Exceptions to Reality by Alan Dean Foster

Author:Alan Dean Foster
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780345507815
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2008-07-29T07:00:00+00:00

A Fatal Exception Has Occurred at…

As I have mentioned previously, the first story I ever sold (though not the first one to appear in print) was “Some Notes Concerning a Green Box.” This was a Lovecraftian pastiche done in the style of a letter to Arkham House’s founder and editor, August Derleth. I never expected it to see print as a story, yet that’s what happened. Its purchase by Derleth taught me a valuable lesson. Write for yourself, write what pleases you, and do not write simply to appeal to a perceived market.

I never stopped loving Lovecraft. When I was young, his leavening of gothic horror with a soupçon of science was the only fiction that caused me to cast furtive glances at night in the direction of darkened windows. I even taught at UCLA a graduate literature seminar in Lovecraft’s works. Many years went by, and many words, during which time I wrote only one other very early tale set in Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos.

Then editor John Pelan came calling with an invitation to compose a new Mythos story for an anthology of same that he was putting together for Del Rey Books. The Children of Cthulhu, it was called. Aside from the obvious opportunity to write about unnamable cephalopodian offspring (the title “Cthulhu’s Nursery” sprang to mind—and was as swiftly discarded), I wondered how to bring the Mythos out of the dark alleys of towns like Dunwich and Innsmouth and into the present day. Besides, I’ve never been to either malevolent community (does the new eminent domain–urban renewal law apply to Innsmouth?) and would not be able to describe them (or even Boston) with proper justice.

I was becoming more and more familiar with another aspect of contemporary culture, however, and thought its own arcane argot and evolving mythology might make a nice fit with the Mythos, if only I could figure out a way to make it work as a story.

The answer lay in the mutual mouthing of horrific curses. Both Lovecraft’s Mythos and that of Microsoft possess, and are possessed by, their own singular liturgy of eldritch moans and eerie execrations. Believe me, if I thought lifting my bloodstained arms to the skies and thrice chanting “Ia, Ia, Shub-Niggurath, ftaghn!” would keep MS Word from crashing before automatic save engaged to protect heartfelt work otherwise lost, I would readily do so…

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.