Talk: The Fillmore Shoggoth

Got the information for this from the official website maintained by Silver. He still has "Nine Drowned Churches" listed and it should have been published in June but does not appear on Amazon. Curious. ML4E (talk) 22:43, September 19, 2014 (UTC)

From what I can tell, That is Not Dead has been in the works for a while. The link I have for it on 9DC goes to an author blogging about the collection in 2013. I notice that Jay Lake was also a contributor to TiND, and he died earlier this year after a lengthy battle with cancer. That might explain the delay.

That sad fact aside, I am very interested in this particular project. TR (talk) 02:10, September 20, 2014 (UTC)

Incidentally, the description of a "shoggoth" is here. At the Mountains of Madness was the first Lovecraft work I read way back as a freshman in high school. I remember the shoggoths being rather terrifying.

You know, they didn't do much for me. Sure they were dangerous, but they only threatened the main characters after they'd gone ever deeper and deeper into what they knew to be a dangerous place. I kept thinking "If you know it's so bad, why don't you turn back?" and when they finally stumbled onto the shoggoths I thought "Serves you right!" The encounter was brief, escape wasn't all that difficult, and I just couldn't see the trauma that made their reaction so severe.

I own the complete works of Lovecraft (got it for a song) and have a tradition of reading a story every Halloween. Since beginning that tradition I've read "The Call of Chthulhu," "At the Mountains of Madness," "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," and "Nyarlahotep." I'll have to choose one for this year, I haven't given it much thought yet. I'm not claiming to be particularly immune to the effects of the horror genre (far from it; I gave up horror movies altogether years ago because of how severely even minor ones got into my head) nor do I care to disparage HP's skill in his lovely craft; but of those four, "Innsmouth" is the only one that scared me to any significant extent. Turtle Fan (talk) 22:39, September 20, 2014 (UTC)

I might recommend "Dreams in the Witch House". It's not a great story in and of itself, but the ending is so fucked up and disturbing that it will stick with you. TR (talk) 01:44, September 21, 2014 (UTC)

"Dreams in the Witch House" it is. Since I was probably just going to end up choosing one at random, I might as well take a suggestion. Turtle Fan (talk) 02:29, September 21, 2014 (UTC)

Given the title, I'm guessing that some location called Fillmore will be haunted by a shoggoth. There is a small twisted part of me that hopes that the Fillmore is Millard, and that his inadvertent use of a shoggoth is what prompted Taylor to die unexpectedly, but I won't hold my breath. TR (talk) 02:17, September 20, 2014 (UTC)

That would be pretty cool. It would be nice to have Fillmore show up in some capacity, anyway, if only so we can give him an article. Turtle Fan (talk) 22:39, September 20, 2014 (UTC)

I have since confirmed that there is a Fillmore, California, which is in Ventura County, which is the county bordering LA County to the west. So....yeah. TR (talk) 01:44, September 21, 2014 (UTC)

Shit. Well maybe someone will say "As you know, our town is named after Millard Fillmore" and we'll get our article anyway?

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I wish he'd start showing some love to the rest of the country. I've got a pretty low opinion of SW California, I'll admit, based on some unpleasant travels there back in '08 and on East Coast bias generally; but even if that weren't so, not everything has to happen in one of LA's endless assortment of suburbs. Turtle Fan (talk) 02:29, September 21, 2014 (UTC)

Well, don't despair yet. There are about a dozen other places called "Fillmore" in the US. TR (talk) 23:28, September 21, 2014 (UTC)

Maybe, but . . . it's Turtledove. Turtle Fan (talk) 02:28, September 22, 2014 (UTC)

It's out

I went ahead and kindled it. Yep, the rock band in '68 at The Fillmore. There are some off the cuff references to the Democratic primary, which could yield a Eugene McCarthy article. I'll keep you posted. TR (talk) 21:21, October 7, 2014 (UTC)

If they're talking about that primary, there are quite a few figures they could name. Fingers crossed. Turtle Fan (talk) 03:15, October 8, 2014 (UTC)

It's not going to be very historical heavy. The primary is described in a sentence. LBJ will be expanded slightly, as will RFK and Humphrey. I'll go ahead and create McCarthy, but the content is going to be limited to a sentence or two.

It's actually going to be a slight pain in the ass to do articles for, because it's one of those stories where Turtledove doesn't 100% ID all of the characters. The main POV is only called "George", but it's obviously George Edwards, the still-living former "lead" of the band H.P. Lovecraft. Other members of the band are only ID'd by first name. Even the band is only ever called HPL (because within the story, there wasn't a person named HP Lovecraft, although there is a "Howard Phillips").

Incidentally, I'm really glad that there is a viable Lovecraft Wiki, so we don't have to create articles for shoggoths, the Elder Ones, Miskatonic U, etc. TR (talk) 16:55, October 8, 2014 (UTC)

Fantasy vs Alternate History

I just read this story. The box on this wiki says "fantasy set in OTL". It seems to me that it should have a POD of whenever the Miskatonic Expedition backstory was supposed to have happened, apparently sometime between 1935 and 1943, based on the reference to WPA. If nothing else, the events of 1968 in the main story make a pretty big divergence from history.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 06:36, October 30, 2015 (UTC)

The Miskatonic expedition doesn't seem to have really impacted history at all. WWII took place on schedule, as did the Cold War. MLK was assassinated on schedule, Vietnam is raging, LBJ is still President. The Dems are even having the same battles at the primary level. If HT had referenced the Soviet-American Alliance against the Shoggoths and Eugene McCarthy were President that would be one thing. TR (talk) 15:53, October 30, 2015 (UTC)

The arrival of the iceberg in SF seems to have a pretty big impact on history, at least in the city. Maybe "POD, Spring 1968"? Or possibly "POD c. 1936, relevant POD Spring 1968". Much as little initial PODs in A Different Flesh, A World of Difference, and Joe Steele don't affect history in general until much later. JonathanMarkoff (talk) 21:24, October 30, 2015 (UTC)

The story uses elements of the Lovecraft horror/fantasy universe making it a fantasy story not alternate history. The examples you give do not have that element of fantasy so are alternate history where mundane changes make a different timeline. ML4E (talk) 21:58, October 30, 2015 (UTC)

I see. Maybe, though, there should be a "(?)" after OTL, as is done with some stories here, just to be on the safe side.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 22:34, October 30, 2015 (UTC)

The side we're on feels plenty safe to me. This story isn't AH. Turtle Fan (talk) 02:37, October 31, 2015 (UTC)

The type of fantasy sub-genre is sometimes called "Urban Fantasy" as opposed to Tolkien type "High Fantasy". It is set in the present day (or sometimes in a past historical time period) with magical or fantastic elements. Present day werewolf or vampire stories, even if the creatures have been publicly present for decades, are considered fantasy and not alternate history. There is nothing ambiguous about stories being called OTL even if fantastical. ML4E (talk) 19:50, October 31, 2015 (UTC)