After Engulfment

<p>In this pioneering work of criticism spanning the genres of weird fiction and science fiction Ellen J. Greenham examines H. P. Lovecraft's influence on canonical science fiction writers<span style=color: rgba(0 112 192 1)> </span>and the use of Lovecraft's cosmicism as a lens through which selected works by<em> </em>Philip K. Dick Robert A. Heinlein and Frank Herbert can be interpreted. Put simply <em>After Engulfment</em> examines the experience of being human in an impersonal universe.</p><p> </p><p>In Greenham's analysis Lovecraft's cosmicism offers human beings limited options in madness or death as responses to the inescapable revelation of their own insignificance and ephemerality in the universe. The neocosmicism of Dick Heinlein and Herbert offers another pathway in the framework for how humans might respond when facing engulfment. Rather than yielding to despair neocosmicism offers an experience that leads to the revitalisation of the human's relationship with the universe it inhabits.</p><p> </p><p>In its broad reach and keen sensitive study of many of the leading texts of 20th-century horror and science fiction <em>After Engulfment</em> presents a new way of looking at Lovecraft and his literary legacy.</p>