About five years ago, Herr Link turned me onto Delta Green, which is a modern-day, paranoiac/conspiracy take on the Cthulhu Mythos. Written by John Tynes and Dennis Detwiller (with some help from a couple others, I think, but I'm too lazy to seek out proper attribution), Delta Green (also too lazy to use italics, if you haven't noticed) restructured Lovecraft and Co.'s nightmarish creations so as to become- unbelievably- even more nightmarish, simply by filtering them through modern (in)sensibilities.
The finest work that Tynes did in regard to the Cthulhu Mythos was with his study of the Hastur mythos: the god-thing Hastur itself, its avatar the King in Yellow, the city of Carcosa, the Lake of Hali, und so weiter. While these creations weren't Lovecraft's, but rather Ambrose Bierce's and Robert W. Chambers', Lovecraft popularized them, at least for latecomers like myself. Tynes' material in Delta Green:Countdown, based on his own temporary psychosis re: the King in Yellow, fleshed it out even further. Since reading Tynes' interpretation of Hastur and the King in Yellow, I can honestly say that it's haunted me off and on for the past half-decade. I can't explain it without pointing you towards the source material (both Chambers' work and that of Tynes), but rest assured that, often without any premeditation, the Carcosan aesthetic seeps into my writing more and more, and that I am deeply- not in the recently immersed sense, but in the more or less subconscious yet entrenched sense- fascinated, and terrified of, Hastur and his manifestations.
I reckon only Andy will know what I mean, unless you too have seen the Yellow Sign.
Moral of the story: do not ever underestimate the power of fiction.
1 comment:
that i choose now to write my semi-carcosan story...
hell, forget semi. it is a king in yellow story. and not just story, but undertaking. eek.
it is a shared city, of poets and madmen.
i think the "all right" wrap party should be the king in yellow party done proper. seems about right.
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