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Chasm
An abstract horror story.
90 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2015
10 people are currently reading
446 people want to read
About the author
Nick Land
45 books770 followersLand was a lecturer in Continental Philosophy at the University of Warwick from 1987 until his resignation in 1998.
At Warwick, he and Sadie Plant co-founded the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit (CCRU), an interdisciplinary research group described by philosopher Graham Harman as "a diverse group of thinkers who experimented in conceptual production by welding together a wide variety of sources: futurism, technoscience, philosophy, mysticism, numerology, complexity theory, and science fiction, among others".
During his time at Warwick, Land participated in Virtual Futures, a series of cyber-culture conferences. Virtual Futures 96 was advertised as “an anti-disciplinary event” and “a conference in the post-humanities”. One session involved Nick Land “lying on the ground, croaking into a mic”, recalls Robin Mackay, while Mackay played jungle records in the background."
In 1992, he published The Thirst for Annihilation: Georges Bataille and Virulent Nihilism. Land published an abundance of shorter texts, many in the 1990s during his time with the CCRU. The majority of these articles were compiled in the retrospective collection Fanged Noumena: Collected Writings 1987-2007, published in 2011.
Land taught at the New Centre for Research & Practice until March 2017,
One of Land's celebrated concepts is "hyperstition," a portmanteau of "superstition" and "hyper" that describes the action of successful ideas in the arena of culture. Hyperstitions are ideas that, once "downloaded" into the cultural mainframe, engender apocalyptic positive feedback cycles. Hyperstitions – by their very existence as ideas – function causally to bring about their own reality. Nick Land describes hyperstition as "the experimental (techno-)science of self-fulfilling prophecies".
At Warwick, he and Sadie Plant co-founded the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit (CCRU), an interdisciplinary research group described by philosopher Graham Harman as "a diverse group of thinkers who experimented in conceptual production by welding together a wide variety of sources: futurism, technoscience, philosophy, mysticism, numerology, complexity theory, and science fiction, among others".
During his time at Warwick, Land participated in Virtual Futures, a series of cyber-culture conferences. Virtual Futures 96 was advertised as “an anti-disciplinary event” and “a conference in the post-humanities”. One session involved Nick Land “lying on the ground, croaking into a mic”, recalls Robin Mackay, while Mackay played jungle records in the background."
In 1992, he published The Thirst for Annihilation: Georges Bataille and Virulent Nihilism. Land published an abundance of shorter texts, many in the 1990s during his time with the CCRU. The majority of these articles were compiled in the retrospective collection Fanged Noumena: Collected Writings 1987-2007, published in 2011.
Land taught at the New Centre for Research & Practice until March 2017,
One of Land's celebrated concepts is "hyperstition," a portmanteau of "superstition" and "hyper" that describes the action of successful ideas in the arena of culture. Hyperstitions are ideas that, once "downloaded" into the cultural mainframe, engender apocalyptic positive feedback cycles. Hyperstitions – by their very existence as ideas – function causally to bring about their own reality. Nick Land describes hyperstition as "the experimental (techno-)science of self-fulfilling prophecies".
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
March 7, 2016
At the level of its concrete moving parts, “Chasm” is about five men, a boat, and a Big Dumb Object (actually rather modestly sized.) The BDO, at a functional level, 1) is the purpose of their mission - they’re dumping in the Marianas trench - and 2) makes people go crazy. The boat, The Pythoness, is autonomous, leaving the men simply there as another level of technical redundancy. And as for the men, we have Frazer, a capable ship’s captain frustrated by his consequent lack of autonomy, his longstanding crew - Bolton, a scientist; Scruggs, a classic drunken sailor born again into evangelical Christianity; Zodh, a racial caricature, who, like so much of this, is right out of Lovecraft - and Symns, loyal factotum for the mysterious QASM corporation, escort of the BDO, and our narrator.
The first two-thirds of the book are done building character and tension, and while there’s nothing original here, it’s done very well, especially in the small amount of space used. The last third, where everything of course goes to Hell, is no more original but much less smooth, torn between the need to show nothing (don’t reveal the monster! it must remain abstract! is the timeworn advice that gets rephrased in the concluding essay) and to show something viscerally unpleasant; Land here falls back on cliche. Would you believe, for instance, that the fundamentalist crewmate dies mysteriously of crucifixion? The entire character of Zodh, of course - a taciturn Polynesian man implied to worship dark betentacled gods - is just an early example of this. Raising a political objection to this would of course be beside the point, since Land is already an avowed and proud racist, so I’ll stick to the aesthetic one - other than to note, of course, that Land has gloated voluminously in his nonfiction about the power of The Truth About Race or whatever to inspire existential horror in cucked liberal SJWs and, well, this is the best he can come up with?
