeton crowd had quit it in a big hurry amid tragedy
soon after their expedition had begun, several members shorter, and no
amount of cajoling would elicit any comment from them concerning it save
dire warnings of "Stay away from that house if you value your sanity and
soul!") It was said to be the house of an old recluse named Morrison,
back about fifty years ago, who was reputed to have been a sorcerer.
Anyway, that was the local gossip. But it didn't change the fact that
the house was haunted . . . and dangerous!
Sellon of course sensibly refused Mallory's offer, and suggested instead
a drive to Wyatt to pick up some girls he knew. But I was hooked from
that moment on, having more than a passing interest in the supernatural,
and I resolved to find and explore the old ruins of Morrison's dwelling.
The very next day I dressed in my hiking clothes, packed a small lunch
and some botled water into my backpack, and made the short drive from
Braving to Laren. But a few "klicks" from the town proper, I parked the
car on the side of the road, where I generally knew the reclusive old
house to be. I then set off into the woods, armed with a faded map taken
from a book on the paranormal of the region which had contained a
write-up on old Morrison and his dwelling, TALES OF BRAVING AND ITS
INSIDIOUS ENVIRONS by James Ambrel.
The day seemed just right for a walk in the woods. There was hardly a
cloud to be seen, and the wind was slight. I found the section of forest
indicated in Ambrel's map, and started off into it. It took me a good
half an hour to find the path of stones leading to the dwelling on
account of the overgrown grass and weeds.
I started off down the path, and soon came to the object of my quest. It
was enveloped in fog. It was a sprawling, two-storey hulk of dark cedar
and oak, surrounded by a rusty wrought-iron fence and barely set apart
from the surrounding woods.
I climbed through the fence and walked closer to the house. I could see
that the doors and windows were boarded up, and as I drew near I thought
I could hear a low susurrus of sound, a whispered rustling too inaudible
to make out clearly.
I stood and looked at the house for a long time. Once I almost turned
and left, so tangible was the aura of foreboding pressing upon me, but I
chased it off and stepped upon the porch and up to the front door. I
found at once that I did not contain enough muscle to pull the boards
from the door by hand. Looking about the yard, I found an iron fence
post that had broken loose. Using the post as a makeshift crowbar, I
managed to pull away the boards from a window on the west side of the
house. With a slight hesitation I heaved myself over the sill.
The room was lit dully by the afternoon sunlight filtering through the
cracks of the boards and streaming through the newly -opened window, yet
I was glad I had brought a flashlight with me. It helped to dispel the
gloom, but only slightly.
Spiders had done their best in spinning gigantic webs, which canopied
the ceiling and walls. The wooden furniture was rotted and decayed
through the effects of age and disuse, and strangest of all was a
greenish-yellow foul-smelling slime upon the floor. I thought of the
ectoplasm said to attend certain visitations from the spirit world.
As I explored the other rooms I found them much the same, containing
very little of interest besides the cigarette butts, beer bottles,
prophylactics, and the like garbage strewn about the floor by previous
visitors, and always that rancid greenish-yellow ichor.
The last room I explored upstairs must have been old Morrison's library.
True, many of the books had been broken and burned and otherwise
damaged, presumably by the previous adventuresome students, seeing as
how they treated their own school-books, but a few volumes were intact.
And I recognized many of the books from my own occult hobbyist readings:
I saw copies of de Metz' IMAGE DU MONDE and Stampa's FUGA SATANAE, along
with something with the intriguing title GLYPHS OF VOROTH, compiled and
translated by one Edward Lindseth. There lay something called THE SECRET
SISTERHOOD by Deborah Valence and the Latin LITANIAE AD DEUM FRACEUM by
an unknown and unsigned author. A rolled-up piece of parchment proved to
be one of the legendary SCROLLS OF GURATH. I espied a well-worn folio
entitled THE K'HRAA TABLETS: FRAGMENTARY TRANSCRIPTIONS, and I recalled
naught that was wholesome concerning that ancient sunken citadel -- said
to be the home of a titanic tentacled sea-worm! And I found, in several
volumes, something called the RITUALS OF GLAA-DITH This latter I admit I
took away with me from that accursed place, intending to return later on
for the rest of the bibliographic treasures, and later came to know its
contents intimately, so I reproduce here the passages that caught my eye
upon glancing into its seductive pages in that dark, sinister house:
". . . and soon shall Y'lla the Sea-Worm rise from sunken K'hraa,
beneath the waves, and the Wolf-Thing, Winged Ngirrth'lu lope out of the
forests of the night in the Land of the Red Snows; and too, shall Uvhash
make his bloody advent from far-off Rhylkos, and Gi-Hoveg shall
materialize from the Aether, and Volgna-Gath too, shall rise up from the
cold, dead earth. Haiogh-Yai, The Outsider, shall make his awesome yet
terrible space-spanning presence known. Then shall Xirdneth, Maker of
Illusions run rampant, so that man will be made to doubt his own sanity.
