Author Archives: asdjfdlkf

The mystery of “J.N.”

02 Thursday Dec 2010

Posted by in Historical context

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Ichabod Wiswall. Apparently the first man known to have given a funeral service in North America, at Massachusetts in 1697 (that was five years after the Witch Trials of 1692). Why did a Christian minister have his gravestone flanked by two Cthulhu-like sea creatures?

The gravestone is one of three known made by a carver who signed himself “J.N.” (and of whom nothing more is known — see the 1966 book: Graven images: New England stonecarving and its symbols, 1650-1815, by Allan I. Ludwig, p. 296). Nine other gravestones done in the same manner and style are known locally. J.N.’s workmanship was far in advance of the local carvers. Ludwig writes of…

“the enigmatic Dagons or Tritons which ornament his most representative stones. The use of Dagons on Puritan gravestones is puzzling in the light of the fact that they were associated with paganism and the evil doings of Thomas Morton and his merrymen. … Yet pagan Dagons remained to grace the stones of many a proper Boston family in the late 17th century. … It is not clear what pagan water deities were doing on Puritan gravestones.” — Graven images, Ludwig.

The roots of Dagon in New England have, of course, been investigated already by Lovecraftian scholars. See Will Murray’s “Dagon in Puritan Massachusetts,” Lovecraft Studies, No. 11 (Fall 1985), pages 66-70.

Harriette Merrifield Forbes’ The Gravestones of early New England and the men who made them: 1653-1800 (1927) tells us that Wiswall was also an astrologer…

“In Duxbury we discover another stone [i.e.: the one seen above], quite different from the other two and signed ‘JN’ in script below the left-hand border. It is that of the Reverend Ichabod Wiswall, a man ‘famous as an astrologer.'”

“famous as an astrologer” — interesting. No-one else with net-accessible information on him mentions that fact. Forbes’ source appears to be the 1854 book A history of the early settlement of Newton, county of Middlesex by Francis Jackson, which adds that he predicted the death of his child…

Hi-res images of the gravestone on Flickr and another here.

[ Hat-tip: io9 ]

Frankenstein manuscript seen in public for first time

30 Tuesday Nov 2010

Posted by in New books

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The hand-written manuscript of Mary Shelley’s famous novel Frankenstein has been put on public display for the first time. The exhibition is titled “Shelley’s Ghost: Reshaping the Image of a Literary Family”, opening on 3rd December and running until 27th March 2011. The exhibition is accompanied by a 176-page catalogue from the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, which is also hosting the exhibition.

Weird Fiction Review #1

25 Thursday Nov 2010

Posted by in Historical context, Lovecraftian arts, Scholarly works

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Weird Fiction Review. The first issue is out now…

“The Weird Fiction Review is an annual periodical devoted to the study of weird and supernatural fiction. It is edited by S.T. Joshi. This first issue contains fiction, poetry, and reviews from leading writers and promising newcomers. … Among the articles, there are discussions of a forgotten story by Victorian weird writer R. Murray Gilchrist; Poe’s “The Imp of the Perverse”; Algernon Blackwood’s novella “A Descent into Egypt”; Neil Gaiman’s treatment of the Beowulf story; a 16-page full-color gallery of art by David Ho; and much more.”

Technology and the Horrible

24 Wednesday Nov 2010

Posted by in Lovecraftian arts, Scholarly works

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In Media Res is seeking curators for its spring schedule. Among the ‘theme weeks’ for which they are currently seeking proposals for curators include:

Technology and the Horrible

Proposals need not be any longer than a sentence or two. For more information, as well as deadlines for each individual week, please go to: Current Calls.

Curated pieces include a 30-second to 3-minute clip, an image, or a slideshow accompanied by a 300 to 350 word response to/contextualization of the clip, image, or slideshow. In addition to curating your piece, you will be expected to engage with the other pieces presented that week as a means of fostering discussion and further fleshing out the individual topic in relation to the week’s theme.

Baxter’s Xeelee series – the chronological reading order

13 Saturday Nov 2010

Posted by in Unnamable

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I’m still waiting for Joshi’s complete Lovecraft biography to find its way across the Atlantic, and in the meantime I’m getting ready to tackle Stephen Baxter’s immense Xeelee series of SF books and stories. For those, like me, who like the idea of reading these works in chronological order, Baxter has a chronology of all the Xeelee stories / novels (to 2009) on his official website, although it’s not easy to find via a Google search. It does seem to contain plot spoilers. So, below is my version of his chronological list of novels/stories without the plot spoilers, and all short stories and novelettes have their parent book noted in brackets. They’re spread across 12 print books, three of which are anthologies that contain other authors.

Note that Ring, Timelike Infinity, Transcendent, and Mayflower II appear several times in Baxter’s list — this seems to indicate that they straddle a long time-period? Presumably an intelligent reader will realise when to make the switch. I have starred * these overlapping texts when they make a second appearance in the list below.

Xeelee series, chronological reading order:

Coalescent (book one of Destiny’s Children – only tangentially related to the rest of the timeline)
Transcendent (book three of Destiny’s Children)
The Sun-People (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
Return to Titan (uncollected – to be found in the misc. author anthology Godlike Machines, Sept 2010)
The Logic Pool (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
Timelike Infinity
Gossamer (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
Timelike Infinity
Cilia-of-Gold (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
Lieserl (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
Ring (read up to the launch of Great Northern)
Starfall (uncollected – novella published by PS Publishing, April 2009. Hardcover, print only)
Pilot (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
The Xeelee Flower (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
More Than Time or Distance (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
The Switch (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
Remembrance (published in the misc. author anthology The New Space Opera)
* Timelike Infinity (again?)
Cadre Siblings (in: Resplendent)
Blue Shift (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
Conurbation 2473 (in: Resplendent)
Reality Dust (in: Resplendent)
Mayflower II (in: Resplendent)
All in a Blaze (in: Resplendent)
Silver Ghost (in: Resplendent)
The Quagma Datum (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
Planck Zero (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
Soliton Star (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
The Cold Sink (in: Resplendent)
The Seer and the Silverman (only published as part of the misc. author anthology Galactic Empires)
On the Orion Line (in: Resplendent)
Ghost Wars (in: Resplendent)
The Ghost Pit (in: Resplendent)
Lakes of Light (in: Resplendent)
The Godel Sunflowers (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
Breeding Ground (in: Resplendent)
The Dreaming Mould (in: Resplendent)
The Great Game (in: Resplendent)
The Chop Line (in: Resplendent)
Vacuum Diagrams (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
In the Un-Black (in: Resplendent)
Riding the Rock (in: Resplendent)
Exultant (book two of Destiny’s Children)
* Mayflower II (again? in: Resplendent)
Between Worlds (in: Resplendent)
Raft
Stowaway (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
The Tyranny of Heaven (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
Hero (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
Flux
* Transcendent
The Siege of Earth (in: Resplendent)
Secret History (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
Shell (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
The Eighth Room (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
The Baryonic Lords (in: Vacuum Diagrams)
* Ring (after Great Northern returns)

PeriAndry’s Quest (as yet uncollected – Analog, June 2004)
Climbing the Blue (as yet uncollected – Analog, July/August 2005)
The Time Pit (as yet uncollected – Analog, October 2005)
The Lowland Expedition (as yet uncollected – Analog, April 2006)
Formidable Caress (as yet uncollected – Analog, November 2009)

* Timelike Infinity (again?)