(There are also cliches done very well, especially in the first two-thirds - I am thinking, in particular, of a description of an “ordinary” if large storm using the language Lovecraft uses for his monsters; it’s an excellent instance of defamiliarization.)
But taking Chasm to task for being ineffective neoreactionary propaganda is also beside the point, not just because of course one might want less of such a thing, but because Chasm fails on that level in more aesthetically pleasing ways as well. I’m also not sure if this isn’t deliberate - Land’s signal intellectual virtue, aside from his creativity with language (also an intellectual vice) has always been his willingness to challenge his comrades’ own assumptions.
And here, if the natural readings is to take Symns as a stand-in for Land and his politics, the natural arc of the story is to undermine Symns’ worldview, or at least to display why anyone else should reject it. Symns is a company man, the classic cynical operative with no ethics but the professional variety, and it is through his eyes that we see the other crewmates described, and in none too flattering colors. Frazer, Bolton, Scruggs, and Zodh are all defined by their faith, a faith that Symns sees himself and his cynicism as superior to. Their faith blinds them to reality, while Symns looks it right in the face. (Zodh, it is implied, looks at reality too, worshiping as he does Dark Gods, but we can set that aside for now, even though there’s more to say about it.) And this is precisely the script Land has always used himself: he (and some of his other compatriots in reaction, though not always) can look Reality in the face, unblinking, while everyone else flees in terror.
But as it plays out - not in the inner narrativization of Symns’ head, but in the ship - what does this mean? You have a system of physical and social infrastructure - the BDO, Pythoness, and QASM corporation - that are determined to get the crew, including Symns, killed. Operationally, Frazer’s, Botlon’s, and Scrugg’s delusions allow them to believe that human lives are worth living and to cooperate to that end; it drives them to believe the BDO is worth investigating and working against (although, of course, not successfully.) Operationally, Symns’ is the faith that actually enjoins him not to consider certain questions, to protect mysteries, and to obey mysterious entities unto his, and everyone else’s, death.
As a matter of fact the satanical Symns and Zodh do survive, but nothing about the structure of the situation implies this - if there’s a lesson there, it’s forced. As a matter of the actual situation illustrated, what Chasm has to say is that capitalism is Cthulhu worship, and that the Brave New Man heralded by his politics will get himself and everyone else killed, throwing himself down on the altar of uncaring, alien gods. At this level, there is nothing new here; Land has been proudly proclaiming this for a while, boasting that his sacrifices under the moonlight will ensure he gets eaten first.
But what’s especially clear here is that, from the perspective of anyone else - Frazer, Scruggs, Bolton, and all of us by extension trapped in the web of human empathy, “the Cathedral,” and all that - we would be insane to trust Syns, Qasm, and the Pythoness. Insane, maybe, to think we could win, once we got on the boat, but also insane not to try. If, as the obvious allegorical reading suggests, the Pythoness is evolution, capitalism, History, Moloch, Gnon - the underlying processes driving things where they are - the implication is that not trying to mutiny and take it over, steer things in a direction amenable to our interests, is treason against humanity. And Chasm gives no more reason than the rest of Land’s oeuvre - beyond a stylish existential choice for evil, or surrender to the inevitable, or worship of “intelligence” in the abstract - for doing so.
The first two-thirds of the book are done building character and tension, and while there’s nothing original here, it’s done very well, especially in the small amount of space used. The last third, where everything of course goes to Hell, is no more original but much less smooth, torn between the need to show nothing (don’t reveal the monster! it must remain abstract! is the timeworn advice that gets rephrased in the concluding essay) and to show something viscerally unpleasant; Land here falls back on cliche. Would you believe, for instance, that the fundamentalist crewmate dies mysteriously of crucifixion? The entire character of Zodh, of course - a taciturn Polynesian man implied to worship dark betentacled gods - is just an early example of this. Raising a political objection to this would of course be beside the point, since Land is already an avowed and proud racist, so I’ll stick to the aesthetic one - other than to note, of course, that Land has gloated voluminously in his nonfiction about the power of The Truth About Race or whatever to inspire existential horror in cucked liberal SJWs and, well, this is the best he can come up with?
