'Tis Wednesday
Dec. 19th, 2018 11:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dhampyresaHere are recs for three works of Lovecraftian fiction available, as far as I know, for free on the internet: a concept album, a short comic and a whatever you call collected reddit posts forming a narrative.
All of them contain varying degrees of body horror, cosmic horror and general creepiness -- This is very much a "for people who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing that they like" kind of post. I happen to like this sort of thing.
The Bifrost Incident by The Mechanisms: A concept album that is basically Norse mythology IN SPAAAAAACE. The Lovecraftian aspects are, technically, a spoiler, so I won't talk about how they come up, but I thought they were well integrated in the story.
The story is a noir-ish cyberpunk riff on Norse myths: 80 years before, the governing body of the Yggdrasil system boarded the experimental Ratatosk Express and disappeared. The album begins upon the train's return and chronicles both what happened to the train and the investigation on the matter. The music is, as best as I can tell, folk rock. Depending on my mood, my favourite track is either Sigyn or Ragnarok IV: Jormungandr.
This is the only one of the Mechanisms' full length albums that has Lovecraftian elements, but the others also follow the formula of noir-ish cyberpunk IN SPACE version of: fairytales (Once Upon A Time (In Space)), Greek myths (Ulysses Dies At Dawn) and Arthuriana (High Noon Over Camelot -- this one is also a western). I quite like all of them -- just don't expect anyone to make it out alive.
The Invitation by Incase: This is a Lovecraftian porn comic. I didn't think Lovecraftian horror and porn could be merged and still make sense, but it is apparently possible. Whether it actually works as either horror or porn is of course extremely subjective, but there is no denying that those are what it's aiming for and that it works as a coherent narrative. I really like use of colour in the art.
The Flesh Interface series by _9MOTHER9HORSE9EYES9: Collected reddit posts forming a narrative or rather several narratives in the same setting. It's basically the creepiest, most Lovecraftian take on the phrase "flesh interfaces" you can think of. It includes human experimentation (including on children), cosmic horror, Nazis, addiction, drugs, a couple incidents of sexual violence (ish, for me they read more as body horror but someone else might draw that line in a different place), implications of bad things happening to whales, assorted creepiness and A FUCKTON OF BODY HORROR (which I'm not complaining about, mind you, but man it sure is A Lot). Oh yeah and two sections are narrated by a cat. I enjoyed the whole thing, but in retrospect it feels like the author changed their mind on how certain things worked or where they were going. The ending was slightly disappointing as it provided some closure but several plots were dropped. Although the author is apparently reworking this into a book so hopefully those issues will be fixed then.
Okay, I'm going to go lie down in the dark now and hope this terrible headache+cold combo I've been dragging since Saturday will finally go away.
All of them contain varying degrees of body horror, cosmic horror and general creepiness -- This is very much a "for people who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing that they like" kind of post. I happen to like this sort of thing.
The Bifrost Incident by The Mechanisms: A concept album that is basically Norse mythology IN SPAAAAAACE. The Lovecraftian aspects are, technically, a spoiler, so I won't talk about how they come up, but I thought they were well integrated in the story.
The story is a noir-ish cyberpunk riff on Norse myths: 80 years before, the governing body of the Yggdrasil system boarded the experimental Ratatosk Express and disappeared. The album begins upon the train's return and chronicles both what happened to the train and the investigation on the matter. The music is, as best as I can tell, folk rock. Depending on my mood, my favourite track is either Sigyn or Ragnarok IV: Jormungandr.
This is the only one of the Mechanisms' full length albums that has Lovecraftian elements, but the others also follow the formula of noir-ish cyberpunk IN SPACE version of: fairytales (Once Upon A Time (In Space)), Greek myths (Ulysses Dies At Dawn) and Arthuriana (High Noon Over Camelot -- this one is also a western). I quite like all of them -- just don't expect anyone to make it out alive.
The Invitation by Incase: This is a Lovecraftian porn comic. I didn't think Lovecraftian horror and porn could be merged and still make sense, but it is apparently possible. Whether it actually works as either horror or porn is of course extremely subjective, but there is no denying that those are what it's aiming for and that it works as a coherent narrative. I really like use of colour in the art.
The Flesh Interface series by _9MOTHER9HORSE9EYES9: Collected reddit posts forming a narrative or rather several narratives in the same setting. It's basically the creepiest, most Lovecraftian take on the phrase "flesh interfaces" you can think of. It includes human experimentation (including on children), cosmic horror, Nazis, addiction, drugs, a couple incidents of sexual violence (ish, for me they read more as body horror but someone else might draw that line in a different place), implications of bad things happening to whales, assorted creepiness and A FUCKTON OF BODY HORROR (which I'm not complaining about, mind you, but man it sure is A Lot). Oh yeah and two sections are narrated by a cat. I enjoyed the whole thing, but in retrospect it feels like the author changed their mind on how certain things worked or where they were going. The ending was slightly disappointing as it provided some closure but several plots were dropped. Although the author is apparently reworking this into a book so hopefully those issues will be fixed then.
Okay, I'm going to go lie down in the dark now and hope this terrible headache+cold combo I've been dragging since Saturday will finally go away.