tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29524574.post8309960841073768892..comments2024-03-26T03:24:09.287-07:00Comments on On The Other Side Of The Eye: [Lao Steampunk] Steampunk CthulhuBryan Thao Worrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14250802784254875765noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29524574.post-66036824577569092762012-07-10T11:41:40.012-07:002012-07-10T11:41:40.012-07:00Also of note is that almost all of the mountain tr...Also of note is that almost all of the mountain tribes have a very strong fear and aversion to the man-tigers/weretigers in the jungles. You can see how I approached some of these issues with my short story 'A Model Apartment' which blended Pickman's Model with Dreams In The Witch House and Hmong mythology. It's not a perfect work, but it shows how we can approach it.Bryan Thao Worrahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14250802784254875765noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29524574.post-30393047952457376682012-07-10T11:38:33.573-07:002012-07-10T11:38:33.573-07:00Great questions.
You'll definitely want to c...Great questions. <br /><br />You'll definitely want to check out the Kurodahan Press series Lairs of the Hidden Gods that collects Japanese Lovecraftian stories written first and foremost for a Japanese audience, not gaijin. <br /><br />The Lao would definitely never present a Nak/Naga as an adversary. The Ngaosrivathana classic 'The Enduring Sacred Landscape of the Naga' outlines the very special relationship of the Naga to Lao culture, although Hmong often just see them as beings to fear in the lakes.<br /><br />However, the Nyak/Yak/Yuk, or however you want to spell it corresponds to the Rakshasha, and when you're talking 'giant, often green, flesh-eating, shapeshifting magic warrior-demons' who live in the remote countryside or the Island of Lanka, connecting them to a Great Old One on the Island of R'Lyeh becomes an interesting opportunity.<br /><br />You wouldn't usually be able to make a horrific creature out of the Kinnali bird women, although there was one Thai horror film which did make a terrifying creature out of the Garuda (And Lao aren't too enamored of the Garuda. Most consider it a mortal enemy of the sacred Nak.)<br /><br />But a creature like the Phi Krasue, which is a floating disembodied head with its inner organs attached seems like an easy thing to engage with Lovecraftian themes in the aftermath of films such as Re-Animator or From Beyond.<br /><br />There's a long discussion I regularly have off-line about the work I do rehabilitating the 'Tcho-Tcho' from Burma that Lovecraft et al created in the early 20th century. Supposedly sub-human worshippers of the Great Old Ones, the Delta Green writers used the backstory of the Hmong as the background for the Tcho-Tcho with all of the usual intercultural sensitivity one might expect. So, I find myself often now working to write the Tcho-Tcho in a way that tries to present things from their perspective.<br /><br />Long and the short, it could be done. Cryptobotanical horror is also another zone where I think we can do a lot incorporating Lao mythology and Lovecraftian themes.Bryan Thao Worrahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14250802784254875765noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29524574.post-72109713792184304182012-07-10T05:51:27.790-07:002012-07-10T05:51:27.790-07:00Hi!
Interesting post, which I ran across because...Hi! <br /><br />Interesting post, which I ran across because I'm working on a story for the same anthology (I'm attempting a Dreamlands/Korean steampunk thing, similar concerns and difficulties though in this case it's Japanese colonialism); but in fact, I'm linking it in a post on the subject of Koreanizing the Lovecraftian aesthetic, unrelated to the story I'm working on. (But related to a film script project, and my struggle to adapt the whole Lovecraftian worldview to a specifically Korean setting.) <br /><br />I'm curious about the Lao cultural (and especially mythological) elements and how well they mesh with the Lovecraftian mythology: I don't know much of the fantastical bestiary of Laotian mythology beyond nagas, but I got the feeling when I was there that they were kind of too, er, "respected" (?) to be slotted into a horror framework easily. <br /><br />Also, while it's a Malaysian tribe, instead of a Laotian one (not terribly far away, but not quite next door either) there is a story that uses an invented hill tribe as the big baddies; it's "The Man with the Black Horn" in <i>Dark Gods</i> by T.E.D. Klein. If you don't know the story, Klein confabulates a tribe that has a name close to the name of some imagined tribe or race that Lovecraft (or someone else in the canon) actually wrote about, which is fun. But most of that story occurs in an airplane, or in the USA, and is mostly a kind of pastiche of Frank Belknap Long, supposedly.gordsellarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11465812613427778240noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29524574.post-19343688235555699482012-06-25T13:28:28.738-07:002012-06-25T13:28:28.738-07:00I hope you make it in, Bryan. Steampunk not set in...I hope you make it in, Bryan. Steampunk not set in merry old England has a lot