(There are also cliches done very well, especially in the first two-thirds - I am thinking, in particular, of a description of an “ordinary” if large storm using the language Lovecraft uses for his monsters; it’s an excellent instance of defamiliarization.)
But taking Chasm to task for being ineffective neoreactionary propaganda is also beside the point, not just because of course one might want less of such a thing, but because Chasm fails on that level in more aesthetically pleasing ways as well. I’m also not sure if this isn’t deliberate - Land’s signal intellectual virtue, aside from his creativity with language (also an intellectual vice) has always been his willingness to challenge his comrades’ own assumptions.
And here, if the natural readings is to take Symns as a stand-in for Land and his politics, the natural arc of the story is to undermine Symns’ worldview, or at least to display why anyone else should reject it. Symns is a company man, the classic cynical operative with no ethics but the professional variety, and it is through his eyes that we see the other crewmates described, and in none too flattering colors. Frazer, Bolton, Scruggs, and Zodh are all defined by their faith, a faith that Symns sees himself and his cynicism as superior to. Their faith blinds them to reality, while Symns looks it right in the face. (Zodh, it is implied, looks at reality too, worshiping as he does Dark Gods, but we can set that aside for now, even though there’s more to say about it.) And this is precisely the script Land has always used himself: he (and some of his other compatriots in reaction, though not always) can look Reality in the face, unblinking, while everyone else flees in terror.
“You’re killing us.” It was stated calmly, as a simple matter of fact. It wasn’t -I thought - that he was convinced we would die. His conviction was only that Qasm had no concern for our survival, which was beyond all plausible dispute.
“That outcome is not anticipated.”
Qasm didn’t care, and didn’t pretend to. It was honest - which was attractive to me - although that wasn’t a judgment to share with Frazer right now. He’d probably have accepted any amount of bullshit as the price of an iota of consderation. I’d half-forgotten that he didn’t know them like I did. This had to be a serious learning-moment for him.
But as it plays out - not in the inner narrativization of Symns’ head, but in the ship - what does this mean? You have a system of physical and social infrastructure - the BDO, Pythoness, and QASM corporation - that are determined to get the crew, including Symns, killed. Operationally, Frazer’s, Botlon’s, and Scrugg’s delusions allow them to believe that human lives are worth living and to cooperate to that end; it drives them to believe the BDO is worth investigating and working against (although, of course, not successfully.) Operationally, Symns’ is the faith that actually enjoins him not to consider certain questions, to protect mysteries, and to obey mysterious entities unto his, and everyone else’s, death.
“You’ve never seen this… ‘product’?”
“No.”
“You never wanted to?”
“I wanted to do my job.”
“Fuck you,” he said, anger two-thirds swamped by dismay. “You know what’s killed us? Pride, your fanatical pride in professional ignorance. You made the suppression of natural curiosity into your occupational specialty - your holy fucking calling - and now, here we are.”
“Here we are,” I agreed.
As a matter of fact the satanical Symns and Zodh do survive, but nothing about the structure of the situation implies this - if there’s a lesson there, it’s forced. As a matter of the actual situation illustrated, what Chasm has to say is that capitalism is Cthulhu worship, and that the Brave New Man heralded by his politics will get himself and everyone else killed, throwing himself down on the altar of uncaring, alien gods. At this level, there is nothing new here; Land has been proudly proclaiming this for a while, boasting that his sacrifices under the moonlight will ensure he gets eaten first.
But what’s especially clear here is that, from the perspective of anyone else - Frazer, Scruggs, Bolton, and all of us by extension trapped in the web of human empathy, “the Cathedral,” and all that - we would be insane to trust Syns, Qasm, and the Pythoness. Insane, maybe, to think we could win, once we got on the boat, but also insane not to try. If, as the obvious allegorical reading suggests, the Pythoness is evolution, capitalism, History, Moloch, Gnon - the underlying processes driving things where they are - the implication is that not trying to mutiny and take it over, steer things in a direction amenable to our interests, is treason against humanity. And Chasm gives no more reason than the rest of Land’s oeuvre - beyond a stylish existential choice for evil, or surrender to the inevitable, or worship of “intelligence” in the abstract - for doing so.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 5, 2022
از جذابترین داستانهایی بود که تاحالا خوندم که مملو از سمبلها، دیالوگهای تفکر برانگیز و اشارات فلسفی بود، که با توجه نوشته شدن به دستِ نیک لند، قلمِ گاها عجیب و سختخوانی که گاهی داشت قابل توجیهه.
