That is not dead which can eternal lie

[Epic Meepo]

They currently making a movie out of "Mountains of Madness". I think the director is the same guy who did "Batman Begins" and "The Prestige".

That could be interesting. Does the movie have an official site yet?

[Hibou]

The Shadow Out of Time is in the same book I have, if anyone's wondering.

[beejazz]

Yeah... that was a good one.

[Velox]

They're pretty much all good. HP Lovecraft stories are like Pokemon monsters... you must find them all, and when you do you can pick your favorite one and talk on websites on which one is your favorite. "Herbet West I CHOOSE YOU!"

[Tangential]

We'll see if that turns out well and dark or ends up being overdone and turning into Cthomedy.

[WorldConquerer]

Okay, someone give me a first good read... I'm game.

My favorite one was The Dreams in the Witch-House, which also happens to be in that Best of H.P. Lovecraft anthology that everyone is recommending.

[brainface]

Dreamquest of unknown kadath is definitely my favorite.

We'll see if that turns out well and dark or ends up being overdone and turning into Cthomedy.

If i've got my stories straight, it should turn out a lot like the Thing. ;)

[Endless_Helix]

I'll have to pick The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, just for sheer eerieness, which I love. At the Mountains of Madness was fun too.

[SDragon]

a thought....

the geometry of r'lyeh is described as non-euclidian, right? (i believe it was first described as being "wrong", but that could be another way of describing non-euclidian geometry)

fractals are non-euclidian, right?

wouldnt it be freaky to see a building that was designed entirely by fractals? an entire city?

[SA]

Yeah, Lovecraft has explicitly stated it as being non-Euclidean.

However, while fractals are difficult to quantify in Euclidean terms, they are contained and comprehensible in E-space (as far as I can tell; my formal understanding of maths flopped in grade 11).  Nevertheless, while fractals themselves might be Euclidean, a city of fractals would have to defy geometric convention.

Gah!  My brain is melting just trying to envision it.  Darn you for putting the idea in my head! (Heck, I go into spasms when I hear the phrase "the hypotenuse is shorter...")

[SDragon]

Yeah, Lovecraft has explicitly stated it as being non-Euclidean.

that's possible, i don't know for sure. having only read part of CoC, all i know is that a cultist decribed the geometry as "wrong".

However, while fractals are difficult to quantify in Euclidean terms, they are contained and comprehensible in E-space (as far as I can tell; my formal understanding of maths flopped in grade 11).

Nevertheless, while fractals themselves might be Euclidean, a city of fractals would have to defy geometric convention.[/quote]Gah!  My brain is melting just trying to envision it.  Darn you for putting the idea in my head! (Heck, I go into spasms when I hear the phrase "the hypotenuse is shorter...")[/quote]exactly[/i] why it fits!

[brainface]

i may be mistaken, but i belive part of euclidian geometry is that all shapes have a finite border; fractals have an infinite border (and thus, can only truely exist in theory; in practice, we get approximations of fractals, wich do have a finite border)

not[/i] a straight line. A globe, for instance, is not euclidean; the shortest distance between two points is an arc on the globe.

there's a more complicated, possibly more correct definition, but that's what i'm sticking with.

[SDragon]

that..... falls flat in two ways.

first, the shortest distance between two points on a shpere (the proper shape of a globe) is a straight line- directly through the inside.

however, assuming you meant without actually going inside the object, then that can be applied to any object that has more then one dimension. picture a square with the sides label n, e, s, and w. the shortest distace from the point 3/4 of the way down e, to the point 3/4 of the way down w would either be a straight line, parrallel with n and s (although, closer to s), or, banning lines going directly through the object, it would have to travel down the bottom 1/4 of e, all along s, then up the bottom 1/4 of w.

(argh... meant to hit preview, not post)

i probably gave an overly complicated explaination of why that couldn't be non-euclidian geometry, but it works. like i said, i may be mistaken in my definition, but i know spheres count as euclidian.

[Epic Meepo]

Roughly speaking, one of the properties of Euclidian geometry is that parallel lines only intersect at infinity. On the surface of a sphere, the mathematical equivalent of a straight line is a circle that divides the sphere into hemispheres (and only a circle that does exactly that). But two circles that divide a sphere into hemispheres always intersect not once but twice (on opposite sides of the sphere), so the surface of a sphere is non-Euclidian.[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Pretentious quasi-literary Lovecraft comment]Incidentally, when Lovecraft referred to non-Euclidian space (which he usually described as "wrong angles"), he was well aware that all space is technically non-Euclidian (per Einstein's theories of relativity). However, it is not immediately obvious to human perception that space is non-Euclidian, so Lovecraft was (very effectively) using humanly-noticable non-Euclidian  properties to denote realms that are far removed from normal human experience.[/spoiler]

[Wensleydale]

Not ALL that scary...

I mean, look at Doomclown. Now HE'S/I'M scary. *giggle*