Icy B'gnu-Thun of Voroth, Fiery Ruhtra Dyoll of Yondath, feline Istasha,
Reptilian Dythalla, Vulturine Ragnalla, -- they ALL shall rise -- aye,
and yet more! -- and begin a horror-quake anew! And They shall reign in
blood and death for ever more!"
At the time, to me, it seemed so much gibberish . . . and yet, it seemed
rather interesting, quite esoteric, like being party to some dark secret
known to but a privileged few (or an accursed few, as I later came to
think of it). Too, it seemed to correlate strangely with Ambrel's
Braving book, and a few others I'd glanced through in moments of boredom
in Royceton U's Rare Book rooms and now I found myself deciding that
those authors must have read a volume or two of the RITUALS OF GLAA-DITH
themselves. Strangely intrigued by what I'd read myself, I picked up
another volume and read on:
"The Black Crystal of Zu-Tha may allow one to walk the lush and leafy
surface of jungled Kr'llyand, home of the plant-god known as Ei'lor.
Kr'llyand was once a dead star, like its neighbor Mirkalo, but after
Those from Glyu'uho banished the Plant-Thing Ei'lor there, His seed was
sown and did spread, to cover and repopulate the dead star with
steaming, fibrous green life."
Here there followed a note scribbled in the margins in a spidery hand:
"See the FRONDS for more on Ei'lor."
I had never seen a copy of the EI'LOR FRONDS, but knew them to be a
transcription of an ancient, alien text borne to Earth embedded within a
meteor and inscribed upon leafy, palm-like fronds of a plant species
heretofore unknown upon this Earth!
Whether I believed such a thing, I was unsure, but such legends always
appealed to me, having a particular bent for dabbling in the occasional
weird fictions for the small press, and occasional pro press field. No
such details I could pick up upon, and later utilize to stoke my
imagination were too small to escape my notice. Feeling that there was a
wealth of story ideas to be had in these books, especially the RITUALS
OF GLAA-DITH, I carefully packed several of the volumes in my backpack.
I realized then that it was getting dark outside, and I would have to be
going soon. I glanced wistfully at the book titles once more, resolving
to return for them at a later date. As it was, I had to leave a raincoat
and a few other items behind, in order to accommodate the GLAA-DITH
books. As I settled the contents of my backpack and prepared to depart,
I noticed that the sound had returned, that ominous rustling noise. The
sound grew in intensity, and when it reached an ear-shattering
crescendo, the house began to shake. A smell came to me, a stench of
rotting, dead weeds on a stagnant marsh, and it filled the air so
completely that I began to wretch uncontrollably.
I had the feeling that someone or something was in the house with me,
and I became aware that that devilish sound was coming from below me --
in the cellar! The fear grew so intensely in me that I began to run for
the window I had entered, and I flew madly downstairs as if my very soul
depended upon it -- for I felt that it did! As I tried to clear the
living room to the window beckoning beyond, the floorboards began to
buck and heave beneath my feet, and something pushed up from below. I
had a brief impression of a vast weedy bulk of madly flailing, broad
flat limbs as I sailed past it and out the window, to sprawl headlong in
the weedy side lawn.
As I picked myself up I noticed that something was crawling out of the
window, snaking after me. A leafy vine coiled itself about my leg in a
vice-like grip, and it was in a state of sheer panic that I fumbled for
my survival knife and sawed desperately at the tendril. At last the coil
was severed, and I hurriedly got to my feet and limped to the fence -- a
cool numbness had settled in my leg where the thing had grasped hold of
me -- and over it, tearing my windbreaker in the process. Then I raced
down the rocky path and out of the woods as if the devil himself were
after me.
