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Building A Deeper Horror World
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7749349" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>Well, sure, but I think this point only serves to reinforce your earlier point about how this approach defuses the source of the horror: Stross's 'Laundry' series at some point along the way left the Horror genera behind and started more and more resembling a pulp thriller. The horror tones are increasingly just window dressing and fear isn't something I think is being deeply considered by the stories, and all the central Lovecraftian conceits are long gone in the rear view mirror. These aren't exactly sorcerers whose knowledge of the universe is destroying them or their ability to be human. Heck, you can have vampires and deep one hybrids as very human beings with very human concerns and personalities who are serving human interests and not the Great Old Ones. Heck, in recent books even the thing in the black pyramid and its agents and similar alien creatures are presented as basically human and intelligible beings. The world Stross is now presenting in the Laundry-verse is decidedly a 'humans are special' sort of universe where things aren't actually bleak and hopeless and the world is basically understandable, fathomable, and controllable by human intelligences. Heck, he's gone as far as bringing five-color capes into the universe and pulp secret agents who also are wielders of mighty magics. He gotten very far afield from where things were in 'Colder War' and 'The Atrocity Archives'. As a setting, it presently resembles more D&D than Call of Cthulhu, and a big part of that has been a largely competent organization preserving institutional knowledge. Recent books have more in common with the Star Wars cantina and everything despite its alien appearance being basically human in motivations than it has to do with Lovecraftian horror or any of its descendants (compare Stross's treatment of alien things with the alien of 'The Thing' or the xenomorph of 'Alien').</p><p></p><p>The article goes in an interesting direction, but it is not the direction that I expected it to go based on the title. When I thought of deeper horror, I thought literally of deeper and more meaningful scares. But the article doesn't even think about deeper and more meaningful scares, and instead goes in the pulpy heroic goofy direction of classic D&D, Harry Potter or Terry Pratchett's Disc World. This might make for a more gamable universe, but it won't bring deeper horror or deeper reflection upon horrific things.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7749349, member: 4937"] Well, sure, but I think this point only serves to reinforce your earlier point about how this approach defuses the source of the horror: Stross's 'Laundry' series at some point along the way left the Horror genera behind and started more and more resembling a pulp thriller. The horror tones are increasingly just window dressing and fear isn't something I think is being deeply considered by the stories, and all the central Lovecraftian conceits are long gone in the rear view mirror. These aren't exactly sorcerers whose knowledge of the universe is destroying them or their ability to be human. Heck, you can have vampires and deep one hybrids as very human beings with very human concerns and personalities who are serving human interests and not the Great Old Ones. Heck, in recent books even the thing in the black pyramid and its agents and similar alien creatures are presented as basically human and intelligible beings. The world Stross is now presenting in the Laundry-verse is decidedly a 'humans are special' sort of universe where things aren't actually bleak and hopeless and the world is basically understandable, fathomable, and controllable by human intelligences. Heck, he's gone as far as bringing five-color capes into the universe and pulp secret agents who also are wielders of mighty magics. He gotten very far afield from where things were in 'Colder War' and 'The Atrocity Archives'. As a setting, it presently resembles more D&D than Call of Cthulhu, and a big part of that has been a largely competent organization preserving institutional knowledge. Recent books have more in common with the Star Wars cantina and everything despite its alien appearance being basically human in motivations than it has to do with Lovecraftian horror or any of its descendants (compare Stross's treatment of alien things with the alien of 'The Thing' or the xenomorph of 'Alien'). The article goes in an interesting direction, but it is not the direction that I expected it to go based on the title. When I thought of deeper horror, I thought literally of deeper and more meaningful scares. But the article doesn't even think about deeper and more meaningful scares, and instead goes in the pulpy heroic goofy direction of classic D&D, Harry Potter or Terry Pratchett's Disc World. This might make for a more gamable universe, but it won't bring deeper horror or deeper reflection upon horrific things. [/QUOTE]
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