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Alien Dreaming
Feb. 12th, 2006 01:52 pmI just finished reading The Cult of Alien Gods: H.P. Lovecraft And Extraterrestial Pop Culture by Jason Colavito. His central thesis is that the alternate archaeology, alien genesis and space-god themes in eliptony are all descended from the writings of Lovecraft.
Colavito does a good job of covering the ideas, and their historical growth, of the major figures such as Daniken, Temple, Bauval, Hancock, Childress, Sitchin and the Raelians. He does an interesting literary trail from Lovecraft, through his circle to these authors. Unfortunately his idea that Lovecraft is the central wellspring of these ideas is disproven by the author's own casual throwaways to the work of folks like Blavatsky and Fort, but there are some interesting ideas that will resonate with most folks reading this livejournal. Colavito also feels the need to end most discussions with sometimes forced shoehorning into the Lovecraftian mythos that sometimes feels a little flat and uninspired. Or maybe I'm spoiled by certain strands in gaming (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
princeofcairo, Conspiracy X, Delta Green) which do it so much better.
Colavito also has the obvious beef to pick about the "death of science" and propriety that I feel I've read before. You know I think Solon said similar things.
I recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about this thread without actually reading the source material, which makes it pure gold for gamers. For folks who have read the source material is quite fun to read this book and watch him put together links from one author to another.
Colavito does a good job of covering the ideas, and their historical growth, of the major figures such as Daniken, Temple, Bauval, Hancock, Childress, Sitchin and the Raelians. He does an interesting literary trail from Lovecraft, through his circle to these authors. Unfortunately his idea that Lovecraft is the central wellspring of these ideas is disproven by the author's own casual throwaways to the work of folks like Blavatsky and Fort, but there are some interesting ideas that will resonate with most folks reading this livejournal. Colavito also feels the need to end most discussions with sometimes forced shoehorning into the Lovecraftian mythos that sometimes feels a little flat and uninspired. Or maybe I'm spoiled by certain strands in gaming (
princeofcairo, Conspiracy X, Delta Green) which do it so much better.Colavito also has the obvious beef to pick about the "death of science" and propriety that I feel I've read before. You know I think Solon said similar things.
I recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about this thread without actually reading the source material, which makes it pure gold for gamers. For folks who have read the source material is quite fun to read this book and watch him put together links from one author to another.
