History Creator / RichardSharpeShaver

While Shaver's work has had a long-term impact on weird fiction, it has been suggested that he himself was influenced by the film serial ''Film/ThePhantomEmpire'', which also describes an advanced subterranean civilization.

Richard Sharpe Shaver was an American factory worker who, in TheForties, began contributing short stories and art to ScienceFiction {{Pulp Magazine}}s, notably ''Magazine/AmazingStories''. He became renowned for a short story called ''[[http://sacred-texts.com/ufo/irl/ I Remember Lemuria!]]'' about a man held captive by monstrous subhuman creatures that lived beneath the Earth. The story became so popular that ''Amazing Stories'' ran almost nothing but sequels and other related material for some time afterwards, to the dismay of some of their readership, including a young Creator/HarlanEllison. After the craze had run its course, Shaver abandoned writing to pursue an interest in geology and died in 1975.

Richard Sharpe Shaver was an American factory worker who, in [[TheForties the 1940s]], began contributing short stories and art to [[ScienceFiction science-fiction]] {{pulp magazine}}s, notably ''Magazine/AmazingStories''. He became renowned for a short story called ''[[http://sacred-texts.com/ufo/irl/ I Remember Lemuria!]]'' about a man held captive by monstrous subhuman creatures that lived beneath the Earth. The story became so popular that ''Amazing Stories'' ran almost nothing but sequels and other related material for some time afterwards, to the dismay of some of their readership, including a young Creator/HarlanEllison. After the craze had run its course, Shaver abandoned writing to pursue an interest in geology and died in 1975.

Richard Shaver maintained that ''[[CloudCuckooLander he wasn't writing fiction.]]'' Following a workplace accident, he became convinced that he'd gained the power of {{telepathy}} and could hear not only the thoughts of the people around him, but secret conversations between the monsters described in his stories (which he named "Deros" -- short for "detrimental robots") and the anguished screams of their human victims. He sent his work to ''Amazing Stories'' as a warning to mankind, but his publisher, Ray Palmer, saw gold and edited his manuscript to make it fit the magazine's style.

Sure enough, the story was a hit -- and not only with readers who enjoyed Shaver's work as fiction. Scores of letters began pouring in from people claiming to have had similar experiences as Shaver, hearing or having been captured and tortured by the Deros. So-called "Shaver Mystery Clubs" started popping up around the globe where believers in Shaver's mythos could share their experiences, some of which are still extant. Over time, the Shaver Mystery grew to include other elements, each more fantastical than the last, including Teros ("good" counterparts to the evil Deros; humanoid cavern dwellers who liberate the Deros' human captives) and the notion that the Deros were in contact with {{alien invaders}} (a response to the flying saucer craze of {{the fifties}}) and plotting to exterminate the human species.

Deros themselves seem to have fallen by the pop-cultural wayside, supplanted by TheGrays (and more recently, the ReptilianConspiracy) as the ultimate hub of every ConspiracyTheory, but they still crop up now and then among devotees of pulpy weirdness. ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' and, even more centrally, its spinoff ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' both feature "derros", and they turn up in Japanese horror movie ''Film/{{Marebito}}'' too, while Creator/JordanPeele's horror movie ''Film/{{Us}}'' also depicts a subterranean world of machine-like half-people. Even Harlan Ellison got over his frustration with dero-mania, at least briefly, with his short story "The Elevator People" presenting a very Shaver-like scenario.

Not to be confused with [[Literature/{{Sharpe}} Richard Sharpe the fictional English soldier.]]

!!

* CloudCuckooLander: Shaver himself, to the nth degree.
* ConLang: The language "Mantong", a precursor to all human languages. In Mantong, every sound has a specific meaning, and by applying its grammatical rules to any word, phrase, name, or sentence in any modern language, one could discover a hidden meaning. Notable because Shaver claimed to have ''discovered'' the language, not invented it.

