(urth) AEG: Is AEG Lovecraftian?

[Dan]

At 07:08 PM 11/3/2008, you wrote:

>Message: 5
>Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2008 00:04:01 -0000
>From: "Nigel Price" <nigelaprice at talktalk.net>
>Subject: (urth) AEG: Is AEG Lovecraftian?
>To: "Urth List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
>Message-ID: <AFEFKBJKJDDJOMBNACBNCEENDNAA.nigelaprice at talktalk.net>
>Content-Type: text/plain;       charset="iso-8859-1"
>
>Kieran Mullen asks...
>
> >>So what do you think?   Is AEG just  a romp
> >>through different genres or is it really meant
> >>to be a horror novel?
>
>No, I don't think that AEG is a Lovecraftian horror story in the sense that
>you define. As far as I understand - which is not very far at all - it
>borrows some Lovecraftian elements, but does not share their underlying
>philosophy, their "ontological horror premise" (great phrase!).

I would agree. The flaps/panels really try to sell this as one and it 
disappointingly is not. Better to have not mentioned HPL tidbits at all
and left them as a pleasant surprise for the reader.


>At the start of AEG, the President of the United States attempts to recruit
>Gideon to work with the FBI in catching Bill Reis.

If you reread, they want to do this to learn of his stealth technique. 
Regardless, they want to kill him.

>  In many stories,
>certainly in the 1930s pulp stories which Wolfe is pastiching, this would
>make Gideon the good guy, an untouchable science fictional Eliot Ness. But
>there's a strong element of satire in AEG. The USA over which the President
>presides is a place where abortion has become legalised child murder, and
>where the various federal agencies fight an endless turf war against each
>other, possibly under the manipulative influence of demonic submarine
>aliens. The moral status of the President in this story is pretty cloudy,
>especially as we later come to see that Bill Reis himself may be far from
>being the evildoer the President claims. As the President's agent, Gideon's
>moral status is equally suspect.
>
>That's at the start of the story. Does Gideon change?

No. He learns of Reis' technique and orchestrates his death despite being 
employed by him. Despite his declarations of love etc for Cassie, he does 
nothing to rescue her at the end, contact her (his ethermail was in 
response to her own) to discover her well being or as far as we know pay 
her the 80k he still owes her. The end implies she met with him but it is 
apparent he does little or nothing to help her bring back Bill.


>I'm not clear in my own mind whether Bill Reis starts off bad but is changed
>by the transforming power of his love for Cassie, or whether he was always
>good and it just takes Cassie and the reader a long time to find the correct
>moral orientation within the confusing landscapes of AEG. I think that
>there's at least an element of the former because Bill Reis learned his
>alchemy and other tricks on the morally dubious Woldercan.

Reis told her he planned to destroy her until she rode with him in his 
limo. He also says he doesn't
normally kill his enemies, but win them over to his side if useful, or 
defang them if not. I'm not sure if
this means Cassie is a powerful enemy that requires killing, or a lesser 
one that is of no use to him.


>Either way, Gideon's transforms Cassie into a star (her name, after all, is
>that of an astronomical star) and its her loveliness which captures both
>Gideon and Bill Reis' hearts. Somehow, this love helps to orientate all
>three of them. Cassie chooses to marry Bill and Gideon goes to work for him,
>although he doesn't seem to break his agreement with the President so much
>as suspend it.
>
>That seems to be one half of the story. Bill is inspired to self-sacrifice,
>Cassie loves the Christ-like Bill and Gideon is working, at least for the
>moment, for the good guys. Gideon may have transformed Cassie into a star in
>order to trap Reis, but the her power of beauty has transformed all three of
>them for the better.
>
>But the other half of the story seems to involve putting the bad guys into a
>properly inverted hierarchy of wickedness.
>
>Cassie's story of how she came to love the neighbour's dog is instructive in
>this context. Scared of the neighbour's dog but even more scared of her
>violently abusive father, she finds herself sheltering with the animal and
>accepting its protection. Her clear perception of the greater source of
>danger enables her to accept the dog just as she later accepts the help of
>the bat creatures which would otherwise have terrified her in order to
>escape the agents of the evil Storm God.
>
>The US Navy act as agents of the bad American President and pursue Bill Reis
>for his gold. Reis uses that gold, however, to direct them against the Squid
>God. If the US President, his navy and other agencies are not made virtuous
>as such, they are at least properly directed against the greater evil of the
>malevolent underwater alien.
>
>I still don't fully understand the ending. Why does Gideon return to
>Woldercan? Because it is his true home?

I think it is because he successfully fulfilled his contract with the 
President and uncovered
Reis' technique and eliminated him as they discussed at the beginning. 
Either this is the reward
he truly wanted, or he needs the ambassadorship to learn Reis' technique in 
order to provide this
informatin to the President.

>Perhaps it's because the spell of
>Cassie's star quality has been broken and without it he has fallen from
>virtue back to his old immoral/amoral ways. I don't know what Cassie is
>looking for.

Interestingly, Chase states to himself at one point he would still love her 
if he unmade her. Like all good pulp heroines,
Cassie is looking for love.

Dan