I remember a novel from Lovecraft, where a small rural, mountainous region is attacked by bloodthirsty monsters. They seem to concentrate around an old, abandoned manor, where a family apparently inbred to death a long time ago. When the narrator discovers the monsters (think a cross between silent Morlocks and a rat swarm), he is horrified to see that they all share the same heterochrome eyes - of which the late family was known for.
It ends pretty well for a Lovecraft novel, though: ultimately, the narrator, albeit pretty shaken, oversee that the manor and the entire burrow network around are dynamited to oblivion, actually ending the threat.
What's most interesting to me about this is that it even has a hope in hell of succeeding. Stephen Baxter has a penchant for stranding couples or small groups on exotic alien worlds and having the characters plan breeding programmes that would make even the Bene Gesserit and the Targaryens squirm uncomfortably. I never thought it had the slightest chance of success. Of course, the ugly results of such escapes are glossed over in the novels.
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Agreed, village idiots by the 4th or 5th generation.
ReplyDeleteThey'd better start learning about artificial insemination/IVF and how to keep the chillers running at the sperm and egg banks.
ReplyDeleteThe longer answer is "probably not, populations under a few thousand individuals are quite fragile and prone to extinction".
ReplyDeleteI remember a novel from Lovecraft, where a small rural, mountainous region is attacked by bloodthirsty monsters. They seem to concentrate around an old, abandoned manor, where a family apparently inbred to death a long time ago.
ReplyDeleteWhen the narrator discovers the monsters (think a cross between silent Morlocks and a rat swarm), he is horrified to see that they all share the same heterochrome eyes - of which the late family was known for.
It ends pretty well for a Lovecraft novel, though: ultimately, the narrator, albeit pretty shaken, oversee that the manor and the entire burrow network around are dynamited to oblivion, actually ending the threat.
What's most interesting to me about this is that it even has a hope in hell of succeeding. Stephen Baxter has a penchant for stranding couples or small groups on exotic alien worlds and having the characters plan breeding programmes that would make even the Bene Gesserit and the Targaryens squirm uncomfortably. I never thought it had the slightest chance of success. Of course, the ugly results of such escapes are glossed over in the novels.
ReplyDelete