Friday 25 April 2014

Crowdfunding 'The Dreamlands'.

This has got nothing to do with sea ice, but there's a crowdfunding project ongoing I want to publicise, and it's my blog ;) .






Ever since I read Lovecraft as a teenager I've been hooked on his work. In my opinion The Colour Out of Space remains the most powerful piece of science fiction horror ever written. For the curious it's available here in pdf. The story centres on a tale told to a surveyor doing ground work for the flooding of a valley in the creation of a reservoir, and the insidious alien presence that fell to Earth in a meteor decades earlier.


Some time ago I became aware of Die Farbe (The Colour), a German adaptation of that story by director Huan Vu. Having purchased and watched the film my only criticism was the use of a certain special effect (Huan Vu explained this was due to funding issues - fair enough), that small matter aside, the film was the best adaptation of a Lovecraft story I've ever seen, remaining faithful to the spirit of the original story and effectively capturing the tension and cosmic horror of Lovecraft. Die Farbe can be purchased here, although the site seems to be down at present.

Now Huan Vu is trying to get a project off the ground to make a film adaptation inspired by Lovecraft's Dream Cycle stories. Given the quality and spirit of Die Farbe, this is a project I'd dearly love to see succeed. Greater effort is now being made in terms of CGI, and that costs money, here's the impressive first teaser trailer.


Given that amateur sea ice study attracts geeks, and that Lovecraft attracts geeks, the intersection of those two sets suggests to me that at least a few of my readers may find the prospect of The Dreamlands interesting enough to consider a contribution to the crowdfunding.

The main page for the crowdfunding campaign is here.

2 comments:

Kevin O'Neill said...

Of course I should have assumed you also read Science Fiction :)

I'll take a moment to proselytize for a few books I think are vastly underrated:

The Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Tevis
Mockingbird by Walter Tevis
Lost Boys by Orson Scott Card
An Exchange of Hostages by Susan R. Matthews

I could go on for pages, but these will do for now.

Tevis was best known for his books The Hustler and The Color of Money since both were made into films starring Paul Newman, but his two SciFi books are outstanding. I usually keep a spare copy of Mockingbird around so that I can give it away to anyone I think might appreciate it.

Lost Boys isn't SciFi - but it's one of Card's best books. You see the ending coming a mile away ... but it's like watching a car wreck where morbid interest prevents you from looking away. This book is disturbing.

An Exchange of Hostages became the first book in a series (Judiciary Series). The main character is a ship's inquisitor -- i.e., he travels the stars on military spaceships torturing people for a living. Nice work if you can get it.

I've whittled my SciFi library down to a few hundred books. I rarely reread anything - so I'm not sure why I hold on to any of them - but I just hate to part with my favorites.


Chris Reynolds said...

Thanks Kevin,

I'll have a look on Amazon next time I'm there. As for the Tevis book - seen the film never read the book. The rest I've never heard of!

I'm a chronic re-reader. Currently reading Lord of The Rings - I read that every five years or so. As I only read before I go to sleep, and many nights only get to read a page or two, and as I tend to have more than one book on the go at a time! That's going to take me most of this year. Three books that really hit the spot for me - Arthur C Clarke 'The City and the Stars', Simak's 'City' and Wm Hope Hodgson's 'The Nightland'.

I only re-sell or give away the books I actively don't like. But I only have under 200 books - these cycle between a small bookcase and a few storage boxes. I'm not going to allow the house to be taken over by them.