Cosmic Nightmares

We will be reviewing the novel 'We' by Yevgeny Zamyatin, written in 1920-1921. The novel depicts a future world of conformity and harmony under a unified, encased totalitarian society, The One State.

We follow the life of D-503, a spacecraft engineer in The One State as he begins a journal he intends to be carried on a spaceship he is constructing.

A central theme of 'We' is the rationalisation and mechanisation of society - the application of scientific management and the ideas of Frederick Winslow Taylor to society itself. The novel was seen as a critique of the direction the Soviet Union was taking and inspired George Orwell.

The following article would serve as a good supplementary reading: https://thecharnelhouse.org/2011/12/07/the-ultra-taylorist-soviet-utopianism-of-aleksei-gastev-including-gastevs-landmark-book-how-to-work%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%BA-%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%BE-%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B1%D0%BE%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%8C/

In this event, we'll be reviewing 'The Devil Rides Out' by Dennis Wheatley, recommended by a member.

The novel follows Duke de Richleau and his friends as they rescue a young man, Simon Aron, from a devil-worshipping cult. The story escalates as they become involved in a larger conflict with a black magician, Mocata, who seeks to harness the power of the Talisman of Set. The group navigates a perilous landscape of occult rituals and malevolent forces, ultimately confronting Mocata in a climactic battle on the Astral Plane.

There is also a movie adaptation of the book starring Christopher Lee.

The Cthulhu Mythos refers to a shared universe originating from the works of HP Lovecraft. Coined, by August Derleth, the term identifies the tropes used by Lovecraft with Cthulhu referring to the entity in Call of Cthulhu.

In this session, we'll be reviewing Call of Cthulhu and The Dunwich Horror.

In Call of Cthulhu, we see Francis Wayland Thurston going through the notes of his dead uncle and other accounts of a mysterious cult that worships Cthulhu, a mysterious entity that dwells in the sunken corpse city of R'lyeh.

The Dunwich Horror is set in the Massachusetts village of Dunwich. Wilbur Whateley is the hideous son of Lavinia Whateley, a deformed and unstable albino and an unknown father. Strange events surround Wilbur's birth and precocious development.

I've decided to replace Starve Acre with this as I'd think reviewing Call of Cthulhu and The Dunwich Horror will be more interesting.

We will be reviewing the 'Planet of the Apes' novel by Pierre Boulle, written in 1963. This was then adapted into the iconic 1968 movie with the same name starring Charlton Heston.

Travelling in a spaceship that reaches the speed of light, Ulysse sets off to the nearest solar system where he finds a planet resembling Earth. However, there is a twist: humans behave like animals, and apes are civilised...