* * *
How I found my way to my car and drove again to the environs of Braving
I'm not entirely sure, but from there it was a quick stop to the
hospital -- to have my leg examined. Dr. Campbell told me it had been a
mostly-superficial laceration, although queerly-patterned, as if a row
of suckers like those found upon the tentacle of the devil-fish had
grabbed hold of me. I told him I had been scuba-diving, and this seemed
to settle him. But I reflected to myself that it was sheer luck that the
tendril I had encountered had been very small -- about a half an inch in
diameter -- whereas I shuddered to think what would have happened to me
had it been one of the larger tendrils . . . some of which I'd seen had
been as thick as my own mid-section!
* * *
More than a month had passed before I could finally dredge up the
courage to go back to that house in the woods. But it had been a
restless ordeal in the interim, filled with terrible daydreams and
nightmares. Every waking moment felt like a sentence in some private
hell, as I slowly came to realize that all I had been thus far living
had been a lie; it was that senses-shattering mythology that embodied
the truth, that alien pantheon of devil-gods that was real!
With the realization came the knowledge that I, and I alone, coud put a
stop to that thing in the basement of the house that had been devouring
the hapless students, that thing from an alien star called Ei'lor. It
was my responsibility, and mine alone.
Facing that responsibility, I immersed myself in the unholy study of the
RITUALS OF GLAA-DITH, and kindred tomes found in the Rare Book rooms of
the Royceton University Library, familiarizing myself with every
particular of this alien mythos, searching minutely for the key, any
key, in stopping this monstrous blasphemy from the stars from continuing
its evil encroachment into our sane and ordered continuum.
I found it in an abridged translation of something called the THE ELDER
ORACLES, by one Reverend Thomas Skyler, dealing primarily with the Elder
Gods, evidently a race presumably older, and perhaps even more powerful
than the Great Old Ones themselves! Long ago, as Skyler had it, long
before the advent of man on this planet, The Elder Gods and the Great
Old Ones warred in a great cosmic struggle. The Great Old Ones were
beaten by the Elder Gods, and imprisoned in various tombs and temples
and citadels and the like. The locks on these prisons (Star-Sigils, as
they were called) had been sufficiently strong once, but with the
passage of the ages (strange aeons, said Skyler) these locks were
weakening, and slowly but inexorably the Great Old Ones were bursting
their bonds.
There were given various rites with which to make contact with the Elder
Gods, but the Reverend had these necessarily incomplete and decidedly
vague, and too, they referred to even more strange tomes whose titles
were wholly unfamiliar to me. But at least I felt I was upon the right
track. I set aside THE ELDER ORACLES, and began scouring the others once
more, looking for any incantations involving these Elder Gods.
I found it in the LITANIAE AD DEUM FRACEUM, a powerful exorcism of
sorts, designed to thwart even such as the Great Old Ones, and calling
upon something called Yaggdytha of Bel-Yarnak, brother to Vorvadoss and
first-born of the Lord of the Abyss. (The LITANIAE had it that an older
volume, something called the BOOK OF IOD, said that Vorvadoss was the
only entity neither wholly Great Old one nor wholly Elder God, and whose
loyalties lay wherever he willed in a given situation). I reread this
incantation a couple of times, and correlated this new data with THE
ELDER ORACLES and the RITUALS OF GLAA-DITH, and decided that that would
be my best possible avenue of success. I carefully copied out the
incantation and I left again for Laren at once.
* * *
My knees were shaking terribly, as I carefully approached the house. It
was a grey overcast day, with a slight on-and-off drizzle. Crawling
through the fence once more, I bent to pick up a stick, and with it drew
a circle in the dirt of the front yard, and in the center of this a
five-pointed star, the Pentacle of Planes, within which I would stand. I
knew that the horror from beyond the gulfs of space could not reach me
from my magical protection.
As I drew forth the pages I had hand-copied from LITANIAE, I noticed
again that horrible smell. And again came that eerie rustling sound. I
looked up and heard the window closest to me rattle beneath the boards.
A tendril slid out between the boards and came at me. I quaked with a
fear heretofore unknown to me. The tendril kept coming toward me, until
it reached the edge of the pentacle. Then it drew back sharply, as if
singed by an unseen flame. Breathing a sigh of relief, I cleared my
throat and began reading the incantation in a clear, sonorous voice.
At first nothing seemed to happen, and I began to doubt the words of
LITANIES TO THE DARK GODS, as its English translation suggested. Then
the house began to shake, and the chimney crumbled. The roof fell in
with a crash.
