Carcosa

Carcosa is a fictional city in the Ambrose Bierce short story An Inhabitant of Carcosa (1891). In Bierce's story, the ancient and mysterious city is barely described, and is viewed only in hindsight (after its destruction) by a character who once lived there.

Its name may be derived from the medieval city of Carcassonne in southern France, whose Latin name was "Carcaso".

The King in Yellow

The city was later used more extensively in Robert W. Chambers' book of horror short stories published in 1895 entitled The King in Yellow. Chambers had read Bierce's work and had also borrowed a few other names (including Hali and Hastur) from Bierce's work.

In Chambers' stories, and within the apocryphal play (also titled The King in Yellow) which is mentioned several times within them, the city is a mysterious, ancient, and possibly cursed place. The most precise description of its location given is that it said to be located on the shores of Lake Hali in the Hyades. The descriptions given of it seem to make it clear that it must be located on another planet, or possibly even in another universe.

For instance:

Along the shore the cloud waves break,
The twin suns sink behind the lake,
The shadows lengthen
In Carcosa.
Strange is the night where black stars rise,
And strange moons circle through the skies,
But stranger still is
Lost Carcosa.
Songs that the Hyades shall sing,
Where flap the tatters of the King,
Must die unheard in
Dim Carcosa.
Song of my soul, my voice is dead,
Die thou, unsung, as tears unshed
Shall dry and die in
Lost Carcosa.
—"Cassilda's Song" in The King in Yellow Act 1, Scene 2

Associated names

Lake Hali is a misty lake found near the city of Hastur. In the fictional play The King in Yellow (obliquely described by author Robert W. Chambers in the anthology of short stories of the same title), the mysterious cities of Alar[1] and Carcosa stand beside the lake. As with Carcosa, it is referenced in the Cthulhu Mythos stories of Lovecraft and the authors who followed him.

The name Hali originated in Ambrose Bierce's "An Inhabitant of Carcosa" (1891) in which Hali is the author of a quote which prefaces the story. It is possible that the Hali referred to is the Urdu poet Maulana Hali. It is also possible that Hali refers to Haly Abenragel, a 10th-century astrologer. The narrator of the story implies that the person named Hali is now dead (at least in the timeline of the story).

Several other nearly undescribed places are alluded to in Chambers' writing, among them Hastur, Yhtill, and Aldebaran. "Aldebaran" may refer to the star Aldebaran, likely as it is also associated with the mention of the Hyades star cluster, with which it shares space in the night sky. The Yellow Sign, described as a symbol not of any human script, is supposed to originate from the same place as Carcosa.

One other name associated is "Demhe" and its "cloudy depths" − this has never been explained either by Chambers or any famous pastiche-writer and so we do not know what or who exactly "Demhe" is.

Other appearances

Written references

Later writers, including H. P. Lovecraft and his many admirers, became great fans of Chambers' work and incorporated the name of Carcosa into their own stories, set in the Cthulhu Mythos. The King in Yellow and Carcosa have inspired many modern authors, including Karl Edward Wagner ("The River of Night's Dreaming"), Joseph S. Pulver ("Carl Lee & Cassilda"), Lin Carter, James Blish, Michael Cisco ("He Will Be There"), Ann K. Schwader, Robert M. Price, Galad Elflandsson, and Charles Stross.

Joseph S. Pulver has written nearly 30 tales and poems that are based on and/or include Carcosa, The King in Yellow, or other elements from Robert W. Chambers. Pulver also edited an anthology A Season in Carcosa of new tales based upon The King in Yellow, released by Miskatonic River Press in 2012.[2]

Marion Zimmer Bradley used the name Carcosa for a city on her fictional planet Darkover. According to her, this usage and the appearance of other distinctive names from Chambers' work dated from her own youthful fascination with The King in Yellow and her ambitions to produce her own reconstruction of the play on the basis of the fragments in Chambers' works. Only later did she transform those early fantasy writings into science fiction by relocating them from a parallel earth to a distant world under a red sun.