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داستان راجع به پنج مردِ تصادفیه که به دست یک شرکت خیلی مرموز با هم بر روی یک قایق کاملا اتوماتیک به اقیانوس فرستاده شدن تا بستهای عجیب رو در جایی بندازن، این پنج مرد از لحاظ مذهبی بودن، جهانبینی، تفکر و... با هم تفاوت بسیاری دارن. بسته مورد بحث بیشتر به عنوان یک غیبت توصیف میشه تا چیزی کهوجود داره، یک جعبه که شاید حاوی چیزیه، یا شاید هم تنها یک نماده. وحشتی که داستان از فضاسازی و جنون تدریجی اعضا القا میکنه رو شاید تنها تو داستانهایی که به روش لاوکرافت نوشته شدن بشه پیدا کرد.
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شخصیتپردازی فوقالعادهای داره و داستان که فضای لاوکرافتی و ترسناک داره، عجیب، خیلی زنده، با جزئیات جالب و بسیار از نظر ذهنی درگیر کنندهاس.
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انتهای کتاب و پس از داستان، بخش "مانیفستی برای ادبیات انتزاعی" بود که شامل چند گزینگویی کوتاه از نیک لند و دیگران بود که مطالعه اون بخش باعث میشه درک بهتری نه تنها از داستان، بلکه در کل چیزی که تو سر نیک لند میگذره به دست بیاریم.
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خلاصه اینکه، بهترین هیولا، همونیه که هیچوقت دیده نمیشه. همه به این مسئله وقوف دارن. لحظه ناامید کننده در داستانهای ترسناک زمانیه که واقعاً چیز خونین رو میبینید. یک داستان ترسناک کامل، داستانیه که هرگز چیزی نبینید، یا چیزی نشنوید، یا حتی واقعاً چیزی ندونید. داستانیه که در اون نکاتی رو تشخیص میدید، به سرنخ هایی توجه میکنید، اما هرگز نمیتونید تمام دانش ذهنتون رو به اندازه کافی با هم مرتبط کنید تا شکل هیولا رو حدس بزنید! دقیقا کاری که نیک لند در این داستان انجام داده.
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داستان راجع به پنج مردِ تصادفیه که به دست یک شرکت خیلی مرموز با هم بر روی یک قایق کاملا اتوماتیک به اقیانوس فرستاده شدن تا بستهای عجیب رو در جایی بندازن، این پنج مرد از لحاظ مذهبی بودن، جهانبینی، تفکر و... با هم تفاوت بسیاری دارن. بسته مورد بحث بیشتر به عنوان یک غیبت توصیف میشه تا چیزی کهوجود داره، یک جعبه که شاید حاوی چیزیه، یا شاید هم تنها یک نماده. وحشتی که داستان از فضاسازی و جنون تدریجی اعضا القا میکنه رو شاید تنها تو داستانهایی که به روش لاوکرافت نوشته شدن بشه پیدا کرد.
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شخصیتپردازی فوقالعادهای داره و داستان که فضای لاوکرافتی و ترسناک داره، عجیب، خیلی زنده، با جزئیات جالب و بسیار از نظر ذهنی درگیر کنندهاس.
.
انتهای کتاب و پس از داستان، بخش "مانیفستی برای ادبیات انتزاعی" بود که شامل چند گزینگویی کوتاه از نیک لند و دیگران بود که مطالعه اون بخش باعث میشه درک بهتری نه تنها از داستان، بلکه در کل چیزی که تو سر نیک لند میگذره به دست بیاریم.
.
خلاصه اینکه، بهترین هیولا، همونیه که هیچوقت دیده نمیشه. همه به این مسئله وقوف دارن. لحظه ناامید کننده در داستانهای ترسناک زمانیه که واقعاً چیز خونین رو میبینید. یک داستان ترسناک کامل، داستانیه که هرگز چیزی نبینید، یا چیزی نشنوید، یا حتی واقعاً چیزی ندونید. داستانیه که در اون نکاتی رو تشخیص میدید، به سرنخ هایی توجه میکنید، اما هرگز نمیتونید تمام دانش ذهنتون رو به اندازه کافی با هم مرتبط کنید تا شکل هیولا رو حدس بزنید! دقیقا کاری که نیک لند در این داستان انجام داده.
