Just The Caffeine Talking

On the Air!

If you have enjoyed reading my posts about The Initiate here on my 'blog, you can venture into another medium! Listen to an interview with me about the book on the Baen Free Radio Hour podcast, linked here. 

Initiate Events This Weekend!

This weekend my promotion tour for my new novel The Initiate comes to its exciting finish with a double-header of bookstore events.

This evening at 6:00 p.m. I'll be reading from the book and signing copies at the Lovecraft Arts & Sciences shop in Providence, Rhode Island. It's in the historic Providence Arcade, at 65 Weybosset Street. Rhode Island writers Catherine Grant and Daphne Host will be reading from their works as well, so it should be a very entertaining evening.

On Sunday, February 23, I'll be appearing at Flights of Fantasy Books and Games in Albany, New York. That event starts at 3:00 p.m., at 381 Sand Creek Road in Albany. All are welcome!

Initiate Reading in Providence!

This coming Friday, February 21, the Lovecraft Arts & Sciences shop will host an evening of fantasy and horror. I'll be reading from my new contemporary noir fantasy novel The Initiate, along with special guests Catherine Grant and Daphne Gem Host. The store is in the historic Providence Arcade, at 65 Weybosset Street, and the event starts at 6:00 p.m. You can also take the opportunity to shop at one of the country's best Lovecraft/Horror/Occult bookshops!

 

The Future of Star Wars — And An Initiate Reading!

Andrew Liptak at Tor.com asked some science fiction writers what they'd like to see from future Star Wars projects. You can read my answer here.

And if you're in or near Worcester, Mass., at 6:00 p.m. tomorrow, swing by Annie's Book Stop of Worcester, at 65 James Street on the west side of Worcester (take exit 10 off the Mass Pike and go north on Oxford St.), to hear a reading from my new book The Initiate and get a signed copy! I'll be giving away a bonus gift to one randomly-chosen attendee, so don't miss out!

The Initiate Arrives Today!

The wait is over, the stars are right, and all the necessary rituals are complete. My new modern-day noir fantasy novel The Initiate is officially released today. Pick up a copy in your local bookstore, or buy on line. Get Initiated!

And if you're going to be in the neighborhood of Easthampton, Massachusetts this coming Thursday, stop by the launch party! It's at Book Moon bookstore, 86 Cottage St., from 6:30-8:00 p.m. on February 6. Features readings by myself and Hugo award winner Suzanne Palmer, plus refreshments and more! The Apkallu command you to attend!

Polygon Gets Initiated!

Polygon's roundup of new fantasy and science fiction recommendations for February includes my new book The Initiate. Check out the article here. The official publication date is tomorrow, so get ready to hit the stores!

Lewis and Lovecraft

This post is about a common thread I've noticed in the works of two very different writers: Howard Phillips Lovecraft and Clive Staples Lewis. (One of their few similiarities is that both are known by their first two initials.)

C.S. Lewis, of course, is famous as the author of the Narnia series and numerous works of Christian popular theology and apologetics. However, between 1938 and 1945 he wrote a trio of science fiction novels, known generally as his "Space Trilogy." In the first, Out of the Silent Planet, an Oxford linguist named Ransom is kidnapped to Mars by an arrogant scientist named Weston who has constructed a spaceship, and a greedy upper-class bounder named Devine, who wants to get rich off the project. On Mars Ransom meets several species of Martians and finally has an interview with the ruler of the planet, Oyarsa (later on we learn that's a title rather than a name). Oyarsa explains that Earth is called "the silent planet" because its ruling spirit has rebelled against the Creator, and the planet is a kind of celestial pariah state.

The second, Perelandra, takes Ransom to Venus where he faces off against Weston, who is acting as the Serpent in a new Garden of Eden, trying to tempt the first sentient beings on Venus into falling from grace the way humans did on Earth. Eventually Ransom realizes Weston is the vessel for a demonic intelligence, and the two men battle across the surface of the planet and through a nightmarish underworld.

The final novel, That Hideous Strength, blends three strands. It chronicles the crumbling marriage of Mark and Jane Studdock, two academics at fictional Bracton College; it tells of a (literally) unholy alliance between materialist science and demonic evil; and it depicts a major battle between the forces of cosmic good and the evil power controlling Earth.

Some readers don't classify Lewis's trilogy as science fiction, since it has God and angels and Satan and demons in it. When I first read it forty years ago I probably would have agreed, but now I see it as a sincere attempt to write science fiction in an explicitly Christian universe. Surely if we can suspend our disbelief for faster-than-light travel or psionic powers we should be able to imagine a universe where God is real.

H.P. Lovecraft's work is probably more familiar to science fiction fans, so I won't summarize his stories. Suffice to say that he reinvented the horror genre by jettisoning the old paraphenalia of ghosts, vampires, and family curses, substituting his own mythology of ancient alien species, cosmic entities as powerful as gods but lacking any compassion for mere humans, and beings so alien that humans are driven mad by the sight of them.