Suddenly the sky lit up like the Fourth of July, and a glowing globe of
blue light filled the sky directly over the Morrison house. I knew this
to be the form of the Elder God, Yaggdytha, as described in the tomes.
The great amorphous, incandescent ball of cyan living energy spread
itself into a web of giant talons of light, like something out of a
GREEN LANTERN comic, and dove down into the foundations beneath the
house. Scooping the slimy monster up into the sky, it flung it hurtling
far, far into space, and out of the solar system. Then the thing called
Yaggdytha resumed its former shape and shrunk to a pin-point of blue
light, and finally winked out and was gone.
* * *
This is where my tale ends . . . and yet it does not end. I feel that
the Star-Seed I destroyed was only one of countless manifestations of
the thing called Ei'lor, who can surely spread his seed infnitely. Only
yesterday a correspondent of mine from the Severn valley in the U. K.
sent me documentaton of a horrid cult in the town of Camside, which
consecrates itself to the god-thing, Ei'lor, and has as its bible the
blasphemous EI'LOR FRONDS. And, too, there are countless reports hailing
from all over the globe of strange meteors falling to Earth, bearing not
rock and mineral desposits, but rather, seed pods. And outre leafy
foliage is springing up everywhere throughout the world, in species and
classifications yet unknown to man.
I fear the Star-Seeds have been sown, and even now are being reaped.
THE
END
icarp...@aol.com
really enjoyed "The Pisces Club" and your story "In the Court of the
Crystal Flame" from Lost Worlds of Space and Time was a very engaging
read. This, however, in spite of the use of a new named entity,
Ei'lor, struck me as mostly pastiche. And while I like the idea of a
plant entity (and I confess that when I saw a car commercial with
reaching branches trying to grab a car it made me think "Ei'lor
manifests!" (not that I said such aloud so my wife would think I was
completely nuts...)), this is an aspect of mythos fiction that does
nothing for me. All the efforts at creating new pantheons or codifying
explicitly existing ones, or even assuming there is a pantheon make me
impatient. Much of the better new fiction has not even used any named
entities, or have only implied them. There was no named entity in "Big
C" or in most of the stories in Horrors Beyond of Dead But Dreaming. I
just don't see it as a necessity to creating topnotch mythos fiction.
It seems to be baggage from the past. Or if you want one, Shub
Niggurath served perfectly well in "Seduced." Yig was fine for "A
Shared Romance." The Hounds of Tindalso were sufficient substrate for
"One Way Conversation." I understand the allure of carving your own
niche. It just doesn't work for me.
I also had some problems with the structure of the story.
>> Being a professor of Mathematics...
I think the setup was reasonable, the professor type overhearing some
students and deciding to investigate on his own. Maybe a stronger
emphasis of the prof's interest in the occult might better explain why
he went exploring on his own. Nowadays it just doesn't ring true that
some people would disappear and there would be no official
investigation of the place by the cops or somesuch, especially if there
was any to do in the papers. Maybe this could all be referred to as
third hand or unsubstantiated rumor, but the place definitely had an
air of menace. Also naming the students and then not using them for
anything else is kind of like committing a sin Chekov wrote about.
Maybe just refer to them by surnames or a little less personally?
>>TALES OF BRAVING AND ITS
INSIDIOUS ENVIRONS by James Ambrel.
Sounds suspiciously Ambuehl-like!!
>> I found at once that I did not contain enough muscle...
I think this phrase could use a rewrite. Otherwise this part develops
tension quite well.
>>The last room I explored upstairs must have been old Morrison's library...
This is where I lost it. Nowadays when a story stops in its tracks to
list a bunch of tomes, new ones to the nefarious library at that, I
just get derailed. And I just don't get why anyone wandering around a
creepy haunted house would stop to read for a few hours. It seems more
likely they would pocket the books and keep prowling around.
>>I noticed that the sound had returned, that ominous rustling noise...
Finally back to the action! I think retch is misspelled.
>>Dr. Campbell told me...
Why name him? We never see him again.
>>With the realization came the knowledge that I, and I alone...
Why? Why not enlist some help?