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December 1, 2025according to all primitive intuition, we were heading on a meaningless course into formless infinity.
the empty horizon fused into hazed memories of other journeys, associated intimately through nothing but their common indefiniteness. None of them had been anything in themselves, or at least anything that could be recalled, other than cloudy allusions to alternative voyages, each fading into its own immemorability. They had been dreams, probably, or stories encountered long ago. Muffled echoes – vividly indistinct – returned from some freezing fogbank of forgetting. Out there, somewhere, was recall. It would all come back, in its own time, or not. It made no difference. Ahead of us lay a preset course towards some absolute annihilation of purpose. We were getting rid of something. When it was done, we still wouldn’t know what it had been.
there was no light, only burning darkness, it was a realm of total blindness, and yet it could be vividly – crushingly – sensed, that’s what it’s like down there, isn’t it? but this isn’t a diving expedition, nobody is going down there. yes, unless it’s coming up to us.
the Lord fathoms the abyss for our sakes.
self-denial of the soul, it’s a fascinating thing to see.
God speaks in words, but he whispers in numbers.
the dream that drifted across us then or what, if it were to break in, would pass for a dream, wasn’t from anywhere specific in time, or space. It came from an absolute elsewhere, yet to arrive, it was something not now.
Silence, darkness, pressure – he had been immersed in all of them, to depths normally judged unfathomable. Yet, at some point deep into the descending glide-path that was his life, he’d discovered religion and – by all socio-economic indications – had been saved. The salvation story was dramatic enough, but it only very marginally nudged my default hypothesis that he was bad to the bone.
Unknown, unseen, the cargo sank through darkness into deeper darkness.
the empty horizon fused into hazed memories of other journeys, associated intimately through nothing but their common indefiniteness. None of them had been anything in themselves, or at least anything that could be recalled, other than cloudy allusions to alternative voyages, each fading into its own immemorability. They had been dreams, probably, or stories encountered long ago. Muffled echoes – vividly indistinct – returned from some freezing fogbank of forgetting. Out there, somewhere, was recall. It would all come back, in its own time, or not. It made no difference. Ahead of us lay a preset course towards some absolute annihilation of purpose. We were getting rid of something. When it was done, we still wouldn’t know what it had been.
there was no light, only burning darkness, it was a realm of total blindness, and yet it could be vividly – crushingly – sensed, that’s what it’s like down there, isn’t it? but this isn’t a diving expedition, nobody is going down there. yes, unless it’s coming up to us.
the Lord fathoms the abyss for our sakes.
self-denial of the soul, it’s a fascinating thing to see.
God speaks in words, but he whispers in numbers.
the dream that drifted across us then or what, if it were to break in, would pass for a dream, wasn’t from anywhere specific in time, or space. It came from an absolute elsewhere, yet to arrive, it was something not now.
Silence, darkness, pressure – he had been immersed in all of them, to depths normally judged unfathomable. Yet, at some point deep into the descending glide-path that was his life, he’d discovered religion and – by all socio-economic indications – had been saved. The salvation story was dramatic enough, but it only very marginally nudged my default hypothesis that he was bad to the bone.
Unknown, unseen, the cargo sank through darkness into deeper darkness.
March 1, 2017
Nice abstract horror story. It's full of cliché themes but they are used cleverly. It also has a sprinkling of philosophy and Lovecraft. A bit postmodern experimental. I liked it.
December 31, 2017
Review forthcoming...
August 17, 2021
Reading this before bed inspired me to pull an all-nighter.
July 22, 2023
Chasm: 4/5
Eighty-Nine: 2/5
Manifesto....: 4/5
Chasm is basically Land's version of Lovecraft, with a heavy sprinkling of his own personal theory/politics in it. The story is pretty good I have to say, if a bit drawn out in the beginning (although it's still very short). The ending I found to be a bit confusing but it didn't detract really from the experience. The purpose, of course, is to be as abstract as possible.
Eighty-Nine was an extra vignette tacked on that tackled numerology, which doesn't interest me at all so I didn't really care, and it didn't add a ton of character development to the story either. The abstract fiction manifesto was similar to the other essay he wrote on horror in Phyl-Undhu, just focused more on how to present monsters. It was neat enough.
Grade: B+
Recommended for: Nick Land completionists
Eighty-Nine: 2/5
Manifesto....: 4/5
Chasm is basically Land's version of Lovecraft, with a heavy sprinkling of his own personal theory/politics in it. The story is pretty good I have to say, if a bit drawn out in the beginning (although it's still very short). The ending I found to be a bit confusing but it didn't detract really from the experience. The purpose, of course, is to be as abstract as possible.
