I know Todd Mason is going to dispute this, but I really believe we have become quite obsessed as a society with supernatural beings. Why?Are writers reflecting the zeitgeist or are they leading the way? Have we lost the ability to be excited or moved by normal humans? Have men who don't bite your neck lost their romance? Have woman who can't spit out a spell become mundane in literature? What is it about the times we live in that invites this phenomena and do you find books or movies with zombies and vampires intriguing? Have you read any? Writing one yourself?
John Rickards touched on some of these issues with his post yesterday on why sci-fi and fantasy fans are more likely to come out to see their favorite writers. Does the influx of other-wordly creatures through books and movies allow us an escape that we crave? Tell me.
In other news, BETWEEN THE DARK AND THE
DAYLIGHT is apparently ready for purchase. And although Bill Crider has claimed authorship of "and 27 more of the best" I'd like a piece of that action.Thanks to David Cranmer (Beat to a Pulp) for first publishing the story and Ed Gorman for including it here.
26 comments:
Our society has always been obsessed with supernatural beings, Patti. By many definitions, God, Devil, Angels, Holy Ghost, any of the gods in a pantheon (Greek, Roman, you name it), and all sorts of mythical creatures, from Leprecans to Giants are supernatural beings. Anything that couldn't be accounted for by known facts was attributed to the supernatural. So zombie, vampire, werewolf, et al are just currently fashionable examples, like elf, dwarf, troll, all of which are abundant in fantasy.
What we're seeing currently is the popularity of specific beings which have appeared in tween-teen-YA fiction by Rowling, Meyers, Colfer and others.
There's money in vampire and zombie books and films now. If there was money in books and films about piles of dead leaves, we'd be seeing lots of those.
Your question reminds me of similar ones raised a few years ago when superhero movies began to take over theaters. Was that because of the audience's collective need for literally larger-than-life heroes (and villains)? Or is it just a way to capitalize on the growing renewed interest in comics and graphic novels? It's not like superheroes ever went away before, but through comic and graphic novel adaptations they came to the forefront once again.
A very interesting link, Patti, thanks for sharing.
I'm actually contemplating a lot of this, as I'm working on a plot for a middle-grade (8-12) novel. I want to write a mystery, but find it's difficult to write one without bringing fantasy into it. A 12 year-old sleuth is hard to pull off.
I've always had a strong interst in "something more" in fiction. I really don't often want to read about actual people in actual situations, primarily because I'm an actual person living an actual existence and I know it intimately. So I've always like a little, if not supernatural, then larger than life element in my fiction. A bit of mythmaking.
We live in a time of decadence, Patti. Rational thought is banished and the supernatural and spooky take center stage. Frankly, I'm a little vampired and zombied out. Perhaps our societal problems are so overwhelming, people retreat into fantasy.
The pleasure was all mine... And hopefully I will be able to pick up a copy on this side of the pond.
Congratulations to you and Bill Crider and the "many others" who made it into the anthology.
Lindburg flew the Atlantic, Hillery conquered Mt. Everest, MacArthur defeated the Japaneese and Armstrong walked on the moon. Except for sports teams winning championships, when was the last time there was a ticker tape parade for a hero? Are their any opportunities left to be a hero? Perhaps Sully landing a plane on the Hudson? With special effects making real life look dull and with few or no opportunities for great human heroism or adventure, I am not surprised that we have turned to the supernatural to fill this apparent need for heros.
I think it may be some evidence of a contradiction. I think (some/ many?) readers want to read a character who is just truly awesome at life. A different sort of escapism. BUT the rational mind has trouble accepting a regular person who is awesome at everything (I think socially we're trained to hate people who are awesome at many things.) So, the character needs to be superhuman. Since they're not 'like' us, it's okay for them to be awesome when we're not. If we had super powers, we'd be awesome like [insert character.]
It's okay for a vampire to be stunningly gorgeous, but not okay for a "regular" guy-- we hate pretty boys. It's okay for a woman with super powers to also be beautiful, but we loathe a woman who is smart and beautiful normally (particularly beautiful.) Since we can't be awesome, we don't want 'people like us' to be awesome either-- it makes us jealous. IMNHO.
And I'll disute your assertion only about as far as Rick does, Patti...there's never been a cessation in the interest in the supernatural nor fantastic, and art (Charles), including all sorts of literary art, has always meant to be more pointed and less complex than life (no way it could be otherwise, without being as dull and filled with quotidian detail as life is).
Fantastic fiction has usually had its strongest appeal to those who were most alientated from things as they are, and perhaps those numbers are rising, but I suspect not so much in proportional terms. Certainly, the magical-fantasy sitcoms of the '60s were not aimed at a niche audience, nor DARK SHADOWS, nor the horror-novel boom which began in that decade, most obviously with the sales of Ira Levin (and perhaps owe something of their audience to the groundwork laid by the tv anthology series, the radio antholgoy series, and writers ranging from William Sloane to Shirley Jackson), but also in the efflorescence of Gothics and the broad cultural acceptance of the not-unrelated fantasies of Tolkien. The times are always unsettled, and the appeal of entertainments and art (and sociopolitical analysie) of all sorts which attempts to present a more reasonable (because comprehensible, unlike the unfiltered enormity of life) view...even if that comprehensible view is that Things Are Coming To Kill You...is that at least one has a handle on things for a while, in the case of the arts and entertainments, or as long as one finds the sociopolitical theory useful in the other case.
Of course, monsters and tame/humanized monsters aren't new in YA and kid lit, either...before Rowling, Scholastic was making money most from R. L. Stine, and before Stine, a slew of others...and how did you like WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE, Patti?