In the short story "More Light", in which James Blish presented his version of a complete text of the play The King in Yellow, Carcosa was described as having four singularities: that it appeared overnight, that no one could tell whether it sat upon the waters of Lake Hali or beyond them on the unseen farther shore, that the rising moon appeared to be in front of the city's towers rather than behind them, and that one knew the city's name to be Carcosa the moment one looked upon it. In Blish's version, Carcosa was created as a city of exile for the King in Yellow, because he was not "king in Aldebaran".

John Tynes contributed to the mythology of Chambers' Carcosa in a series of novellas, "Broadalbin",[3] "Ambrose",[4] and "Sosostris",[5] and essays in issue 1 of The Unspeakable Oath[6] and in Delta Green.

Paul Edwin Zimmer also used Carcosa as the home of Istvan Divega—the great sword master in his Dark Border series, and a powerful race of benevolent beings known as the Hasturs. The series is set in a world where an ancient evil has been fenced in by mystic barriers maintained and watched over by the 'Hasturs'.

David Drake uses Carcosa as the name of the capital city for the island of Haft in his Lord of the Isles series. The Yellow King is also referenced throughout the series and in fact, makes an appearance in Mirror of Worlds.

A character in the science fiction novel Appleseed by John Clute laments the destruction of the planet Trencher with a reference to Carcosa: "My heart is breaking. To see advancing the anarch dark, O Trencher! Sad to see you go! Bye-bye, we must surmise. As of now-ish, an Eaten Land thou art, O memorious. God rot. I cannot forget Carcosa, where black stars hang in the heavens. O this is a savage downer."

A character in the short horror story "The Courtyard" by Alan Moore, and the sequel Neonomicon, is named Carcosa. He is later revealed to be from another planet or dimension.

In Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson's The Illuminatus! Trilogy, Carcosa is connected with an ancient civilization in the Gobi Desert, destroyed when the Illuminati arrived on Earth via flying saucers from the planet Vulcan.

In the stories of August Derleth and a few others, Carcosa is the residence of Hastur, identified as a Great Old One rather than a location. Occasionally, Hastur alters reality and merges parts of Earth into Carcosa, usually bringing along unwilling people as well.

Neil Gaiman mentions the city in his 2004 Hugo-winning short story, "A Study in Emerald". The story includes elements from the Sherlock Holmes canon as well as from Lovecraft.

In maps of the world of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, a city named Carcosa is labeled on the easternmost edge of the map along the coast of a large lake, near other magical cities such as Asshai. It is one of several references to Lovecraft in the series. In The World of Ice and Fire, it is mentioned that a sorcerer lord lives there who claims to be the sixty-ninth Yellow Emperor, from a dynasty fallen for a thousand years.[7]

Anders Fager's short story Miss Witt's Great Work of Art describes how performance artist My Witt is driven to madness and murder by an association called "The Carcosa Foundation." Out of her head, Witt is "trippin' to Hyades" and takes several walks in Carcosa, repeatedly visiting a place called "Ebion Alley."

Simon R. Green references Carcosa in the background of his universe setting. Various of his books refer to the train running between his locations of the Nightside and "Shadows Fall": the intermediate destinations are always given as Street of the Gods, Carcosa and Haceldama.

In the short story "Dinner in Carcosa", Western Canadian author Allan Williams re-imagines Carcosa as an abandoned Alberta prairie town with still-active insurance policies held by an ominous firm called "Hastur & Associates". The story revolves around a chance encounter between a young insurance adjuster and the Ambrosovich family.[8]

In the satirical novel Kamus of Kadizhar: The Black Hole of Carcosa by John Shirley (St. Martin's Press, 1988), Carcosa is the name of a planet whose weird black hole physics figures in the story.[9]

Charles Stross made many references to Carcosa and The King in Yellow in his Laundry Files novel "The Annihilation Score".