I don't know if either man read the other's work. Lovecraft died before Lewis published any of his fantasy or science fiction, so it's doubtful that HPL ever heard of C.S. Lewis. But Lewis did read a fair amount of popular literature in his own day, so it's at least possible that he ran across some Lovecraft stories in anthologies or magazine reprints. "The Colour Out of Space" or "The Dunwich Horror" are the most likely candidates. If some scholar of Lewisiana knows of any record of Lewis reading Lovecraft I'd love to hear of it.

Now that I've gotten all that introducing out of the way, here's the thread I've become aware of in their work. Both Lewis's Space Trilogy and the bulk of Lovecraft's work were attempts to grapple with the notion of humanity's place in the universe as revealed by 20th-Century science: a place inconceivably vast, ancient, and hostile to humanity.

For Lovecraft, informed by Neitszchean pessimism, the primary reaction to that vision of the universe was fear. In all of his greatest stories, the horror is simply the crushing reality — suitably reified in monstrous form — that humans aren't the pinnacle of creation, aren't the center of God's attention, aren't the hub of the universe. We're not even the masters of the Earth, really.

"The Shadow Out of Time" shows that humans are ephemeral, doomed to be replaced by beetles. "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" suggests that our control of the Earth is limited to the dry land bits, and a vaster civilization waits patiently under the sea. "The Colour Out of Space" paints a vivid picture of just how alien the universe beyond the sky may be. And At The Mountains of Madness reveals we were created accidentally by ancient plant-beings from space.

What's interesting is that Lewis, the Christian convert "surprised by joy" as he put it in the title of his autobiography, reaches many of the same conclusions as grim atheistical Lovecraft, in the Space Trilogy.

Humans aren't the pinnacle of creation in Lewis's trilogy. In Perelandra it's pretty explicit that the children of Venus will be the ones to fill the role that humans on Earth failed to achieve. They will be the bridge between mortal and divine, and part of their task will be the rescue of humanity from our "silent planet" occupied by evil. Humans will be supporting cast in the Venusian epic.

Nor, for Lewis, are human concerns especially important. As Tor — the "Adam" of Venus — explains to Ransom, the biblical Apocalypse and the "end of the world" is supposed to be a new beginning — the correction of a trivial mistake before humans and Venusians can get started on the real divine plan. All our history, even the Incarnation of Christ and the Crucifixion, are a footnote.

Lewis can even create some pretty Lovecraftian beings. It's notable that they aren't the demon-possessed villains, or even the giant creepy-crawly which makes a brief onstage appearance in Perelandra. No, it's the angels. There's one scene in which the tutelary spirits of Mars and Venus ask Ransom's help in choosing appropriate forms for them to take as they pay homage to the Adam and Eve of Venus. Their first couple of attempts overwhelm Ransom's senses and shake his sanity because his brain simply cannot comprehend them. And in That Hideous Strength the invisible presence of an angel distorts the spatial perceptions of humans nearby. Since the angels impose their own absolute frame of reference on their surroundings, humans suddenly become aware that they're standing on the surface of a spinning ball whirling around the Sun.

In the other direction, Lovecraft's Fungi From Yuggoth from "The Whisperer in Darkness" could almost be Lewisian examples of the future of a fallen, demon-ruled species obsessed with material power and scientific knowledge. Weston or the scientists of N.I.C.E. would find them very congenial, and consider their habit of carrying brains around in metal jars a clever idea.

Interestingly, both men also appreciate the creepiness of stupidity: Lovecraft's ultimate Elder God is the "blind idiot" Azathoth. While in Perelandra the demon possessing Weston only uses intelligence as a tool, reverting to mindless malevolence when there's no advantage to be gained by argument.

But of course despite these similarities, I don't think anyone else has ever used the adjective "Lovecraftian" to describe Lewis's work. And the reason, of course, is the infinitely big elephant in the room: God.

Lovecraft was a diehard atheist. For him, humanity and the fate of the Earth really were irrelevant in the cosmic scheme of things. There is no resurrection after death, no afterlife. Fame is fleeting, as is civilization. Nothing matters. Hence his reaction of horror.

By contrast Lewis — after a difficult and reluctant conversion from unbelief to devout Christianity — could take comfort in the idea of an infinitely compassionate God. So that even in a vast and ancient universe the inhabitants of one fallen world are still worthy of His aid. There is a purpose to it all, somehow, even if that purpose is far too big for a mere human mind to understand. We may not be the center of the universe, but something is, and our mayfly lives do matter to somebody.

Personally I'm more in line with Lovecraft than Lewis. I lack belief. But as I've grown older I've come to realize that it is a lack. Feeling smug and superior to mere believers is at best immature, and is certainly without any foundation in fact. Atheists have managed to beat all religions quite handily in the realm of bloodshed and oppression, but I haven't seen them produce anything to match Chartres Cathedral or Mozart's Requiem. In an irony that even Lovecraft might have found amusing, it may turn out that unbelief is not an "adaptive strategy" as the biologists would say, and that brute Darwinian selection will favor the believers.