more appeal to me.caledrehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05815980062636616579noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29524574.post-26958759275001524182012-06-07T11:18:49.150-07:002012-06-07T11:18:49.150-07:00Well, you know, free is always awesome. I think it...Well, you know, free is always awesome. I think it's interesting trying to tie in the myth of Koschei the Deathless into Cthulhu's that is not dead which can eternal lie... and I thought a cold war setting could have been awesome but it's told from a non-Russian point of view and I find myself saying Stoss doesn't see what he did...Bryan Thao Worrahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14250802784254875765noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29524574.post-86458727039475692992012-06-07T11:06:49.292-07:002012-06-07T11:06:49.292-07:00Fabulous. Thanks, Bryan.Fabulous. Thanks, Bryan.Deborah Walkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10120928766455872439noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29524574.post-86196488783353000542012-06-07T10:25:29.588-07:002012-06-07T10:25:29.588-07:00He's got a copy online over at: http://www.inf...He's got a copy online over at: http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/colderwar.htm although I find the format a bit of a pain to slog through. I think a reader's traction may vary with this one.Bryan Thao Worrahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14250802784254875765noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29524574.post-26650784120901312902012-06-07T10:19:48.562-07:002012-06-07T10:19:48.562-07:00Setting the stories outside of Victorian Britain w...Setting the stories outside of Victorian Britain would be very interesting. Sadly being British, that's a disadvantage for me. But your story set in Laos sounds great.<br /><br />I should try and get hold of Stross' book, thanks. To the library.Deborah Walkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10120928766455872439noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29524574.post-4918209225324117162012-06-07T09:56:50.019-07:002012-06-07T09:56:50.019-07:00Well in the old days, Chaosium did Cthulhu by Gasl...Well in the old days, Chaosium did Cthulhu by Gaslight at http://catalog.chaosium.com/product_info.php?products_id=6672 which was very Anglocentric. I think a Steampunk Russia could be very interesting. What might happen if you find a guy who's even more whacked out than Rasputin, for example? Of course, setting pieces in Russia, one might have to look at Charles Stross' A Colder War for an interesting approach. (Although I still think there were a lot of good missed opportunities there.)Bryan Thao Worrahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14250802784254875765noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29524574.post-7590364152151246252012-06-07T09:44:10.276-07:002012-06-07T09:44:10.276-07:00It would be relatively easy for me to write a Love...It would be relatively easy for me to write a Lovecraftian story with the furniture of steam punk. <br /><br /><br />What I found interesting in your post was the question you raised of reconciling the two philosophies of steam punk and the mythos. <br /><br />But to how to blend in steam punk philosophy, without as you mentioned resorting to "pro-Colonial stories of putting down subhuman, degenerate savage races." <br /><br />How would my characters function in a world ruled by an Elder elite and policed by Shoggoth. Which led me tentatively to a nihilist cult of collaborators, and from there to Steam punk Russia where Communism was suppressed. <br />With this story (tentatively considered) there'd be no lurking horror as there would be in classic mythos. The plot would reveal the compromises my MC has had to make to function in her world.Deborah Walkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10120928766455872439noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29524574.post-37603056193782572482012-06-07T08:55:00.002-07:002012-06-07T08:55:00.002-07:00Well, Tzar-spawn of Cthulhu could certainly be an ...Well, Tzar-spawn of Cthulhu could certainly be an interesting premise. The other question is what are our obligations in such a story? How do we surprise while still giving readers what they want and what they understand of the tropes? In the end, it often comes down to who's the horror lurking within? The one to the left, the one to the right, everyone? If the final answer is no one, and it's all just a product of 'paranoia' prepare for torches and pitchforks on the doorstep. So, strange as it sounds for horror, how do we breath new life into such a genre?Bryan Thao Worrahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14250802784254875765noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29524574.post-86258437535391502422012-06-07T05:52:49.047-07:002012-06-07T05:52:49.047-07:00Interesting. I've been playing around with ide...Interesting. I've been playing around with ideas. So far I've got a steampunk St Petersburg and a nihilist main character currently out of favour with the Elder Tzar.<br /><br />I'd love to be able to pull it off. It remains doubtful.Deborah Walkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10120928766455872439noreply@blogger.com