Weird Tales #334. Darrell Schweitzer

Randolph Carter, whose primary motivation most of the time was to achieve ever-heightened, lucid ecstacies in his presumably supernatural dream-life, we find in the opening of The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath that he “prayed long and earnestly to the hidden gods of dream…” Not exactly the sentiments of an atheist in our modern understanding of the word. Atheists do not “pray.” Further, on the next page, we find that in the Lovecraft universe there really is a “god”: “that amorphous blight of nethermost confusion that blasphemes and bubbles at the center of all infinity”—Azathoth. The fact that the very location of Azathoth defines the center of the universe makes this being the “God” of the Mythos. In the poem, “Azathoth,” we read that from the abominable dancing of Azathoth and the Other Gods “flow the aimless waves whose chance combining gives each frail cosmos its eternal law.” Here, then, is the supernatural being that serves as HPL’s “anti-god,” for nowhere in the cold, stark universe are these muffled, vile drums and thin cracked flutes going. Oh, you could say that I am being too literal, and that these are mere symbols of chaos, and that chaos itself is not a form of order. But just try telling that to Carter when he is preparing his candles for his evening bout of slumber beyond the Gates of Dream. I know of no writer who puts as much faith in the magic of life as Lovecraft.

      To which we can say, no we’re not talking about Arthur C. Clarke. He sometimes shows a mystical streak that Lovecraft completely lacks. One needs only to read Lovecraft’s letters or such essays as “The Materialist Today” or “A Confession of Unfaith,” not to mention his autobiographical writings, and Joshi’s H.P. Lovecraft: A Life to get as very clear impression that Lovecraft was one of the most materialistic and un-religious persons who ever lived. Aside from a childish fancy, more play than serious belief, in which he supposedly glimpsed Diana and fauns in the woods around Providence—which he later argued was just as valid as any other mystical experience—Lovecraft had no non-materialist leanings at all.

      You are reversing the mistake you accuse us of. You are trying to take material from the stories and apply them to the author’s life.

      In the dream-universe of Randolph Carter, yes, there are gods; and prayers have effects; but this is fantasy fiction, and, for Lovecraft, very unsatisfactory fantasy fiction at that. Remember that he regarded The Dream Quest of Unknown Ka­dath as no more than a “practice” novel, not something good enough to type or publish, and was not published until after his death.) The characters may have theologies. Lovecraft himself did not. In his more “realistic” fiction, such as “The Colour Out of Space” and “At the Mountains of Madness,” there is no “spirit” realm at all, only the vastness of the cosmos in which mankind plays no significant rôle.

      Of course Lovecraft did not literally believe in the existence of Cthulhu. “The Call of Cthulhu” is fiction—but the Great One does indeed, within the story, exist in a “materialistic” universe. He is a vastly powerful extraterrestrial being, who came to the Earth from the stars, not from the spirit realm. And yes, we do think it is symbolic and significant that the “god” of the Lovecraftian universe is the mindless chaos called Azathoth.

      THE DEN, by John Gregory Betancourt

      Copyright law is something which affects all readers, but most of them never think about it. From the founding of the United States, Congress has protected authors’ rights. In 1790, copyright lasted 14 years—and could be renewed for 14 more, resulting in a 28-year period of copyright. After that, a work entered the public domain and could be published, edited, abridged, or adapted to other media free of charge. This (so the theory went) resulted in a vital culture, where one author could build upon another’s work.

      Over the centuries, copyright laws changed. In 1909, a major copyright reform act expanded the U.S. copyright period to 56 years—an initial 28 years, which could be renewed for another 28 years. (If a work wasn’t renewed, it entered the public domain.) Meanwhile, the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works in the Act of Berlin of November 13, 1908 recommended copyright for the author’s life plus 50 years (thus benefitting not just the work’s creator, but several generations of heirs). However, the Copyright Act of 1976 is the one that made the biggest change, adopting the author’s life-plus-50-years rule for works created or published after January 1, 1978. It was extended to life-plus-70-years in 1995 (and from 75 years to 95 years for corporate copyrights), thanks to the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. Why extend copy­right so much? Think of the Mickey Mouse company, whose classic cartoons were about to start slipping into the public domain. Hundreds of millions of dollars were at stake, and Sonny Bono acted to benefit the corporate giant (and others like it).

      Here is the official argument: “America exports more copyrighted intellectual property than any country in the world, a huge percentage of it to the nations of the European Union. Intellectual property is, in fact, our second largest export: it is an area in which we possess a large trade surplus. At a time when we face trade deficits in many other areas, we cannot afford to abandon 20 years worth of valuable overseas protection now available to our creators and copyright owners. We must adopt a life-plus-70-year term of copyright if we wish to improve our international balance. It just makes plain common sense to ensure fair compensation for the American creators whose efforts fuel this important intellectual property sector of our economy by extending our copyright term to allow American copyright owners to benefit from foreign users. By so doing, we guarantee that our trading partners do not get a free ride for their use of our intellectual property.” (Source: Senator Orrin Hatch, March 2, 1995, Introducing the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1995.)

      Personally, I think copyright should be rolled back to the author’s life-plus-20-years. There is no reason to keep work in the public domain any longer than that. At the moment, all works published in 1922 and before are in the public domain in the U.S., which is why so many classics by writers like H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, Arthur Conan Doyle, and the like are remembered today. People can publish them cheaply, or make them available in other media like TV shows, movies, radio, films, etc. without going through a maze of contractual red tape. If these works hadn’t been so omnipresent thanks to the public domain, they might easily be forgotten now. Compare Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes to (say) the Charlie Chan character created by Earl Derr Biggers. Biggers wrote six Charlie Chan books (and more total wordage than Doyle wrote of Holmes). Both had popular film and radio series in the 1930s and 1940s. (There were 14 classic Holmes films with Basil Rath­bone, versus 35 classic Chan films with Warner Oland and then Sidney Toler in the title role). Sherlock Holmes, in the public domain, remains popular today.

      The Charlie Chan books, still in copyright, are out of print and likely to remain so until 2020. I have been trying to reprint Biggers’s novels through Wildside Press, but after two years of searching, I simply cannot locate the estate. (If anyone knows of it, please—drop me a note!) Biggers worked in the 1930s and his heirs re­newed the copyrights to his work in the 1950s, so now, because of all the copyright extensions, the Charlie Chan novels cannot be reprinted until someone comes forward to claim ownership of the them, or until they lapse into the public domain.

      It’s a shame.

      Look for the copyright period to be extended again around 2019, when Disney’s œuvre is again threatened.

      * * * *

      This seems to be a special Neil Gaiman review column, albeit unintentionally. Gaiman is emerging as the top fantasist of the early twenty-first century, and he is prolific and varied in his output. Compare his presence in these disparate works:

      Shadows Over Baker Street: New Tales of Horror, edited by Michael Reaves and John Pelan

      Del Rey, 464 pp., $23.95 (hardcover)

      The premise, from the Introduction, is simple: “What if Holmes and Watson were to be confronted by things outside the realm of human experience? What if the inconceivable proved to be true? What if there were places, entities, ­concepts in the cosmos that man not only did not, but could not understand?” By things they mean the supernatural forces of the Cthulhu Mythos. (Love­craft’s Mythos is one of the most written-in fictional universes ever created.)

      So: Sherlock Holmes. Cthulhu. A high concept collection.

      Neil Gaiman leads off a fairly good