"And slowly, as the ancient skull of Homo sapiens primoris watched on, I began to decipher the music of distant stars." (411)
In part one I covered two short stories by Brian Hodge, and after finishing my post began looking for a story about a giant skull that I wanted to include in part two. At the time I could not remember the author. But yes it was Brian Hodge.
Our narrator is an artist who mixes sounds for use in movie soundtracks in a studio in the Cascades region of Oregon. His father was a musician, an acid rocker, who overdosed in a rented farmhouse in Vermont when he was 6. His mother a groupie disappeared and he was raised by his aunt and uncle. At one point he had a band whose avowed purpose was to burn down the world with their music. But eventually the band broke up. he married a Swedish music critic and founded his current company Megalith. When the story begins he is working on tracks for a movie called Subterranean. During a visit by his uncle Terrance, a retired professor from Boston he is given a massive skull some 350,000 years old. Terrance classes it as an erratic enigmatics, an artifact that should not exist. It was uncovered during an archaeological excavation by Miskatonic University, who had enlisted Terrance for the dig. And therein lies the tale. To often mythos tales retread the same ground, so much so, that the creators of The Great Lovecraft Reread on Tor.com start each post with checklist of certain elements. While the mere mention of Miskatonic University seems to indicate Hodge is about to tread the path too often taken, he does not. Many familiar elements are here, Pop culture tropes, Charles Fort like artifacts, MIB like conspiracies, ancient astronauts, the weird astronomical knowledge of the Dogan tribe of East Africa. But Hodge welds them into something, new, fresh and unexpected. Many of these elements fascinate me, add the archaeological element, I worked in archaeology for close to ten years, and this story was one I was almost genetically programmed to enjoy just like…, But I will leave you here.
Our narrator is an artist who mixes sounds for use in movie soundtracks in a studio in the Cascades region of Oregon. His father was a musician, an acid rocker, who overdosed in a rented farmhouse in Vermont when he was 6. His mother a groupie disappeared and he was raised by his aunt and uncle. At one point he had a band whose avowed purpose was to burn down the world with their music. But eventually the band broke up. he married a Swedish music critic and founded his current company Megalith. When the story begins he is working on tracks for a movie called Subterranean. During a visit by his uncle Terrance, a retired professor from Boston he is given a massive skull some 350,000 years old. Terrance classes it as an erratic enigmatics, an artifact that should not exist. It was uncovered during an archaeological excavation by Miskatonic University, who had enlisted Terrance for the dig. And therein lies the tale. To often mythos tales retread the same ground, so much so, that the creators of The Great Lovecraft Reread on Tor.com start each post with checklist of certain elements. While the mere mention of Miskatonic University seems to indicate Hodge is about to tread the path too often taken, he does not. Many familiar elements are here, Pop culture tropes, Charles Fort like artifacts, MIB like conspiracies, ancient astronauts, the weird astronomical knowledge of the Dogan tribe of East Africa. But Hodge welds them into something, new, fresh and unexpected. Many of these elements fascinate me, add the archaeological element, I worked in archaeology for close to ten years, and this story was one I was almost genetically programmed to enjoy just like…, But I will leave you here.
While Brian Hodge is a newer inclusion in my pantheon of Mythos Gods, the ultimate ruler, the daemon sultan at the heart of it all, remains Caitlin R. Kieran. And in honour of the latest photos from Ultima Thule, I had to include one of my favourite stories by her. The tale of what happens when New Horizons returns and the stars are right.
https://www.wired.com/story/new-horizons-first-photos-ultima-thule/
Nova also has put out a great program on New Horizons,
Pluto and Beyond.
http://www.tvweeklynow.com/news-blogs/news-blogs-RicksPicks/novas-pluto-and-beyond-covers-the-new-horizons-mission-in-real-time.htm
Nova also has put out a great program on New Horizons,
Pluto and Beyond.
http://www.tvweeklynow.com/news-blogs/news-blogs-RicksPicks/novas-pluto-and-beyond-covers-the-new-horizons-mission-in-real-time.htm
"New Horizons returned, ignoring its programming and using Pluto for a gravitational slingshot back towards the inner Solar System, hurtling across near vacuum and cold and all those millions of miles back to earth. The probe crashed somewhere in the Sahara, or the Caspian Sea, or Scandinavia.
No one was ever certain, as tracking stations seemed to show it coming down in multiple locations.
But it returned with secrets, and the scientists could grasp at straws forever and never have one iota what those secrets were. New Horizons returned, and R’lyeh rose, and the one sleeping there awoke.
And The End began.
Or the Beginning."
S. T. Joshi. Black Wings of Cthulhu (Volume Four)
A brilliant tale combining elements of the mythos, with a Chicago now transformed into Hodgson's, the Last Redoubt from The Night Land surrounded by his various fungal horrors and doomed by the machinations of Lovecraft's Black Pharaoh. Keirnan shows us what exactly happens when R’lyeh rises and horrors roam the world.
Cover Credits
Children of Cthulhu, Dave McKean
Black Wings of Cthulhu 4, Jason Van Hollander, Gregory Nemec
No comments:
Post a Comment