And having a hell of a time keeping one eye on the skyline

[sovay]

Oh, right, and I read the trade paperback of Alan Moore's Neonomicon (2010), which did not impress me. It wasn't the rape scenes, although there is a substantial duration of them (the book opened to one when I picked it up). It was the fact that if I want Lovecraftian body horror—if I want sex with Deep Ones, unimaginable, mind-breaking violation, congress with things that are nothing so comprehensible as callous human predators and that leave their object waiting coolly for nothing more than the hastening obliteration of a world which allows these and so many other atrocities to occur—I can pick up any of a dozen issues of Sirenia Digest and get it done better. I'm not being shown anything I haven't thought of. Ditto the sex cult whose ultimate goal is the birth of the apocalypse, because I have seen horror films made in the '70's. If there was some kind of meta-commentary going on—an indictment of Lovecraft fandom, the reduction of women in horror to their sexual physiology—I missed it. Mostly I was left wanting to read some Caitlín R. Kiernan or Gemma Files. Or e-mail Paula Guran and ask her to edit, for real, that anthology of weird erotica that was batted around after the panel at Readercon 2012. The point here is not a-ha! I am too edgy for Alan Moore!; I don't have time for that kind of nail-buffing weirdo pride any more than I think I should get a British history pat on the back because I liked George VI before The King's Speech (2010). It was just the blank, slightly nonplussed feeling of picking up something acclaimed and putting it down in confirmed knowledge of the fact that there is better cosmicist fishsex in this world.

Comments

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Ah, now I came to this with low expectations, having really not liked any of Moore's recent work, and was surprised to discover that I didn't hate it.

File, with much of the Avatar Moore, under 'throwaway stuff done after he lost interest in comics'.

[sovay]

Ah, now I came to this with low expectations, having really not liked any of Moore's recent work, and was surprised to discover that I didn't hate it.

May I ask what worked for you? I bounced so hard, about the only part of Neonomicon I liked was Johnny Carcosa. (What's not to like about a depraved, hallucinatory language-virus peddler with a pompadour and a lisp?)

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

I read a friend's copy, so I can't now pick it up and see what I liked about it, so I can give you only the vague memory that I saw it as fun, something that didn't take itself too seriously. I have hated the recent iterations of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, so this was a relief. It's not exactly an endorsement, though, this praising with faint damns.

Also, I'm not particularly a Lovecraft fan, which may have some bearing.