There is a city on the moon. 11 days are missing. The Earth is hollow. The tower of Babel never fell. These are just a few of the many premises of The Secret World, a stunning new MMORPG game that promises to plunge players deep into a Lovecraftian realm of mythology risen, a secret world the X-files only ever hinted at. MMORPG stands for Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game, a game played online in a shared fantasy world like World of Warcraft. The Secret World, as yet unreleased, looks utterly awesome, with a taste of any and all mythological flavors- …
The Ruins of Nuclear Winter
Nuclear winter slathered down across the world like a rain of torrential lead paint, bowing our cities beneath it. Ceilings and structures collapsed under the deluge, walls crumbled, and humanity was washed away by a tide of toxic white sludge. Gerry Judah sculpts the apocalypse. He builds out minutely detailed architectural models of buildings, then destructs them with a flood of white paint- leaving the canvas pitted, scored, and crusted with ruins. The sculptures are then hung on their sides in galleries, where viewers can peer deep through the blasted roofs and into the hollow bones of his work. A …
The Ruins of Ender’s Game
Orson Scott Card’s brilliant novel Ender’s Game is not widely known for its ruins. You’re rather more likely to read it and be blown away by the sheer force of Ender’s personality, by the twisted morality of the story’s central conceit, or by the genius with which Card orchestrates his entire Battle School world. But there are ruins. One of them in particular stands out, and throughout the novel we see its creation, its dessication, and at last its final resting state; transliterated across time and space for the novel’s finale. If you know Ender you’ll probably already know what …
Dead Sentinels: 10 Stunning Abandoned Lighthouses
Lighthouses are the sentinels of globalization; for thousands of years they have stood on barren shores the world over and guided the spreading hands of global trade, keeping unknown seafarers and their precious cargoes safe in the night. Now they are dying, as modern technology renders them obsolete. Without people to maintain them, they slowly come to pieces: their lights no longer shine, their bodies crumble and decay. They are curios and museum pieces for tourists to explore. Here are 10 from around the world. 1. Rubjerg-Knude lighthouse, Denmark Construction of the Rubjerg-Knude lighthouse in Jutland, Denmark straddled the last …
Abandoned Lighthouses 10. Fish Fluke Point
The Grand Harbor Lighthouse on Fish Fluke Point, Ross Island Canada, was built in 1879, a square wooden tower 32-feet tall with the Keeper’s dwelling attached. Its fixed-white catoptric light was visible for 11 miles in clear weather. It was closed in 1963 when a replacement lighthouse went up on the nearby Ingalls Head breakwater, then smashed hard by the Groundhog Day Gale in 1976. It has not been repaired since, prompting calls by locals and lighthouse aficionados for ownership to be transferred to a more dutiful custodian. Looking out over the Bay, white wooden boards battered grey. Image from …
Abandoned Lighthouses 9. Ship John Shoal
Construction of the Ship John Shoal Lighthouse in Delaware Bay took 27 years, from a decision by the US Congress in 1850 that a light was needed, through various incarnations of caisson-foundations, screw-pile roots, 2000 tons of rip-rap, and a temporary anchored lightship, to placement of the completed iron tower in 1877. The lighthouse went unmanned in 1973, and as recently as last month (June 2011) it was declared no longer necessary by the Coast Guard and made available for public sale. Ship John Shoal sitting on a heap of concrete and rip-rap. Image by Nick Zelinski. The Shoal upon …
Abandoned Lighthouses 8. Aniva Rock
The Aniva lighthouse was built by the Japanese in 1939, on a chunk of rock off the southern coast of Sakhalin, a thin 950 km long island situated just east of Russia, between the sea of Japan and Russia’s Sea of Okhotsk. The island was largely uninhabited until the 1800’s, when both Japan and Russia became interested in annexing it; the Russians for use as a penal colony. Almost a fairy-tale castle on the water. That led to years of conflict, retrenchment, and buildup of military forces, with both nations agreeing to split the island across the 50th parallel. A …
Abandoned Lighthouses 7. Capo d’Otranto
The Capo d’Otranto lighthouse was built in 1867, situated at Italy’s most eastern point, marking the point where the Ionian and Adriatic Seas meet. It was abandoned in the 1970’s, but restored and reopened to tourists in 2008, where it hosts the Centre on Environment and Health of the Mediterranean ecosystems and a multimedia museum of the sea. Prior to restoration, in crumbling and colorless condition. Italy’s easternmost point. The 32 m (105 ft) tall round stone lighthouse rises from a 2-story keeper’s house, the tip of which requires advance booking on New Year’s eve, when many Italians flood to …
Abandoned Lighthouses 6. Klein Curacao
The Klein Curacao (‘Little Curacao’) lighthouse was first built in 1850, on a tiny spit of land 11km off the southeastern tip of Curacao in the Caribbean Sea. It’s exactly the kind of place that Jack Sparrow would have pranced around. Now it is hollowed out, crumbling rapidly, and nominated for endangered status, despite being rebuilt once in 1879 and again in 1913. White masonry tower, red brick keeper’s dwellings. Image from Philip Stevenson Located on a barren flat of rock and low scrub.? Image from Luciano Gollini The 20m (66ft) tall lighthouse tower is abandoned, along with the two …
Abandoned Lighthouses 5. Grand Isaac Cay
The lighthouse on Great Isaac Cay, a small island in the Bahamas around 20 miles north-east of the Bimini Islands, was built in 1859 to guide trade-ships carrying exports of sun-dried sea salt from Inagua, rum from Nassau, and aragonite lime-stone to markets in the US. The lighthouse, though scoured by the sea and surrounded by the tumbledown buildings of the keeper’s house, is actually still in operation as an unmanned light. A tiny island not even visible on Google maps. Local lore tells of ghostly noises swelling about the lighthouse during a full moon- apparently the spectres of a …