The Mind Parasites Q8 - The Lovecraft connection

RichardAbbott

Wilson says he wrote this in response to the work of HP Lovecraft. I haven't personally read any Lovecraft so can't comment... but if you have, do you feel Wilson succeeded in the attempt?

NeilNjae

I've not read any Lovecraft either, but I recognised some of the names.

BarnerCobblewood

Sorry I do not. Lovecraft is a better writer. Of course the antagonist in Lovecraft amounts to something more than a parasite. All he got from Lovecraft was the despicable values - see response to Q5.

clash_bowley

I was hoping to read a more modern Lovecraftian horror tale without the blatant an unapologetic racism and mysogyny. This was not a horror story at all, and had all the contempt and hatred intact.

NeilNjae

@clash_bowley said:
I was hoping to read a more modern Lovecraftian horror tale without the blatant an unapologetic racism and mysogyny. This was not a horror story at all, and had all the contempt and hatred intact.

Exactly. A new take on Lovecraft would have been good. Emphasis on the horror of a mind parasite: that's a little-explored and potentially horrifying idea to build a story around. In this one? They couldn't even be bothered to deal with the parasite at the end of the book.

RichardAbbott

Something that occurred to me in this connection was that Wilson apparently was not willing to put his cards on the table as to exactly what the parasites were. There were several theories that the characters suggested - their initial idea that they were particular denizens of psychic space, but then at various later stages other theories emerged - they were a form of human-generated internal disease, a kind of psychic residue, and so on. Now, to have these competing theories around during the book's development seems a good idea to me, but not to finally pin colours to the mast and pick one seems lazy.

clash_bowley

@NeilNjae said:

@clash_bowley said:
I was hoping to read a more modern Lovecraftian horror tale without the blatant an unapologetic racism and mysogyny. This was not a horror story at all, and had all the contempt and hatred intact.

Exactly. A new take on Lovecraft would have been good. Emphasis on the horror of a mind parasite: that's a little-explored and potentially horrifying idea to build a story around. In this one? They couldn't even be bothered to deal with the parasite at the end of the book.

I wonder if an alternate take where the book is about the the super powered humans beating on the poor innocent mind parasites might have been fun...

RichardAbbott

> @clash_bowley said
> I wonder if an alternate take where the book is about the the super powered humans beating on the poor innocent mind parasites might have been fun...

Yes... A cool plot twist would have been where the supposed parasites turned out to be symbiotes, and the human "victory" resulted in the loss of something really important to them