Hello, friends! Welcome to this month’s meeting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group, a blog hop created by Alex J. Cavanaugh and co-hosted this month by Nancy Gideon, Jennifer Lane, Jacqui Murray, and Natalie Aguirre. Are you a writer? Do you feel insecure? If so, then this is the support group for you! Click here to learn more.
Each month, the Insecure Writer’s Support Group asks us an optional question. IWSG members can answer the question if they want, or they can skip it if there’s something else they want/need to talk about instead. This month’s optional question is:
Ghost stories fit right in during this month. What’s your favorite classic ghostly tale? Tell us about it and why it sends chills up your spine.
I almost skipped this month’s question. Ghost stories don’t do much for me. I have a very sciency worldview, unfortunately, so stories about the occult or the paranormal don’t give me much of a thrill or a fright. But there is an author who bridged the gap between science and the supernatural well enough to freak me the f*** out. That authors’ name is H.P. Lovecraft.
Lovecraft did most of his writing in the 1920’s and 30’s. He died young, unfortunately, in 1937. As I understand his biography, Lovecraft was a huge fan of Edgar Allan Poe and was inspired by Poe’s work; however, Lovecraft believed that the traditional ghost story needed to be updated for modern times and modern, scientific sensibilities. So rather than leaning on ghosts and devils, Lovecraft filled his stories with theoretical physics, extraterrestrial intelligences, and occasional references to a certain newly discovered planet (Pluto).
My favorite Lovecraft story is called “The Colour Out of Space.” In that story, a meteor crashes on Earth, introducing an extraterrestrial something to the local environment. The local environment begins to change as a result. Plants and animals become weirdly mutated, and the humans living on a nearby farm gradually lose their sanity. No one can explain what’s happening. No one can explain what that thing from outer space is or even describe what it looks like. The best anyone can say is that it’s a color unlike any color seen before by human eyes (hence the title of the story).
I can’t think of many stories where alien life forms are presented as truly unknowable beings. There are the alien monoliths from 2001: A Space Odyssey. There are the replicas from Solaris, or the sphere from Michael Crichton’s Sphere. But that thing from “The Colour Out of Space”… whatever that thing was, it was the most incomprehensible of all incomprehensible aliens in science fiction. And that truly scares me.
I love space and I love science fiction. One of my dearest hopes for the future is that we will one day make contact with aliens—aliens like E.T. or Mr. Spock. You know: the kind of aliens we can be friends with. But that may not be what happens. If/when we discover alien life, the aliens may be something totally and completely beyond human comprehension (and we humans may seem equally incomprehensible to whatever alien intelligence happens to discover us). That’s a scenario that terrifies me, and it should terrify anyone who lives on this rather small and extremely vulnerable planet.
i-love-space.com 
Ever see the movie version with Nicolas Cage? Bat-crap crazy.
Lovecraft had a way of imagining the unimaginable.
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No, but I’ll check that out. I have seen Annihilation, staring Natalie Portman. Not the same story, but a very similar vibe.
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I agree, it is a terrifying concept. “Small” and “extremely vulnerable” are both alarmingly accurate descriptors of our planet and our species in comparison to the magnitude of the universe, so the unpredictability of alien life is scary to think about.
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Exactly. If we can communicate with aliens and reach some sort of understanding with them, that’s one thing. But aliens that are beyond human comprehension? I don’t know how we’d deal with that.
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Thanks bunches for stopping by my blog. Lovecraft does have a way of blending frights and fears with science. You make a point about the change in times. Today, some maybe weary of alien encounters but I think more are worried about A.I. Whether it’s ghost, aliens, or machines, as long as it makes me think a little, I’ll call it a good story.
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Can’t argue with you there. A.I. is a big concern.
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Pretty cool Musk will rescue those astronauts from the ISS. What a story. He has me hooked again on space.
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Glad to hear it! Space is great!
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I’m not big on straight ghost stories myself. Although if the ghost is an AI, uploaded mind, or something equally sci-fi-ish, well, that might be interesting. But I’m not big on straight horror either. Horror in an overall action or adventure story works. But horror just for horror’s sake? I’ll pass (usually).
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I’m with you. Make it Sci-Fi, and it’ll work better for me. Although I’ve also seen horror movies where they just say the word quantum a bunch of times and call it good. That makes the story even less scientifically credible, in my opinion.
And I’m with you on horror for horror’s sake, too. Even a lot of Lovecraft’s stuff falls flat for me. Too many of his protagonists see an alien and just spontaneously go insane, with no further explanation.
What works in “Color Out of Space” and several of Lovecraft’s other stories is that the characters try to understand, try to solve the problem, and just can’t. I don’t know if that’s horrifying, per se, but it’s something that might happen if/when we discover alien life for real.
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I’m with you–paranormal stories don’t really do it for me. Regarding sciency horror stories, I recall going to see Jurassic Park in the theater, thinking it was a nice little science fiction movie, but it scared the crap out of me! Thanks for the introduction to H.P. Lovecraft.
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It’s really amazing to me how well the special effects in Jurassic Park have held up. It still looks convincing all these years later. And it has plenty of jump scare moments, too. I can totally understand your reaction.
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I want to hope that humanity’s future encounters with aliens would be closer to Star Trek than to Lovecraft. Becky Chambers would be even better, but I guess I’m an idealist in that regard.
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A Becky Chambers future would be wonderful. And honestly, I think something like that is more likely. However strange aliens might be, I have a hard time believing they wouldn’t share at least some things in common with us: a sense of curiosity and wonder, at the very least.
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I’m a big fan of Lovecraft’s work too. What I like most about his stories are, as you said, the monsters in them are so alien to humans that they can’t be described accurately enough but also because these situations are often told using gothic settings even though they’re more science fiction horror than supernatural horror. And that works because like with supernatural gothic horror, Lovecraft’s horror gives a sense of absolute dread. The horror in his stories is what they call cosmic horror which is the terrifying realisation that there is a larger unknown presence that more destructive than us humans.
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When I look up at the stars, I feel mostly awe and wonder, but also just a tiny hint of dread. I think Lovecraft taps into that little hint of dread for me, whereas most of the other writers I read focus on the awe and wonder.
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Right. I think we can use more sci fi horror today, at least in prose fiction; it’s seemed to have declined since the 1960s.
Because many of Lovecraft’s creatures were so indescribable, I think I read somewhere that he was the inspiration for the Alien films.
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That makes sense. If nothing else, I feel like Lovecraft and Giger were cut from the same cloth.
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Ooh, I hadn’t read “Color Out of Space”. I’m huge fan of Torchwood (audio drama as much as/more than the show) and it’s also a good example of science-y occasionally-paranormal horror. Aliens of all types, and humans not always the good guys. Didn’t think I’d like it, but I did. Makes me really wonder though, if some of their ‘humans will just mess it up’ themes aren’t really how it’d go. Will there be bad guys? Will they be aliens–or us?
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Funny enough, there were a bunch of Lovecraft stories where I thought, “Wait, I’ve seen this episode of Doctor Who.” It wouldn’t surprise me if the writers of Doctor Who and Torchwood were inspired, just a little, by Lovecraft’s work.
Personally, I like to believe that any civilization that makes it to space and manages to survive and thrive in space can’t be that bad. And if we make it that far, maybe we’re not so bad either. But that may be wishful thinking on my part.
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