Comparing the works of Lewis and Lovecraft does make me wonder what the two men might have made of each other, had they somehow met or exchanged letters. I have no doubt that the Anglophile Lovecraft would have been vastly impressed by a real live Oxford don, even if he wasn't convinced by Lewis's religious arguments. I'm less sure that Lewis would have had much patience with Lovecraft. Pedantic self-taught know-it-alls can be rather tiresome (or so I'm told). At the very least the two of them could have shared a laugh at the false piety and boosterism of some of Lovecraft's ghost-writing clients.

 

For a look at my own take on demons and people who traffick with them, check out The Initiate, on sale next week!

Book Launch Party February 6!

My new novel The Initiate comes out in two weeks from Baen Books. In this modern dark fantasy thriller, Samuel Arquero fights alone against the Apkallu, the ancient and secret order of wizards who rule the world. But what price must he pay?

Join me and special guest Suzanne Palmer, author of the upcoming novel Driving the Deep, for a book launch party at Book Moon bookstore (86 Cottage Street, Easthampton, Massachusetts), 6:30-8:00 p.m. on February 6, 2020. The event features readings, book signing, and refreshments.

Arisia 2020 Report, Day 3

Sunday was my final day at the con. Most conventions are three-day affairs: show up Friday afternoon, do stuff Friday night and Saturday, maybe a few things Sunday morning, then head home after lunch. Not Arisia. Taking advantage of the MLK Day weekend, it stretches into Monday. That means Sunday is a busy full day rather than the tag end. 

I started my day moderating a panel on "Ringworld at 50," celebrating half a century since the publication of Larry Niven's landmark novel Ringworld. Opinions of the book among the five panelists varied, but we all agreed it's one of the most influential books of that era — not to mention a turning point in Mr. Niven's own career.

Slight pause after that, while I busied myself getting checked out of the hotel and finding a place to stash my stuff. Arisia may be a four-day convention, but I had prior commitments on the 20th and so couldn't stay to the end. 

I did manage to sit in on a couple of panels. The first was on book to film adaptations, and how one's impression of a work is affected by which version one experiences first. There are some cases where the film is actually better than the novel — my personal example is Carl Sagan's book Contact, which is full of plot holes the movie version avoids.

Another very useful panel was about crowdfunding and tabletop games. I may be dipping a toe into the Kickstarter world with an upcoming roleplaying game project, so it was all very informative. Watch this space for more information!

At 5:30 I participated in the panel "Writers React to Bad Writing," which might well have been called "Writers Forget Their Homework." We were all supposed to bring examples of bad prose to pick apart, but a minority of the panelists actually accomplished that simple task. I had selected a passage from Dan Brown's thriller Inferno, but cleverly left my copy at home so I had to reconstruct it from memory.

During the empty slot between that panel and my final event I taped an interview for Tyromag TV, which will probably appear in a few weeks. I don't think I picked my nose on camera.

I wound up my participation in convention programming by moderating the panel on "Hacking D&D," in which five panelists suggested rules tweaks or entire game mechanics from other games which can be ported into the most popular roleplaying system. In most cases they can probably be used in just about any game system without much tweaking. At least a couple of the examples are things I plan to use in games from now on.

With that done I could drop my name card into a recycling bin and join some other CSFWites at the ongoing "House of Toast" party. I had kind of assumed "Toast" was a euphemism, or maybe an acronym for something, but no, it was a party with about half a dozen toasters working full time popping out bread, and tables of exotic stuff to spread on them. We crunched down our toast and left the con. I got a lift to where my car was parked, and drove through a cold night back home.

 

A secret order of wizards rules the world, and one man has vowed to destroy them. The Initiate arrives in just two weeks!

Arisia 2020 Report, Day 2

Saturday the 18th was a light-duty day for me, which meant I got to enjoy the con as a member rather than as one of the dancing monkeys. 

Still fighting off my cold, I slept in on Saturday morning, starting my day by having brunch with my CSFW colleague Alexander Jablokow at a nearby Mexican restaurant. Many things of great import were discussed, though I can't quite recall any of them at the moment.

In early afternoon I sat in on a Meetup for gamemasters, discussing techniques, best practices, and resources. I had hoped to find some other gamers from western Massachusetts, but no luck. 

After that I took a turn about the dealer room and the Art Show. The quality of the artwork on display at Arisia is the highest I've seen at any convention since the Worldcon I attended in the summer of 2018.

In the late afternoon I watched a fascinating talk by David Shaw about the future of food. Unlike most studies of this topic, which focus on production, he concentrated on how new technologies and methods are affecting the art of cooking. Nor was this just theory: the talk was illustrated by slides of amazing dishes he himself had prepared. 

Following that I met with author Walter Hunt, chiefly in order to gush about his new novel Harmony in Light, and hear super-secret details of the upcoming sequel. 

After a rest to recharge my batteries, I put on my dancing-monkey costume and led a meetup for writers at 10:00 p.m. They were a great bunch, and I hope to see some of the works-in-progress they talked about during the session. 

And then off to bed and out like a snuffed candle.

 

A secret order of wizards rules the world. One man has vowed to destroy them. The Initiate by James L. Cambias is coming to a bookstore near you February 4.