SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS
I am still reading the HP Lovecraft anthology (Necronomicon) that I recieved for Christmas (I stopped half way through to read some sci-fi classics, but am back into it now) and last night I finished 'The shadow out of time' which I thought was another brilliantly disturbing tale. But what I noticed most was the similarities and maybe even direct relation to 'At the Mountains of Madness'
In Mountains he finds the remnants of an ancient race of beings, I'm not entirely sure of their physical appearance but he does mention the 5 star headedness of them. In this tale he expounds the history of this race and talks about thier war with another race that lived elsewhere on Earth at the same time (millenia past).
then in Shadows out of time (literally two stories later in my anthology (only separated by Shadows over Innsmouth)) he describes another ancient race that live millenia past and have fear of the great ones that have 5 point star head things. He then goes to explore the deserts and finds their ancient city and talks about the captured and imprisoned alien that was kept there as some ancient one with 5 star head.
Am I right in thinking that these are the other aliens from each story? Was Lovecraft creating a canon here by including the elements from previous stoies in newer ones. Did he, in fact, write Shadows (I will assume it was written after Mountains) after he had created the race of brain swappers (consciousness swappers is more accurate) in the Mountains tale?
I think this is brilliant and lends further credability to his tales, it created a mythos, that ties more than one alien together in the history of the earth he has created. A stroke genious. I doubt he was the first to do so, but although the tales are similar in that ancient race's cities are discovered, to link two seperate tales in such a way is very clever. I enjoyed.
Tonight I shall begin 'The hunter of the dark'
I am still reading the HP Lovecraft anthology (Necronomicon) that I recieved for Christmas (I stopped half way through to read some sci-fi classics, but am back into it now) and last night I finished 'The shadow out of time' which I thought was another brilliantly disturbing tale. But what I noticed most was the similarities and maybe even direct relation to 'At the Mountains of Madness'
In Mountains he finds the remnants of an ancient race of beings, I'm not entirely sure of their physical appearance but he does mention the 5 star headedness of them. In this tale he expounds the history of this race and talks about thier war with another race that lived elsewhere on Earth at the same time (millenia past).
then in Shadows out of time (literally two stories later in my anthology (only separated by Shadows over Innsmouth)) he describes another ancient race that live millenia past and have fear of the great ones that have 5 point star head things. He then goes to explore the deserts and finds their ancient city and talks about the captured and imprisoned alien that was kept there as some ancient one with 5 star head.
Am I right in thinking that these are the other aliens from each story? Was Lovecraft creating a canon here by including the elements from previous stoies in newer ones. Did he, in fact, write Shadows (I will assume it was written after Mountains) after he had created the race of brain swappers (consciousness swappers is more accurate) in the Mountains tale?
I think this is brilliant and lends further credability to his tales, it created a mythos, that ties more than one alien together in the history of the earth he has created. A stroke genious. I doubt he was the first to do so, but although the tales are similar in that ancient race's cities are discovered, to link two seperate tales in such a way is very clever. I enjoyed.
Tonight I shall begin 'The hunter of the dark'