Put me down for another who thinks that Lovecraft’s universe isn’t so scary. Most of his “monsters” are ineffectual beasts, many of them almost rendered extinct through sheer incompetence. The most they ever seem to manage is to murder a few innocents. I look on Lovecraft’s story as early researches into an obscure ecological niche whose inhabitants are probably doomed to extinction as soon as the rest of us learn how to manage extra-dimensional travel. Frex, “Pickman’s Model” was practically an adventure magazine account of a rare species sighting, and “At The Mountains of Madness” could have run in Argosy in its heyday.
Coming Soon: The Society for the Preservation of Cthulhu, Azathoth and those cute li’l ol’ moon beasties
Man, some of you people’s worst places sound like a lot of fun. Here’s mine:
Raccoon City, Resident Evil
Char, Starcraft
The Dark World, Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past
Phleebhut, Space Quest III
Any city I’ve ever built, Sim City
I’ve just been re-reading Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep?, the novel Bladerunner is based on. While the future in the movie doesn’t seem so bad, the decaying world in the book is so much more depressing.
I suppose one could go live the good life in the off-world colonies, but we never actually see those, so who knows what that’s really like?
Harry Harrison’s Make Room, Make Room (movie = Soylent Green). The sad/chilling part is that, like Asimov’s Caves of Steel, this is a very likely future for our children.
Honestly, folks. People list all these totalitarian states and I guess that’s bad, but at least most of them have some order, if it’s of a twisted kind. Megacity-1? Try Cursed Earth - especially the more radiated zones. In fact, I’d bet that post-apocalyptic Earth settings in general would be among the least desirable. Along with zombie-infested worlds. Nothing like some of that Hobbesian state of nature, yeah.
Or take 1984 - Oceania’s pretty shitty, but I’d wager it’s a walk in the park compared to living in that neutral zone Oceania, Eastasia and Eurasia are battling over.
Yeah, but there’s one crack at Huxley’s dystopia - if you don’t fit in you get to go on an island with other people like you. Like Bernard Marx and whatshisface did. I mean, hell, doesn’t sound like too bad a deal for me.
Tht’s what I was going to say. On the upside, Spike is there! Yay! On the downside…so are thousands of othre vamps, demons, monsters and Buffy herself.
I wouldn’t want to live in Middle-earth. Really, it’s like the good guys are always losing, even when they’re winning, like the world’s decline is inevitable no matter how hard you fight to stop it. I know Tolkien stole that from Beowulf, but it’s still fairly depressing to live in a world where your greatest efforts ultimately come to naught, and where all history is ultimately an account of the passing away of the good things in the world.
As forRanchoth’s point about the absence of religion in cartoon universes, I noticed the same sort of thing in a different fictional world: in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Think about it, here you have a world where God’s existence is an undeniable fact. Here, crosses and holy water really do work against vampires. (Incidentally, how come holy water is sold in a shop, when you can just get it for free in a church?) God really does intervene on behalf of people, at least against vampires, and possibly in other instances hinted at. However, God is barely mentioned at all.
More significantly, the Devil has never been mentioned at all. How come? It is his minions that Buffy fights off every week. You’d think the Bright One would at least get an occassional “Hail Satan!” from his cohorts. (These ideas aren’t mine, by the way, I got them from an Entertainment Weekly article on Buffy.)
And sure, there’s Wicca, but that’s more blasting orcs into oblivion and casting Lightning Wall than actual worship. And what’s all this “Powers That Be” stuff?
Even though, if you live under the Draka in the near future (as seen in his book “Drakon”), you’ll have been genetically altered to remove any ambition or resentment at being made a slave, and the Draka’s pheremones will make you love them and want to serve them. So, at least you’ll be happy.
“The Grey Earth”, I think it was called. Actually, make that any primitive world without hope of return. Yeah, 1984 and Hyperion suck, but at least I’d have my internet. Who cares what’s using my brain while I’m surfing?
Yeah, but in the 1984 world you would have to use a * Mac * to get on the internet. (Now that would be hell on earth!) At least I think that is what I think that commercial ment.
ALL of Faerun - hell, all of Aeber Toril would be less than great to live in.
I’d particularly hate to live in Cormyr. Just since the Time of Troubles (15 years), they’ve suffered (at least) two attempted coups - one of which was connected with a fairly successful war of conquest (took the norther 2/3 of the country). Arabel changes hands more often than a copper coin. Assassination is standard practice in Suzail… And Tilverton…between the despair when Gond ‘abandoned’ them during the Time of Troubles, and its utter destruction when the Shadow Enclave returned…
Halruaa I could probably deal with. Unless I was Jordaini…
I wouldn’t mind living in Lovecraft’s worlds, especially Celephais or Arkham or nighted Khem.
I don’t see how hell can be such a bad place since I’d spend most of my time greeting old acquaintances.
The mystique of a post-apocalyptic world is easily summed up by Auntie Entity:Do you know who I was? Nobody. Except on the day after, I was still alive. This nobody had a chance to be somebody.
Hope that makes some sense.
The only problem was that it wasn’t that fictional. Sure, Tara and Scarlett never existed, but Atlanta did burn down and the Civil war wasn’t kind to Georgia.