Throbelisk posted:
The form of written information on a support is hardly something superior. The superior form would be something holding information for all senses (given the Yith could have more than 5).
I think you're forgetting that most science fiction is improvement on the already-familiar. We don't even have single forms of media that involve all of our senses today, so attempting to disrespect an author from the 1930s based on such a flimsy notion doesn't fly. You also simply have no basis for saying Lovecraft was unable to imagine anything other than books in the first place.
Where you're wrong is that Lovecraft isn't writing science-fiction. He's writing horror fiction, not speculative fiction.
So, in his writing, there is actually no "improvement on the already-familiar" at all. It's distortion of the already familiar.
I didn't "disrespect" Lovecraft, because he's obviously very skilled in writing stories that give an uneasy feeling, by setting an ambiance, through the use of a specific vocabulary. As long as he writes about long past eons, it's fine. He's obviously very skilled.
But when he wanders into speculation, like time travel, he falls short, because to him, his present time technology is the apex of technology and the alien species are only better in the arts of mind manipulation, or dark magic. So, he willingly, or not, limits himself to what is possible in his own time.
Maybe he was able to imagine things beyond his time but he choose not to write about them?
After all, someone like Jules Verne, who came before him, was the real deal, because he really "improved on the already-familiar".
last edited at Jul 31, 2020 8:26AM
