I’m an innate pessimist, and tend to think that most noble goals can only remain so in principle: carnage and misery form a very large part of how things come to fruition—not only in the maintaining of empires, but also for things that might seem noble, like self-defence or even the attainment of freedom and equality.

I was writing a guest post about female costuming for the blog Heroines of Fantasy when I hit a long-buried nerve in my psyche about Leia and that gold bikini. I remember seeing the overhead poster in the movie theater and being so disappointed that Carrie Fisher had been put on seductive display for Return of the Jedi while all the men were depicted as action heroes.

When I was imagining this world, I really liked the idea of an invading alien force that was technologically superior to us, but had made numerous vital mistakes about the terrain and their enemy along the way. That—like, really, all wars—the war they waged had grown long and complicated, with infinite loose ends that never seem to quite wrap up.

Beauty, terror, and the sublime are also a huge part of the appeal of fallen angels, from Milton to Doré. Pandemonium had to combine the richness and luxury of the Aesthetic movement with the brimstone and gore and decay of Hell.

Who knows what aliens would do? They are alien. However, if they happened to conquer Paris anyway, I can see invaders studying artwork to learn more, just as archeologists now certainly study the art of any culture they are hoping to decipher.

I’m sure someone somewhere has written a profound and slow-paced meditation on personal relationships and growth involving giant monsters … the obvious invitation in the premise “giant monster” is to go for the prose equivalent of a summer blockbuster movie. That’s an invitation to have some fun.

You may have read a million variations on robots or vampires or whatever, but how often do you read a story about Hammett, Poe, and philosophy?