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I’ve just finished reading the entire fictional output of the horror/science fiction writer HP Lovecraft (because I do actually take time off occasionally).

Looking at commentaries on his writing, it seems there’s some discussion about whether Lovecraft was a racist, because his stories of interbreeding between human beings and a race of amphibians that he describes as “Deep Ones” is apparently based on his own horror of miscegenation, at a time when racism was rife in his home country, the United States.

In the UK in 2025, we’ve just had a major TV drama called The War Between The Land And The Sea, based on Doctor Who, in which humanity goes into conflict with a species known as Homo Aqua (colloquially, “Sea Devils”) – a race of advanced reptiles who were (according to the story) dominant on Earth before humanity and want it back.

In the show, a human being falls in love with a Homo Aqua and ends up metamorphosing into a hybrid creature.

All this has been put on TV at a time when racism is rife in the UK.

Comparing this with the Lovecraft stories, it seems to me that history is repeating itself – in different permutations.

Personally, I don’t think its a fantastic idea to symbolise interracial relationships using different species, but the concept of HP Lovecraft’s horror becoming modern-day heroism is worth exploring, especially considering the context is the same (racism).

To read the full commentary, head over to The Whip Line.

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