* HiddenElfVillage: The Deros and Teros have their roots in the same tradition of Victorian-era "Lost Race" literature that inspired [[Creator/JRRTolkien Tolkien]]'s elves - books like Creator/HRiderHaggard's ''Literature/{{She}}'' and Creator/EdwardBulwerLytton's ''The Coming Race''.

* TheSchizophreniaConspiracy: Many psychologists have noted that Shaver's worldview has a lot in common with the fantasies created by some paranoid schizophrenics, right down to the "influencing machine" motif. Compare with James Tilly Matthews and his [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Tilly_Matthews#The_.22Air_Loom.22 "Air Loom"]]
* {{Ultraterrestrials}}: The ancestors of the Teros and Deros. They left the Earth because the sun's radiation is harmful to them; those that stayed behind gradually evolved into their respective two forms, similarly to the Eloi and {{Morlocks}} in Creator/HGWells' ''Literature/TheTimeMachine''.

Richard Sharpe Shaver was an American factory worker who, in [[TheForties the 1940s]], began contributing short stories and art to pulp [[ScienceFiction science-fiction]] magazines, notably ''Magazine/AmazingStories''. He became renowned for a short story called ''[[http://sacred-texts.com/ufo/irl/ I Remember Lemuria!]]'' about a man held captive by monstrous subhuman creatures that lived beneath the Earth. The story became so popular that ''Amazing Stories'' ran almost nothing but sequels and other related material for some time afterwards, to the dismay of some of their readership, including a young Creator/HarlanEllison. After the craze had run its course, Shaver abandoned writing to pursue an interest in geology and died in 1975.

* HiddenElfVillage: The Deroes have their roots in the same tradition Victorian era "Lost Race" literature that inspired [[Creator/JRRTolkien Tolkien]]'s elves - books like Creator/HRiderHaggard's ''Literature/{{She}}'' and Creator/EdwardBulwerLytton's ''The Coming Race''.

Deros themselves seem to have fallen by the pop-cultural wayside, supplanted by TheGrays (and more recently, the ReptilianConspiracy) as the ultimate hub of every ConspiracyTheory, but they still crop up now and then among devotees of pulpy weirdness. ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' and, even more centrally, its spinoff ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' both feature "derros", and they turn up in Japanese horror movie ''Film/{{Marebito}}'' too, while Creator/JordanPeele's movie ''[[Film/{{Us}}'' also depicts a subterranean world of machine-like half-people. Even Harlan Ellison got over his frustration with dero-mania, at least briefly, with his short story "The Elevator People" presenting a very Shaver-like scenario.

Deros themselves seem to have fallen by the pop-cultural wayside, supplanted by TheGrays (and more recently, the ReptilianConspiracy) as the ultimate hub of every ConspiracyTheory, but they still crop up now and then among devotees of pulpy weirdness. ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' and, even more centrally, its spinoff ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' both feature "derros", and they turn up in Japanese horror movie ''Film/{{Marebito}}'' too. Even Harlan Ellison got over his frustration with dero-mania, at least briefly, with his short story "The Elevator People" presenting a very Shaver-like scenario.

Deros themselves seem to have fallen by the pop-cultural wayside, supplanted by TheGrays (and more recently, TheReptilians) as the ultimate hub of every ConspiracyTheory, but they still crop up now and then among devotees of pulpy weirdness. ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' and, even more centrally, its spinoff ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' both feature "derros", and they turn up in Japanese horror movie ''Film/{{Marebito}}'' too. Even Harlan Ellison got over his frustration with dero-mania, at least briefly, with his short story "The Elevator People" presenting a very Shaver-like scenario.

* TheSchizophreniaConspiracy: Many armchair psychologists have noted that Shaver's worldview has a lot in common with the fantasies created by some paranoid schizophrenics, right down to the "influencing machine" motif. Compare with James Tilly Matthews and his [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Tilly_Matthews#The_.22Air_Loom.22 "Air Loom"]]

[[CloudCuckooLander Richard Shaver maintained that]] ''[[CloudCuckooLander he wasn't writing fiction.]]'' Following a workplace accident, he became convinced that he'd gained the power of {{telepathy}} and could hear not only the thoughts of the people around him, but secret conversations between the monsters described in his stories (which he named "Deros" -- short for "detrimental robots") and the anguished screams of their human victims. He sent his work to ''Amazing Stories'' as a warning to mankind, but his publisher, Ray Palmer, saw gold and edited his manuscript to make it fit the magazine's style.

