Astrowright muses today on what Lovecraft got right from the perspective on xenoarchaeology (the scientific imagining of the archaeological discovery of physical remains of alien civilisations).

Above: Jack Kirby depicting archaeologists discovering evidence of ancient space travelers, The Eternals #1.

An interesting divination of the aether by a savvy publisher’s editor…

“Catherine Burke, the editorial director of Sphere, said there was a “surge of interest from readers” in ghost stories, and agents were receiving more submissions in the genre. With high-profile releases expected to be popular this year, she predicts we will see even more ghost stories in 2013.”

It doesn’t necessarily have to be nostalgic “men in frock-coats chasing white sheets in English country churchyards”, although we may get some of that from TV producers.

Perhaps fiction has already done this (^*) but one of the interesting things about recent Doctor Who is how the writers and monster concept artists have pointed out how to very effectively ‘re-invent the ghost’ (e.g. The Silence, numerous SF-y ‘haunted’ houses with haunted rooms) while keeping it roughly within a sort-of scientific framework. It’s an interesting and popular hybridity between horror and SF, of the sort that Lovecraft might have appreciated.

(Incidentally, it’s such a pity that the most recent Doctor Who series made such a dog’s dinner of the central ‘Silence’ plotline. Someone really needs to make a four-hour fan-edit of that series that just focuses on the central/core storyline).

(*) I’m really not well-read in modern horror, preferring SF, although I’m slowly noting the anthologies that need to be read…