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Basil Copper and The Great White Space

 
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filmdetective
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Joined: 16 Mar 2020
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 06, 2020 1:09 am    Post subject: Basil Copper and The Great White Space Reply with quote

Keeping in mind the limitations of the search function of allsci-fi.com, which were pointed out to me, and on this one page forum, not seeing either Basil Copper and / or his novel, The Great White Space, listed, I'm introducing these two subjects of both this author and one of his works, the only one I am familiar with.

Mr. Copper's novel is an obvious imitation of HP Lovecraft's work, specifically At the Mountains of Madness, according to the reviews I have read, which generally find it a fairly good work.

In my case, I read The Great White Space, in late 1976-early 1977, and did not read any Lovecraft works until 1980.

So, when I read Lovecraft's works, there was a lot which seemed to me familiar from reading The Great White Space.

I would be interested in what the more experienced veterans of SFantasy here on the board think of both Basil Copper, and his Novel The Great White Space.

I'm open to any opinions, positive or negative.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 16, 2020 1:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote



I found a Wikipedia article about Mr. Copper, and it has this paragraph about The Great White Space.
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Copper's novel The Great White Space (1975) describes an expedition into a remote part of Asia to discover the location of the mysterious Old Ones. The Great White Space was influenced by Edgar Allan Poe and Lovecraft and includes elements of the latter author's Cthulhu Mythos stories.[3] The novel also features a character called Clark Ashton Scarsdale, who appears to be an affectionate tribute to Clark Ashton Smith.

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Last edited by Bud Brewster on Sun Apr 26, 2020 2:21 pm; edited 1 time in total
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filmdetective
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 25, 2020 8:48 pm    Post subject: Thanks For Reply with quote

Thanks for the post, Bud.

I found many things quaint and amusing in The Great White Space, such as the leader of the Northern Expedition telling the narrator how the Great Old Ones used the Great White Space to travel from place to place as the went about their "errands," (of doing unspeakably horrible things), and his consulting a blasphemous book, "The Ethics of Igor (or was it Ygor? I know Forry and James Warren were at odds as to how that name was spelled, but, as Forry claimed Mark Twain told him as a young boy, "I got no respect for a man" who can only spell a word (and in this case a name) only one way.

I can't remembrer if, at that time, I was familiar with "The Necronomicon," but, now I do remember, too, because it was in the film, The Dunwich Horror that I first learned of that blasphemous book), and The Old Ones.

I'm not really all that great a judge of Fantastic Fiction, with or without the S or Sci in front of it, but The Great White Space definitely made an impression on me and I did find it to be a bit scary.
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Eadie
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 25, 2020 8:59 pm    Post subject: Re: Thanks For Reply with quote

filmdetective wrote:
… Forry claimed Mark Twain told him as a young boy …

Unlikely as Forrest James Ackerman ["4SJ"] was born November 24, 1916 and Samuel Langhorne Clemens ["Mark Twain"] died April 21, 1910.
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Gord Green
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 25, 2020 9:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Lovecraftian fiction in general and the Cthulhu Mythos in particular is an odd blend of horror and science fiction genres.

HPL described it thus :


Quote:
Now all my tales are based on the fundamental premise that common human laws and interests and emotions have no validity or significance in the vast cosmos-at-large. To me there is nothing but puerility in a tale in which the human form—and the local human passions and conditions and standards—are depicted as native to other worlds or other universes. To achieve the essence of real externality, whether of time or space or dimension, one must forget that such things as organic life, good and evil, love and hate, and all such local attributes of a negligible and temporary race called mankind, have any existence at all. Only the human scenes and characters must have human qualities. These must be handled with unsparing realism, (not catch-penny romanticism) but when we cross the line to the boundless and hideous unknown—the shadow-haunted Outside—we must remember to leave our humanity—and terrestrialism at the threshold.

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filmdetective
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 26, 2020 9:47 pm    Post subject: Re: Thanks For Reply with quote

Eadie wrote:
filmdetective wrote:
… Forry claimed Mark Twain told him as a young boy …

Unlikely as Forrest James Ackerman ["4SJ"] was born November 24, 1916 and Samuel Langhorne Clemens ["Mark Twain"] died April 21, 1910.


Eadie, I didn't take it seriously the firstime I read it, and later, just as you did, checked the dates on Mr. Twain's demise and Forry's birth, and as I expected Mr. Twain had already departed the physical vehicle before Forry got into this veil of tears (a saying I first learned from Forry's writing in FM, although right now I don't remember just which issue and what page).

And, in relation to the quote that Forry attirbuted to Mark Twain, there is considerable diagreement as to just who said it first, and exactly what the phrasing was, which was definitely not exactly as Forry quoted it, regardless of who first said something similar.
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