* {{Ultraterrestrials}}: The ancestors of the Teros and Deros. They left the Earth because the sun's radiation is harmful to them; those that stayed behind gradually evolved into their respective two forms, similarly to the Eloi and Morlocks in Creator/HGWells' ''Literature/TheTimeMachine''.

* ConLang: The language "Mantong," a precursor to all human languages. In Mantong, every sound has a specific meaning, and by applying its grammatical rules to any word, phrase, name, or sentence in any modern language, one could discover a hidden meaning. Notable because Shaver claimed to have ''discovered'' the language, not invented it.
* MisaimedFandom: Shaver's mythos is used by some believers to justify certain racist attitudes. The less said about that, the better.

* ScoobyDooHoax: Averted... on a technicality. Shaver himself believed every word he wrote. When confronted by Creator/HarlanEllison, who claimed that the so-called mystery was nothing more than a marketing ploy, Ray Palmer admitted that he was ''certainly'' tying to ramp up sales, which isn't the same thing as to say that the whole thing was fake.

!!Tropes:

[[folder:The Shaver Mystery]]

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Film]]
* The Japanese horror film ''Film/{{Marebito}]'' features the Deros and references some of Shaver's other written work.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Literature]]
* Creator/HarlanEllison incorporated themes and elements from the Shaver Mystery (including accounts from believers) into his short story ''The Elevator People''. Ironic, since he found the whole thing distasteful.
* The novel ''Tamper'' by Bill Ectric features a young boy obsessed with the Shaver Mystery who hears strange noises coming from his parents' basement.
* Creator/PhilipKDick, [[Literature/{{VALIS}} himself no stranger to hearing nonhuman voices in his head]], mentions Shaver's work in his novel ''Confessions of a Crap Artist.''
* Sharyn [=McCrumb's=] ''[[Literature/BimbosOfTheDeathSun Zombies of the Gene Pool]]'' has a NoCelebritiesWereHarmed version of Shaver as a member of a group of wannabe sci-fi authors from the '50s. Said author gained fame for writing fantastic horror stories, but insisted it was non-fiction and spent the latter portion of his life in an asylum.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tabletop Gaming]]
* In ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', there's a race of subterranean dwarves called "Derros," a possible allusion to the Deros.
** ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' ramps up the references, as the derro abduct innocents from the surface and perform horrible experiments on them in a mad and futile effort to discover ways to allow them to survive the light of the sun. The supplemental book "Classic Horrors Revisited" discusses the creative origins of ''Pathfinder'''s morlocks, blending Shaver's original text with Creator/HGWells' [[TheMorlocks morlocks]] and AlienAbduction folklore.
[[/folder]]

Richard Sharpe Shaver was an American factory worker who, in [[TheForties the 1940s]], began contributing short stories and art to pulp [[ScienceFiction science-fiction]] magazines, notably ''Amazing Stories.'' He became renowned for a short story called ''[[http://sacred-texts.com/ufo/irl/ I Remember Lemuria!]]'' about a man held captive by monstrous subhuman creatures that lived beneath the Earth. The story became so popular that ''Amazing Stories'' ran almost nothing but sequels and other related material for some time afterwards, to the dismay of some of their readership, including a young Creator/HarlanEllison. After the craze had run its course, Shaver abandoned writing to pursue an interest in geology and died in 1975.

Richard Sharpe Shaver was your grandpa's Creator/DavidIcke.

----

* The Japanese horror film ''Marebito'' features the Deros and references some of Shaver's other written work.

