In the Margin
December 2, 2009

It's the Most Terrifying Time of the Year

Over at Tor. com, 'tis the season for alien horror: December brings a full month of H.P. Lovecraft features under the rubric of "Cthulhumas."

 

And why not? When you find yourself facing down the seething crowds in the mall on a Saturday afternoon in mid-December, with those dogs barking "Jingle Bells" over the P.A. and a knowledge that it's going to take you another 45 minutes just to navigate out of the parking lot...well, then, the confrontation with fungoid horrors from beyond the edge of space can seem soothing by comparison.

 

Things get off to a particularly good start with Stephen H. Segal's essay on Lovecraft as the original science fiction nerd -- "Geek Prime. Fanboy Alpha."

 

-BILL TIPPER

 

Daybook

May 24: Joseph Brodsky was born on this day in 1940 in Leningrad. Brodsky's constitutional skepticism was not compatible with the official Soviet alternatives, and by age twenty-five he was in prison, wrapped in cold, wet sheets as…

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