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From: gutfreund%umass-cs.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Ghostbusters & Lieber
Message-ID: <716@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 3-Aug-84 13:05:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.716
Posted: Fri Aug  3 13:05:00 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 6-Aug-84 01:03:16 EDT
Lines: 41

From:      Steven Gutfreund 

While the GhostBusters plot theme did appear highly original, I did remember
reading something similiar, after a check of my library I found it:

		OUR LADY OF DARKNESS -- Fritz Lieber (c) 1977

This is a story about one very wierd man by the name of Thiebaut deCastries who
lived in San Francisco from 1900-1928. He was interested and published a book
about paramentals and their growing concentration in large cities. deCastries
was your basic DoomProphet, prophesizing that the increasing concentration
of steel, paper, concrete, and oil products in cities was causing an increase
in paramental activity and eventual doom. deCastries was "discovered" by
a group of bohemian writers/poets/actresses living in the city at the time
(Jack London, Clark Ashton Smith, ... ) and became a focus point for
anti-industrial sabatoge against the increasing concentration of mass
in the city. Wierd stuff, but even stranger is that the story is told via
flashback by a contemporary sf/mystery writer who discovers that himself
the at the "fulcrum" of a paramental time bomb left by deCastries.

This book is written in the style of a travelog. In a manner similiar to
Victor Hugo in Les Miserables, we are taken through the streets hills and
sights of San Francisco. For lovers of this city, it is a real trip to read.

An excellent story by an Author who is not given enough credit. (I also
recommend the Gray Mouser series, and Gather Darkness, a story about
future based witches).

Q: The general theme of SF is that Technology contains the ANSWERS and
that religion is just common-sense sociology. But there are some authors
who have taken the delightfully perverse opposite attitude that increasing
technology will increase para-normal events. I'm definitely not talking
about the Force in SW, but things such as MidSummer Century by Blish
(he turned to mysticism towards his death), and the Fritz Lieber stories
I just mentioned.  Ok, so what other stories
do people know that buck the group-think of current SF and deal with
paramentalism and mysticism in a technological future. Send in your
replies as "RE: paratechnomysticism"

					- Steven Gutfreund
					  gutfreund%umass-cs.csnet@csnet-relay