* {{Ultraterrestrials}}: The ancestors of the Teros and Deros. They left the Earth because the sun's radiation is harmful to them; those that stayed behind gradually evolved into their respective two forms, similarly to the Eloi and Morlocks in [[HGWells H.G. Wells's]] ''Literature/TheTimeMachine''.

Richard Sharpe Shaver was your grandpa's DavidIcke.

* In ''DungeonsAndDragons'', there's a race of subterranean dwarves called "Derros," a possible allusion to the Deros.
** ''{{Pathfinder}}'' ramps up the references, as the derro abduct innocents from the surface and perform horrible experiments on them in a mad and futile effort to discover ways to allow them to survive the light of the sun. The supplemental book "Classic Horrors Revisited" discusses the creative origins of ''Pathfinder'''s morlocks, blending Shaver's original text with Creator/HGWells' [[TheMorlocks morlocks]] and AlienAbduction folklore.

* Sharyn [=McCrumb's=] ''[[Literature/BimbosOfTheDeathSun Zombies of the Gene Pool]]'' has a NoCelebritiesWereHarmed version of Shaver as a member of a group of wannabe sci-fi authors from the 50s. Said author gained fame for writing fantastic horror stories, but insisted it was non-fiction and spent the latter portion of his life in an asylum.

** ''{{Pathfinder}}'' ramps up the references, as the derro abduct innocents from the surface and perform horrible experiments on them in a mad and futile effort to discover ways to allow them to survive the light of the sun.

Richard Sharpe Shaver was an American factory worker who, in [[TheForties the 1940s]], began contributing short stories and art to pulp [[ScienceFiction science-fiction]] magazines, notably ''Amazing Stories.'' He became renowned for a short story called [[http://sacred-texts.com/ufo/irl/ ''I Remember Lemuria!'']] about a man held captive by monstrous subhuman creatures that lived beneath the Earth. The story became so popular that ''Amazing Stories'' ran almost nothing but sequels and other related material for some time afterwards, to the dismay of some of their readership, including a young Creator/HarlanEllison. After the craze had run its course, Shaver abandoned writing to pursue an interest in geology and died in 1975.

Richard Sharpe Shaver was an American factory worker who, in [[TheForties the 1940s]], began contributing short stories and art to pulp [[ScienceFiction science-fiction]] magazines, notably ''Amazing Stories.'' He became renowned for a short story called ''I Remember Lemuria!'' about a man held captive by monstrous subhuman creatures that lived beneath the Earth. The story became so popular that ''Amazing Stories'' ran almost nothing but sequels and other related material for some time afterwards, to the dismay of some of their readership, including a young Creator/HarlanEllison. After the craze had run its course, Shaver abandoned writing to pursue an interest in geology and died in 1975.

* PhilipKDick, [[{{VALIS}} himself no stranger to hearing nonhuman voices in his head]], mentions Shaver's work in his novel ''Confessions of a Crap Artist.''

Richard Sharpe Shaver was an American factory worker who, in [[TheForties the 1940s]], began contributing short stories and art to pulp [[ScienceFiction science-fiction]] magazines, notably ''Amazing Stories.'' He became renowned for a short story called ''I Remember Lemuria!'' about a man held captive by monstrous subhuman creatures that lived beneath the Earth. The story became so popular that ''Amazing Stories'' ran almost nothing but sequels and other related material for some time afterwards, to the dismay of some of their readership, including a young HarlanEllison. After the craze had run its course, Shaver abandoned writing to pursue an interest in geology and died in 1975.

* ScoobyDooHoax: Averted... on a technicality. Shaver himself believed every word he wrote. When confronted by HarlanEllison, who claimed that the so-called mystery was nothing more than a marketing ploy, Ray Palmer admitted that he was ''certainly'' tying to ramp up sales, which isn't the same thing as to say that the whole thing was fake.

* HarlanEllison incorporated themes and elements from the Shaver Mystery (including accounts from believers) into his short story ''The Elevator People''. Ironic, since he found the whole thing distasteful.