Eighty-Nine was an extra vignette tacked on that tackled numerology, which doesn't interest me at all so I didn't really care, and it didn't add a ton of character development to the story either. The abstract fiction manifesto was similar to the other essay he wrote on horror in Phyl-Undhu, just focused more on how to present monsters. It was neat enough.
Grade: B+
Recommended for: Nick Land completionists
February 19, 2022
The narrative portion was lacklustre but the end notes saved it.
December 14, 2023
A work of theory-fiction with the "fiction" part being somewhat downplayed. Essentially, it's the author's another meta-argumentation about the philosophy of horror and his own favorite films (which has the same cover image as Land's earlier story, Phyl-Undhu, but I think that here, the image should have been mirrored vertically because in some sense Chasm is its mirror reflection. Back then, Land looked into the abyss above, now he looks into the one below). The plot is so nominal the sources quoted can be easily traced down -- I mean, the book has been released one year after Annihilation and look at that, it also has a mysterious expedition of people with seemingly unsuitable specializations repelled by each other who are sent to There, Don't Know Where with task at hand as vague as possible only to end up being contacted by some formless horrors beyond our comprehension with a bizarre way of speaking and also accidentally finding out that the corporation behind them is as murderous and manipulative as corporations in cyberpunk weird fiction tend to be. The story is also almost as boring and immemorable as that by Vandermeer, only it still wins thanks to modest length and a relatively straightforward language (aaand both absolutely lose to Roadside Picnic), but all of this only highlights the main point of the book -- it isn't about the plot (spoiler: it's about the philosophy of thalassophobia, earning a star from me on the spot, and, implicitly, about the intrinsic inhumanity of capitalism armed with high-tech, which, of course, reads much sadder now when Land made his political statement.)
Land isn't a gentle philosophical fictionist, on the contrary he's quite playful, his deliverance of the theory feeling at times frustatingly scattered around and at times too blatant (you can have a drink each time you see words like abstract and absence written in italics, and also explaining the word "ontology" to the readers? I mean I appreciate non-elitist authors but still... Also, it seems the book was supposed to become a bit more popular than it eventually has), while his creative writing has all expressiveness of a sci-fi podcast (there's even quite literally a podcast-like conversation in the end with the whole cast just chatting about horror movies which is quite cozy, and also arguing for your theory using unnatural dialogues has some classical vibe in it so it's another star I guess), which still looks less out of place here than in Phyl-Undhu where the whole suspence breaks as the story becomes a record of a game walkthrough with characters exchaging demonstratively genre savvy, all wink-wink nudge-nudge, HRMoR-like namesdropping remarks.
Well, it might serve as an illustration to Land's definiton of abstract horror all right but as for the artistic merit -- the right wing tends to be signifcantly more amusing in their creative works than the left one, but not today. I already mentioned a good bizarre expedition book, and to flesh out better what exactly abstract horror in media is, you might as well watch Skinamarink (speaking of thalassophobic fear of boundless, choking darkness) or play Antichamber (not mentioning Ligotti since Land did that for me).
Land isn't a gentle philosophical fictionist, on the contrary he's quite playful, his deliverance of the theory feeling at times frustatingly scattered around and at times too blatant (you can have a drink each time you see words like abstract and absence written in italics, and also explaining the word "ontology" to the readers? I mean I appreciate non-elitist authors but still... Also, it seems the book was supposed to become a bit more popular than it eventually has), while his creative writing has all expressiveness of a sci-fi podcast (there's even quite literally a podcast-like conversation in the end with the whole cast just chatting about horror movies which is quite cozy, and also arguing for your theory using unnatural dialogues has some classical vibe in it so it's another star I guess), which still looks less out of place here than in Phyl-Undhu where the whole suspence breaks as the story becomes a record of a game walkthrough with characters exchaging demonstratively genre savvy, all wink-wink nudge-nudge, HRMoR-like namesdropping remarks.
Well, it might serve as an illustration to Land's definiton of abstract horror all right but as for the artistic merit -- the right wing tends to be signifcantly more amusing in their creative works than the left one, but not today. I already mentioned a good bizarre expedition book, and to flesh out better what exactly abstract horror in media is, you might as well watch Skinamarink (speaking of thalassophobic fear of boundless, choking darkness) or play Antichamber (not mentioning Ligotti since Land did that for me).
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