In the Walls of Eryx

[bar1scorpio]

Loved this, nice, not so much scare, but pure suspense to it.

Also felt like a pre-emptive middle finger to James Cameron's Avatar.  Great bleak, cynical ending.

That said, the Zeerust leaves it very Riff-able.

[Kaelestes]

I agree it's not a bad story, but Lovecraft's/Sterling's Venus is some serious silliness. The leather space suits made me laugh and I have a hard time believing flame guns would be terribly effective on a race native to the surface of a planet that regularly has 420° C (788° F) days. Very riffable indeed!

[bar1scorpio]

Well, that's part of what's fun of it!

It's called "Zeerust".  When "Science Marches On" well ahead of speculative fiction.
And the story was written well before the space program lost two (?) landers to Venus' caustic atmosphere.  But there were confirmed clouds, which gave rise to the rampant speculation that life was possible there.
And as for the leather suit, the story was actually written before plastic. 

[Kaelestes]

There was a time before Ziploc? [shudder]

[bar1scorpio]

It is kind of mindblowing to think about.

Like how Patton Oswald says he'd like a time machine, just to visit himself from 20 years ago, and blow his own mind.

"See this?  This will contain every song you'll ever want to listen to!"

[TransconaSlim]

I'm pretty sure that there is a lovecraft reference in the fictional history of Avatar...

[bar1scorpio]

I'm pretty sure that there is a lovecraft reference in the fictional history of Avatar...

Except he'd have hated it, given the treacly ending.  My own spite for that movie notwithstanding, but I can get into that later.

Hell, the ending of Eryx seems like a anti-Avatar.  A far more cynical ending -
"can't we all just get along?"
"f*** no. dead guy.  f*** no.  we learn NOTHING!  Good day, sir!"

[Christian O.]

I'm pretty sure that there is a lovecraft reference in the fictional history of Avatar...

That jumped out at me as well, but for the life of me I can't remember what it was.

Avatar was kind of terrible, but I think some of the implications of the creature designs were horrifying. Like the fact that the Na'vi are basically vampires. They're parasitic mind controllers, they never eat, they look like bats (look at the ears, the eyes and the fangs), they sleep in coffins and Jake is basically turned into one of them by being eaten. There's a weird contrast between what we're told and the design in that film.

[Jape]

Ignorantly the first Lovecraft anthology I ever bought was a 'miscellania' collection of collaborations, poems etc. but Eryx (and Curse of Yig for that matter) was in it and is still one of my faves by him, regardless of the Mythos - I love science pulp - Jungle Venus being a classic trope. The aliens who change from being little more dangerous than cattle to 'laughing' with their waving tendrils has always creeped me out.

As for Avatar - I noticed the parasitic 'thing' going on too. Plus I laughed my ass off when they quickly hinted awesome males get to pick and choose their wife - noble savages indeed!

I must ask thought - Lovecraft reference? Where? What? I'm terribly intrigued, and I'm certainly not going to watch it again to find out! 

[TransconaSlim]

googled "Lovecraft+Avatar" and this is what I found:

Dr. Cordell Lovecraft was an RDA scientist who was given the task of carrying the “Dark Dreamer” project, which sought to transmit mental processes – “thoughts” – to humans at a distance, as well as interspecies mental communication.

Dr. Lovecraft worked with brain-wiped primates and condemned criminals and was able to demonstrate that full sensory bonding could be established between human twins, human-animal hybrids that shared common DeoxyriboNucleic Acid (DNA), and eventually human/Na'vi hybrids with "resonant" genetic DNA/NVTranscriptase blueprints.

Eventually the early Avatar Program succeeded in producing the first viable hybrids between completely unrelated species – a considerable achievement since, as Dr Lovecraft famously remarked, humans are “far more closely related genetically to garden slugs than to Na’vi.”

Dr. Lovecraft has been nominated for multiple Nobel prizes in biological sciences, but the nominations have invariably been withdrawn following protests from human rights organizations, the UN Pan-Faith Council, and animal rights activists.[1]

http://james-camerons-avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Dr._Cordell_Lovecraft

----

I've never seen Avatar, and I don't really want too, so I don't really know any of the history or what's in it.

[Jape]

Cheers! Nice to know Avatar is just as horrific as I assumed.