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    What Kelp Remembers

    Weird Tales, one of the best and oldest horror and dark fantasy magazines, has just launched a new series of ultra-short flash fiction (under 500 words), Flashes of Weirdness. To inaugurate the series, they’ve chosen a piece of mine — which is now my second publication in speculative fiction.

    My philosophical aim in the story — What Kelp Remembers — is to suggest that on a creationist or simulationist cosmology, the world might serve a very different purpose than we’re normally inclined to think.

    At some point, I want to think more about the merit of science fiction as a means of exploring metaphysical and cosmological issues of this sort. I suspect that fiction has some advantages over standard expository prose as a philosophical tool in this area, but I’m not satisfied that I really understand why.

    [Cross-posted at The Splintered Mind.]

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    9 responses to “What Kelp Remembers”

    1. Eric Winsberg Avatar
      Eric Winsberg

      love love love it. You really nailed the style of WT in a few places, and you also did a great job of putting all the factual content in very quickly without breaking character. very nicely done.

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    2. Jon Cogburn Avatar
      Jon Cogburn

      Oh man, that’s a fantastic story.
      I’m hoping to teach a philosophy and literature class on Lovecraft next semester. In addition to Lovecraft, we’ll read Noel Carroll’s book on horror (http://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Horror-Paradoxes-Heart/dp/0415902169/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397503508&sr=1-1&keywords=noel+carroll+horror) and Michel Houellebecq’s (http://www.amazon.com/H-P-Lovecraft-Against-World/dp/0575084014/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397503470&sr=1-1&keywords=michel+houellebecq+lovecraft) and Graham Harman’s (http://www.amazon.com/Weird-Realism-Philosophy-Graham-Harman/dp/1780992521/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397503489&sr=1-1&keywords=harman+lovecraft) books on Lovecraft.
      Some European narrative theorists are considering some of this stuff under the rubric of “unnatural narratology,” and their work is pretty useful in this regard. There’s a nice dictionary hosted by Aarhus on this at http://projects.au.dk/narrativeresearchlab/unnatural/undictionary/ . There’s no entry yet in the on-line living handbook of narratology, but some things that I’ve found philosophically useful in thinking about fiction and philosophy. It’s at http://wikis.sub.uni-hamburg.de/lhn/index.php/Main_Page .

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    3. Eric Schwitzgebel Avatar
      Eric Schwitzgebel

      Thanks for the kind words, Eric and Jon.
      Sounds like an awesome class, Jon. And thanks for the links. Speaking of short horror with a philosophical edge, have you read Neil Gaiman’s collection, Smoke and Mirrors?

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    4. Eric Schliesser Avatar
      Eric Schliesser

      Very nicely done! (More before long.) Bill Wimsatt taught a great class on ‘Science fiction and Philosophy of Mind’ that I always adored TA’ing. (I did it a few times.)

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    5. David Shope Avatar
      David Shope

      Fantastic story! Something about it reminds me a little of the work of C.L. Moore/Henry Kuttner but it’s hard to put my finger on what.

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    6. dmf Avatar
      dmf

      http://www.ttbook.org/book/halloween-horror-and-philosophy-eugene-thacker

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    7. Roberta L. Millstein Avatar
      Roberta L. Millstein

      I used to teach a philosophy and science fiction class when I was at Cal State East Bay. It was a blast. I do think it is a good way to make the philosophical issues “live” for students.

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    8. Ridvan Askin Avatar
      Ridvan Askin

      Just a quick addendum for those interested: the Living Handbook of Narratology has migrated to a new site and since January this year actually has an entry on “Unnatural Narrative” written by Jan Alber. This is the correct link: http://www.lhn.uni-hamburg.de/
      And Alber’s essay is available here: http://www.lhn.uni-hamburg.de/article/unnatural-narrative
      A nice, concise overview with lots of bibliographical info.
      Also enjoyed the story, btw!

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    9. Eric Schwitzgebel Avatar
      Eric Schwitzgebel

      Cool — thanks for all the kind words and suggestions, folks! I’ve been thinking about designing a science fiction and philosophy class, maybe using Susan Schneider’s anthology, but I’m not sure how I’d go about it. I like my classes to have a thematic unity and narrative arc, and I’m a little worried it would become piece of sci-fi, philosophical issue, another piece of sci-fi, unrelated philosophical issue, etc.

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