Music, comics and games

The album Dim Carcosa by the Belgian metal band Ancient Rites is named after this city.

In 2002 Rainfall Records released a CD by The Society of The Yellow Sign (a name taken from a story by Joseph S. Pulver). The CD is called The King in Yellow. It contains spoken word pieces and songs based on Robert W. Chambers' creations. Mr. Pulver also lends his voice to several recitations on this recording.

In 1987, Grant Morrison's Zenith - Phase One, Carcosa was mentioned by Peter St John as he and Zenith did battle with Iok Sotot - "eater of souls".

In 2008, Geoffrey McKinney published a new book of optional rules for the 1974 edition of the Dungeons and Dragons role-playing game entitled Supplement V: Carcosa. Carcosa is the name of the land described in the book, where evil sorcerers enact heinous rituals to summon powers granted by alien gods. Inspired largely by the work of Lovecraft, the book also includes an extract of Chamber's poetry.

In the 2012 video game Mass Effect 3, players can visit a planet called Carcosa, located in the Agaiou star system within the Nimbus Cluster. A brief description of the planet mentions a crumbling ruin overlooking a huge, dry lake bed. Additionally, one of the two stars that the planet orbits is called "Hali."

American Heavy Metal band High On Fire have a song called Carcosa on their 2015 album Luminiferous.

Television

In the HBO original series True Detective, Carcosa is a mystical place, referred to only cryptically throughout the series. In the final episode, an overgrown stone temple is hinted at being the location of Carcosa. The temple is located on private property in the Louisiana plains, owned by a member of an evil mysterious and powerful cult that is suspected of countless child murders. The cult is surmised to be run by the wealthy elite of Louisiana, in particular the powerful and politically connected Tuttle family, with the property of the temple being overseen by groundskeeper and Tuttle relative, Errol Childress, who is believed to be the primary suspect in the occult murders and disappearances. Previously, main characters Rustin Cohle and Martin Hart pursued and eventually killed another potential cult member Reggie LeDoux, who was believed to be the main killer described by witnesses, before re-emerging murders pointed the Detectives towards Childress.

The series teases what Carcosa is, over the course of the first season: it is mentioned in the diary of one of the cult's victims. An inmate (the former husband of a victim), who is questioned about his time spent as a cellmate of Reggie LeDoux, reveals that LeDoux described Carcosa as a "place in the deep south" where devil worship took place. He also mentions the leader of the cult being named "The Yellow King" (alternatively The King in Yellow). Right before LeDoux was summarily executed by protagonist Martin Hart (following the discovery of a chamber with two severely tortured and malnourished children), LeDoux claimed that the detectives were "in Carcosa," referencing black stars rising as well as stating that him and the two detectives have been here before, and are trapped in a circular time loop. Carcosa was later mentioned by an elderly former caretaker for the Tuttles; the mere mention of the word caused her to fall into a fervent and delirious state, as she implies connection between Tuttle and what may be the ritualistic rape of innocent children, as well as numerous ramblings about the seemingly sublime nature of Carcosa.

Carcosa is ultimately seen in the final episode of season one of True Detective. Depending on your interpretation, Carcosa could be the stone and concrete temple (presumably a long abandoned military fortress), filled with macabre decorations, such as the mummified remains of a young child on a gurney. Inside the central chamber of the structure, there is a strange tree limb and skull-adorned altar, which is referred to as "The Yellow King" by the groundskeeper (seen at various points in the series), who is the murderer that the main characters have pursued for nearly two decades. While pursuing the killer, protagonist Rustin Cohle, who has a history of hallucinations due to past drug abuse, witnesses a vivid hallucination of a huge, dark, swirling void in space, that takes up the entirety of the final chamber of the fortress. This swirling void is most likely Carcosa, as alluded to by Errol and many others as being more of an abstract idea, or even a 4th dimensional elevation beyond our normal perception, than a physical place. Whether Carcosa is the temple, the swirling void, an abstract concept, or whether it even exists at all, only vague hints are given. The hallucination distracts Cohle long enough to be attacked by Errol Childress, the scarred killer, before any inspection or remarks are made regarding it. Cohle does remark however that in the final chamber, he felt a darkness welcome him, and that his daughter and father were there, and he could let go; though it is unclear whether this was him being welcomed to Carcosa, or just a result of his severe wounds. No other cult suspects are caught or pursued, and the true nature of evil, Carcosa, and the Yellow King are all left fairly open ended, as many contradictions and loose ends are still left unsettled.

