This style would, of course, be annoying if it weren’t for the fact that one senses something like this, that the narrator is trying quite hard to avoid sensationalism or an undue emphasis on how he feels about the events he is going to describe. Look at how the core of many main clauses is something of this sort: there are there are There are there are these are folk have gone It is place is It must be Ammi Pierce has never told Ammi is There was people ceased Traces can some will linger – etc. The story begins effectively, with sentences often featuring rather noncommittal constructions. (When news reports about Pluto’s demotion to dwarf planet were issued, I marked the occasion by rereading “The Whisperer in Darkness.”) One reason I decided to reread it now was that we had news reports yesterday of a history-making and somewhat harmful meteorite in Russia. My 14th Conklin item is my second 5/5 selection, Lovecraft’s “Colour Out of Space,” in The Omnibus of Science Fiction (1952).
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