I also don't like the counter incantation from the Elder gods achieving
a deus ex machina kind of rescue of the protagonist. It's just a
little too pat. It only ever really worked for me in "The Dunwich
Horror". I would rather he stole some napalm and a crop duster or
something. For me the best descriptions of how these entitie see or
construe humans are in stories like "Mr. Skin" from Cthulhu's Heirs,
where Nyarlathotep wearily tells the protagonist about how little the
Great Old Ones regard, understand or care about humans. Or more
recently I read a Delta Green story, maybe on their website, about the
Wendigo or Ithaqua, not named explicitly as I recall, where one of the
characters said how it had no conception of human life or death and
just sort of enjoyed the psychic vibrations as we transitioned from one
state to the other. This is the backdrop I approach the mythos fiction
from, and then to think that an individual human could compel or entice
one of these things to confront another to protect his own
insignificant self just doesn't hold up for me.
>>I fear the Star-Seeds have been sown, and even now are being reaped.
I like the conclusion.
I still like the idea of Ei'lor. I sincerely hope you are not offended
by my opinions, Jim. I just prefer stories like "Snake Farm" where
most of the writing is devoted to furthering the action.
Matt
james ambuehl
one, as I said, so hopefully I'm writing a bit more subtly now (was "The
Farmhouse," another Ei'lor tale, more successfully handled, do you
think?). Anyway, I do still like to create my own gods, and books, etc.
Call it a holdover from the WEIRD TALES and Arkham House authors, who
usually did create their own Mythos trappings!
OK, now to take your comments on, in detail:
< Well, Jim, still not my cup of tea. I wished I liked it better. I
really enjoyed "The Pisces Club" and your story "In the Court of the
Crystal Flame" from Lost Worlds of Space and Time was a very engaging
read. This, however, in spite of the use of a new named entity, Ei'lor,
struck me as mostly pastiche. And while I like the idea of a plant
entity (and I confess that when I saw a car commercial with reaching
branches trying to grab a car it made me think "Ei'lor manifests!" (not
that I said such aloud so my wife would think I was completely
nuts...)), this is an aspect of mythos fiction that does nothing for me.
All the efforts at creating new pantheons or codifying explicitly
existing ones, or even assuming there is a pantheon make me impatient.
Much of the better new fiction has not even used any named entities, or
have only implied them. There was no named entity in "Big C" or in most
of the stories in Horrors Beyond of Dead But Dreaming. I just don't see
it as a necessity to creating topnotch mythos fiction. It seems to be
baggage from the past. Or if you want one, Shub Niggurath served
perfectly well in "Seduced." Yig was fine for "A Shared Romance." The
Hounds of Tindalso were sufficient substrate for "One Way Conversation."
I understand the allure of carving your own niche. It just doesn't work
for me.
I also had some problems with the structure of the story. >
Me: (pouting and stomping feet) But I wanna write my own Mythos!
Seriously, I like that a car commercial made you think of Ei'lor . . .
he is insidious and everywhere, after all! Ei'lor does seem to be my
most prolific of my Old Ones, and the one I'll likely write a novel
about, eventually. He follows a long tradition of weird plant stories,
like CAS' "The Seed from the Sepulcher," Hugh Cave's "Come Into my
Parlor" and DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS!
< Being a professor of Mathematics...
I think the setup was reasonable, the professor type overhearing some
students and deciding to investigate on his own. Maybe a stronger
emphasis of the prof's interest in the occult might better explain why
he went exploring on his own. Nowadays it just doesn't ring true that
some people would disappear and there would be no official investigation
of the place by the cops or somesuch, especially if there was any to do
in the papers. Maybe this could all be referred to as third hand or
unsubstantiated rumor, but the place definitely had an air of menace.
Also naming the students and then not using them for anything else is
kind of like committing a sin Chekov wrote about. Maybe just refer to
them by surnames or a little less personally? >
Me: Point well taken.
< TALES OF BRAVING AND ITS
INSIDIOUS ENVIRONS by James Ambrel. >
Me: Yeah, the book was originally SECRETS OF THE SEVERN VALLEY by John
Ramsey, in the Severn Valley version, and since this one was
transplanted to Braving, a Braving book had to be used. I used the
title of my planned collection, and tole the 'James Ambrel' byline from
R. S. Cartwright, a Mythos author who made up a title in tribute to me:
REVELATIONS OF THE BYAGOONA CULT, or something like that, and bylined it
by James Ambrel (re: my story "The Bane of Byagoona"). I was touched!
;-)
< Sounds suspiciously Ambuehl-like!! >
< The last room I explored upstairs must have been old Morrison's
library...