Publishers using the name Carcosa

Two different publishers have used the name Carcosa.

Carcosa House

Carcosa House was a science fiction specialty publishing firm formed by Frederick B. Shroyer, a boyhood friend of T. E. Dikty, and two Los Angeles science fiction fans, Russell Hodgkins and Paul Skeeters in 1947. Shroyer had secured a copy of the original newspaper appearance of the novel Edison's Conquest of Mars by Garrett P. Serviss which he wished to publish. Shroyer talked Hodgkins and Skeeters into going in on shares to form the publisher which issued the Serviss book in 1947. Dikty offered advice, and William L. Crawford of F.P.C.I. helped with production and distribution. Carcosa House announced one other book, Enter Ghost: A Study in Weird Fiction, by Sam Russell, but due to slow sales of the Serviss book, it was never published.

Works published by Carcosa House

Carcosa

colophon for Carcosa

Carcosa was a specialty publishing firm formed by David Drake, Karl Edward Wagner, and Jim Groce, who were concerned that Arkham House would cease publication after the death of its founder, August Derleth. Carcosa was founded in North Carolina in 1973 and put out four collections of pulp horror stories, all edited by Wagner. Their first book as a huge omnibus volume of the best non-series weird fiction by Manly Wade Wellman. It was enhanced by a group of chilling illustrations by noted fantasy artists Lee Brown Coye. Their other three volumes were also giant omnibus collections (of work by Hugh B. Cave, E. Hoffman Price, and again by Manly Wade Wellman). A fifth collection was planned, Death Stalks the Night, by Hugh B. Cave; Lee Brown Coye was working on illustrating it when he suffered a crippling stroke in 1977 and eventually died, causing Carcosa to abandon the project. The book was eventually published by Fedogan & Bremer. Carcosa also had plans to issue volumes by Leigh Brackett, H. Warner Munn and Jack Williamson; however, none of the projected volumes appeared. The Carcosa colophon depicts the silhouette of a towered city in front of three moons.

Awards

Works published by Carcosa House

Notes

  1. ↑ "Yhtill" is the name of the city where The King is Yellow is set. In post-Chambers writings, the word means "stranger" the language of Alar (a city in the play) and is the name used by the character wearing the "Pallid Mask". (Harms, "Yhtill", The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana, p. 341; cf. "The Repairer of Reputation", Chambers.)
  2. ↑ Joseph S. Pulver Sr., A Season in Carcosa, Miskatonic River Press, 2012 (accessed 27 June 2014). ISBN 978-1937408008
  3. ↑ Tynes, John (1995). Broadalbin. Armitage House.
  4. ↑ Tynes, John (1996). Ambrose. Armitage House.
  5. ↑ Tynes, John (2000). Sosostris. Armitage House.
  6. ↑ Tynes, John (December 1990). "The Road to Hali". The Unspeakable Oath. Pagan Publishing. Retrieved 2008-06-20.
  7. ↑ George R.R. Martin, Elio M. García Jr., Linda Antonsson, The World of Ice and Fire, Bantam, 2014.
  8. ↑ http://coffeeandblarney.com/2015/05/02/audio-excerpt-from-dinner-in-carcosa/
  9. ↑ http://www.darkecho.com/JohnShirley/carcosa.html
  10. ↑ "1976 World Fantasy Award Winners and Nominees". World Fantasy Convention. Retrieved 2008-04-05.

References

Further reading

External links

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