From: "William H. Ansley" <wansley@warwick.net>
Subject: Re: (urth) Saltus Mine Deep One
Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 12:15:53 

>As for created beings: I left the first quote in as a contrast ---
>what's missing in Lovecraft is the sense of something having been
>`engineered', as a tower is but a shuggoth (have I got that right?)
>isn't.

Actually, a shoggoth is engineered, rather surprisingly for Lovecraft. "At
the Mountains of Madness" is about as close as he ever comes to writing
"hard sf."

----------------------------
They had done the same thing on other planets; having manufactured not only
necessary foods, but certain multicellular protoplamic masses capable of
moulding their tissues into all sorts of temporary organs under hypnotic
influence and thereby forming ideal slaves to perform the heavy work of the
community. [p. 272, _The Annotated H. P. Lovecraft_, S. T. Joshi, ed. ]
----------------------------

"They" above are the "star-headed Old Ones" (please don't confuse them with
the "star-bellied sneetches").

William Ansley



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