For whatever reason, the computer I'm using at the moment can't access the John Rickard blog, but I suspect that the other blogger might've mentioned that fervent fantastic fiction readers have, again, been the most alienated of audiences (aside perhaps from porn/erotica readers), and therefore both in other areas of life and in their reading choices among the most picked on, giving a nice Us v. Them dynamic to encourage the creation of a fannish subculture...one which has spawned or certainly midwifed the birth of fannish subcultures around crime fiction, romance fiction, comics, and punk rock among other fandoms with fanzines and conventions.
(Life is, of course, not always dull...but anyone who doesn't have dull spots in their life is probably cruising for a stroke by thirty.)
Patti,
Congratulations to you and Bill Crider and how nice to see you and Megan having stories in the same anthology.
Terrie
Personally I never have indulged in this sort of escapism. I've read some of the more popular books and seen some of the older movies as a kid but to be honest there is enough fright in the world without making mythical supernatural oddities up to inhabit the mind.
Is it emanating from YA books? Yes, the superhero fad is definitely related. We need these sorts of people to get us out of trouble. But they were allies; this group is more foes. How old was Nancy when she started, Fleur? More like sixteen?
Yes, it is difficult to find heroes, Chuck. Reagan began to persuade us that our heroes should be business figures and look where that got us.
Yes, Clair endowing these creatures with all the traits we'd like is part of it. Vampires especially. Todd, I think it has reached the saturation point now though. Thanks for the congrats, George and Terrie.
I meant for this to go up today when I was here to talk back instead it went up on an errand day.
That's a publicity still from Pal Joey, starring Frank Sinatra, Rita Hayworth and Kim Novak, who was very fetching in the tub. She pasted a band-aid over the keyhole to keep Frank, who shared the bathroom, from ogling her. It was a delightful film with glorious music by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. You'll hear That's Why the Lady is a Tramp, and I Could Write a Book, and My Funny Valentine. It was Hayworth's last major film before Alzheimer's overtook her.
Oh, sad! I've seen that play and the movie years ago.
Was Kim's hair as blue as it looks here?
You really raise an interesting question! I actually think, though, that, as brokenbullhorn says, we've always been intrigued by the supernatural. There have always been legends and stories to try to explain the unexplainable.
During the "Age of Reason," many people tried to move us away from what they called superstition, but there is probably something deep in our subconscious that wants to believe in what we can't see. I'm not sure exactly what that is, nor why it is, but there are too many examples of the supernatural in our art forms to deny that we're intrigued by it.
Well, for goodness's sake...enjoying supernatural fiction has nothing to do with belief in the supernatural...one doesn't believe in the actuality of everything in realistic fiction, does one? (If so, there bridges to buy.) Fiction is all metaphor. And, Patti, I think it's more that you've noted it this go-'round, rather than it's all that much more prevalent than in the past. (And as I meant to write last night, indeed, congratulations on your inclusion, particularly with both friends and relation!)
Making Novak a platinum blonde was a mistake, all too typical of the 50s. No, in the film her hair's not blue. But Novak's character required more natural hair coloring. She's supposed to be a sweet and innocent newcomer to showbiz, not a bombshell.
That hard look: short, tightly curled hair, harsh makeup, was a fifties look I hated: think Janet Leigh, Jane Wyman, Lana Turner.
Ah, but Janet Leigh could certainly pull it off.
Part of the reason I suggest undistributed attention above: the 1980s: nearly every paperback line had a horror backlist, and Zebra and Tor were flooding the market. 1990s: THE X-FILES and its children were pretty much everywhere (a partial list: BUFFY, ANGEL, POLTERGEIST: THE LEGACY, PSI FACTOR, CHARMED ((among those whose appearance could also be blamed on the advent of the live-action SABRINA, THE TEENAGED WITCH)), the DARK SHADOWS revival might actually preceded the Fox show; certainly, FOREVER KNIGHT did, as did such anthologies as MONSTERS, a sort of spinoff from the '80s TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE, which in its turn came along within a year or so of the TWILIGHT ZONE revival and AMAZING STORIES and FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE SERIES and FREDDY'S NIGHTMARES, all television series, the last two only tangentially related to the film franchises that ran throughout the '80s, following on the sustained success of that late '70s film, HALLOWEEN.
I'm not sure you can reasonably claim that we're More saturated now in pop culture than we have been in the past, by horror or related expressions.
DARK SHADOWS in both iterations, and FOREVER KNIGHT, were both about vampire romance, it should be noted, well before BUFFY or certainly TWILIGHT, Buffy's bastard child.
And, of course, Romero's zombies had their greatest influence on foreigh and domestic filmmaking in the two decades after the '60s...hence all the joking about them now.
Years ago I had a friend who was widely known as the World's Greatest Expert. But he's dead, and I gladly cede the title to Todd Mason, who is a phenomenon.
Could I posit that there was a wider range of supernatural beings then? Not such a plethora of zombies and vampires?
Well, the most obvious trope in the post-EXORCIST, FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC '80s were evil and/or threatened children. That has mostly burned out...but vamps and post-Romero zombies were right up there, along with the continuing Lovecraftian evil gods and ghosts. Of which we still have more than a fair share. Not as much romance with vamps, perhaps, but still quite a few.
Well, Richard, I'n no Mike Ashley nor Stephen Jones nor Ellen Datlow nor Les Daniels nor Kim Newman, but my engagement with horror has been lifelong. (My engagement with westerns almost as longlasting, but not nearly as intense, hence my less blowing hard about that field.)
Well, my copy of the Gorman/Greenberg is coming from Nashua, NH, while my copies of the other annuals the local bookstores aren't stocking are coming from Lexington, KY, along with the most recent volume from The Sturgeon Project.
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