In 'The Innsmouth Heritage', by Brian Stableford, a geneticist sets out to map the genomic cause of the Innsmouth look, but finds that the true curse of the town is something less visible and definable than scaly skin or genetic markers. This is also something of an Innsmouth love story, as the narrator's love interest draws away from him over the course of his project due to her eponymous heritage. In a manner true to Lovecraft the central theme of the story is the futility of human endeavour, but in this case the endeavours that come to nothing are cerebral and romantic.
Nicholas Royle's 'The Homecoming' takes the imagery of Innsmouth and makes it an allegory for Romania under the Ceausescu regime. The dismal atmosphere of Lovecraft's port town is not a poor analogue to the grey and fear-drenched streets of Communist Bucharest, but the allegory is forced in places (Ceausescu's palace as Devil's Reef and the Securitate as the Deep Ones) and ultimately I don't think it works.
'Deepnet', by David Langford, is another partially successful allegory, in which forced mutation via VDU radiation replaces inbreeding and Deepnet Communications of Innsmouth (an East Coast analogue of Microsoft) spreads its insidious tentacles via the medium of commercial software. The snippets of Deepnet advertising are a little too broadly parodic for this to work entirely, and it ends for some reason with the narrator expressing lust for his mutated and apparently mentally handicapped ten year old daughter, so on a great many levels this story can just fuck off for that.
Nicholas Royle's 'The Homecoming' takes the imagery of Innsmouth and makes it an allegory for Romania under the Ceausescu regime. The dismal atmosphere of Lovecraft's port town is not a poor analogue to the grey and fear-drenched streets of Communist Bucharest, but the allegory is forced in places (Ceausescu's palace as Devil's Reef and the Securitate as the Deep Ones) and ultimately I don't think it works.
'Deepnet', by David Langford, is another partially successful allegory, in which forced mutation via VDU radiation replaces inbreeding and Deepnet Communications of Innsmouth (an East Coast analogue of Microsoft) spreads its insidious tentacles via the medium of commercial software. The snippets of Deepnet advertising are a little too broadly parodic for this to work entirely, and it ends for some reason with the narrator expressing lust for his mutated and apparently mentally handicapped ten year old daughter, so on a great many levels this story can just fuck off for that.
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