This is where I lost it. Nowadays when a story stops in its tracks to
list a bunch of tomes, new ones to the nefarious library at that, I just
get derailed. And I just don't get why anyone wandering around a creepy
haunted house would stop to read for a few hours. It seems more likely
they would pocket the books and keep prowling around. >
Me: Maybe. But I know if I found a library of old WEIRD TALES
orsomething in an old house, I know I'd be hard-pressed NOT to flip
through them, even as I was stuffing them into my backpack!
(Brief interlude: I went to the college here for a bit -- BEMIDJI STATE
UNIVERSITY -- not really a Royceton U., but . . . well, bored one day, I
found myself wandering the library stacks, having already read all the
Lovecraft, Lin Carter anthologies, and so on they had there (not a bad
bunch of it either), and wandering stack aimlesly, I came upon -- the
OCCULT section! I saw a whole slew of tomes Lovecraft and co. referred
to in their stories: (Things like, if not actually, can't recall for
certain) DICTIONNAIRE INFERNAL; WITCHES HAMMER; THE GOLDEN BOUGH, and so
on. I was amazed! I had no idea (then) these were real tomes! It made
me feel a bit like a character in a Mythos fiction!) ;-)
< I noticed that the sound had returned, that ominous rustling noise...
Finally back to the action! I think retch is misspelled. >
Me: I'll check.
< Dr. Campbell told me...
Why name him? We never see him again. >
Me: Well, the early version was packed FULL of Ramsey Campbell
tributes. Thought I'd keep one in there, at least . . . ;-)
< With the realization came the knowledge that I, and I alone...
Why? Why not enlist some help? >
Me: Uh, most Lovecraftian protagonists are loners, aren't they?
Besides, he probably doesn't want to run into Royceton U. or the Braving
Police Dept. raving of monsters, does he? It works for the story,
anyway, and I really didn't want to turn it into a Delta Green mission
story, or anything like that. I do have a DG-type storylie in mind, but
I'm going to wait a while before I try to tackle it (actually 2 stories)
< I also don't like the counter incantation from the Elder gods
achieving a deus ex machina kind of rescue of the protagonist. It's just
a little too pat. It only ever really worked for me in "The Dunwich
Horror". I would rather he stole some napalm and a crop duster or
something. For me the best descriptions of how these entitie see or
construe humans are in stories like "Mr. Skin" from Cthulhu's Heirs,
where Nyarlathotep wearily tells the protagonist about how little the
Great Old Ones regard, understand or care about humans. Or more recently
I read a Delta Green story, maybe on their website, about the Wendigo or
Ithaqua, not named explicitly as I recall, where one of the characters
said how it had no conception of human life or death and just sort of
enjoyed the psychic vibrations as we transitioned from one state to the
other. This is the backdrop I approach the mythos fiction from, and then
to think that an individual human could compel or entice one of these
things to confront another to protect his own insignificant self just
doesn't hold up for me. >
Me: Good point. But I'm not Lovecraft, and I'm not really trying to
be. I tell Monster stories, straight and simple. I leave the subtle,
philosophical stuff to other, more able authors. I also don't do
research, but just make stuff up as I go! ;-)
< I fear the Star-Seeds have been sown, and even now are being reaped.
I like the conclusion.
I still like the idea of Ei'lor. I sincerely hope you are not offended
by my opinions, Jim. I just prefer stories like "Snake Farm" where most
of the writing is devoted to furthering the action. >
Me: No problem, Matt. Can't expect everyone to like every story, or
understand what I'm doing at all times. But tell me: does "The
Farmhouse," a more straight-ahead horror story, work better? I'll keep
both versions, of course, and I do still like reading my Lumley, Carter,
Derleth, but I am curious if maybe I should turn slightly in another
direction? I probably won't, but there's lots of room for
experimentation in my writing, perhaps . . .
Again, thank for the comments!
-- Jim
"Currently she was standing in the middle of what appeared to be his
TARDIS library. But it was a library of the evil and the arcane, where
the godless 'Necronomicon' was sandwiched between those terrible works
'Liber Inducens in Evangelium Aeternum' and 'The Black Scrolls of
Rassilon'. Where the infamous 'Book of Vile' and its Black Appendix sat
next to 'The Ambuehl Lores' and the wretched 'Insidium of Astrolabus'
.."
-- THE QUANTUM ARCHANGEL by Craig Hinton
icarp...@aol.com
Matt