Prometheus
Newsletter of the LFS
Libertarians are open-minded, right? Consider the Prometheus Award. A wide variety of contemporary and classic science fiction has been nominated, and a few outstanding fantasies have been nominated as well. There is some confusion about whether or not the Award should be restricted to SF or speculative fiction, but the occasional mystery has been nominated. Of all genre boasting a high imagination quotient, only one is notable by its absence: the horror story.
Why is this the case? Perhaps there is confusion over what constitutes horror fiction. At the first science fiction convention I ever attended (DALLASCON, 1971), I got into a discussion with over this problem of definitions as applied to one of our favorite movies, the 1933 King Kong. Years later I would use what I learned that day in a film article comparing the classic film to the putrid remake, “Two Kongs Don’t Make a Right.”
What is relevant to the topic at hand is that King Kong, in common with many of the best works of imagination, straddles many genres. It is science fiction because it is a spin-off from the Lost World idea; it is fantasy because giant, humanoid gorillas did not co-exist with dinosaurs; it is a mystery because the audience is kept in the dark for the first third of the film as to just who or what is Kong; it is a love story because Kong really loves Fay Wray’s character; it is an adventure story because the explorers penetrate primordial jungles in search of great prizes and find constant danger; and finally, it is horror (as the Hay’s Office censors knew when they butchered the reissue prints) because it is full of terrible deaths and fear of the unknown. Well, hell, if you want one label, just call it a good, old-fashioned MONSTER MOVIE—because Kong has no idea what is going on in the changed context of his life (behavior that works fine on Skull Island is anti-social in New York City).
If all this seems belaboring the obvious, it really isn’t. I’ve lost track of how many fans I’ve encountered who are unreasonable on this subject. Long before I worked on my first fanzine or joined my first SF club, I was an ardent reader of ’s great film magazines, Famous Monsters of Filmland and Spacemen. It never occurred to me that there could be anybody out there who would take up residence in one part of what called the “Imagi-Nation” … and then abhor all the neighboring countries! My favorite writer, , has always been comfortable with every square inch of the Imagi-Nation; he visits graveyards by rocket and haunted houses by time machine. Once again, it never occurred to me when I was first sampling all these marvelous books and magazines that I would encounter worse bigots in fandom than in the mundane world.
Before I can make a case for libertarian horror, I have to confront the broader issues of why the genre of fright has value. In recent times, I have noticed increasing opposition to both horror and fantasy in the world of science fiction (pro and fan alike). I have not noticed an equal amount of anti-SF prejudice on the part of horror and fantasy enthusiasts, although there is some. There is even the rarer case of fantasy vs. horror. There is plenty of stupidity to go around.
The reason this article has to be the first in a series, is because I’ve bitten off more than I can possibly chew, or digest, in one installment. Only at the end of this series will I suggest my list of novels to be considered for the Hall of Fame. Meanwhile, I’ll be constructing a verbal battering ram to knock down the walls surrounding the minds of a minority of those readers, that I don’t really expect to prevail with the anti-horror crowd — after burying them in the rubble — but in demonstrating the fundamental irrationality of their position, I hope to bring other readers around to my position.
What it comes down to, really, is a problem with fandom more than with any specifically “libertarian” viewpoint. Elsewhere in this very issue, I take Taras Wolansky to task for personal reasons, but here is a fan writer who has made something of a career out of attacking fantasy and horror. A fellow Georgia SF writer, , and I have defended fantasy writing against Wolansky in the pages of Fosfax; and I was not in the least surprised when Wolansky coughed up an anti-horror sermon. Alas, the simple idea that horror is bad for you is not restricted to such as Wolansky.
For example, my friend, , editor and creator of New Libertarian, and founder of Agorism, doesn’t like horror either! I just can’t win. But the strange thing about the Konkin position is that he has a unique definition of horror, requiring a particular sort of unhappy ending to qualify. So I need to turn elsewhere in search of a workable definition.
(Just yesterday I noticed that in his column for the Spring 1990 Quantum “The Alien Critic” well-known libertarian SFan Richard E. Geis pronounces to be a “bad writer with a big name…” I do not know Geis’s definition of horror fiction, or if he has a bias against it, but I do know that is a prose stylist of some distinction.)
After discussing this subject with a number of fellow libertarian SF pros (not very time consuming, when you think about it), I have the impression that many would argue that libertarian horror is sort of an oxymoron because horror is really about unreason. Although I grant that such an element is frequently present, I do not believe it to be a necessary condition. The LFS is looking for books that make a reasoned case for liberty; I believe that reasoned case against tyranny also qualifies. Horror and reason can be combined, although it happens rarely. But libertarian science fiction is not the norm either. So what’s the problem?
In fact, one could make the argument that the horror genre doesn’t exist at all. Boris Karloff said that his films were more accurately described as terror films than as horror (he actively detested the word with which we lovers of the macabre have been saddled). The kind of revulsion associated with horror cannot be maintained for more than a brief moment anyway. A sense of dread or unease is what the genre is really about. Admittedly, the blood-gore schlock pushes the limits, but it’s the worst example … and I’m sick of horror always being judged by its junk. Let science fiction have the same standard applied to it if anybody doubts the copious amounts of dreck available for the purpose.
Besides, to isolate our emotional state as the sine qua non of an entire genre isn’t very informative. Love stories are always more than love stories (e.g., World Literature). The majority of stories that fall into the horror category are either science fiction (mad scientists, visitations from other planets and dimensions, super science stuff) or fantasy (mad wizards, visitations from Lands of Myth, supernatural stuff). Only a minority of the horror product is presented in purely naturalistic/realistic terms (mad killers, visitations from the bad part of town, grotesque crime stuff). Big difference, huh? Tell the same story in one guise and it’s just wonderful; change the costumes around, and it’s FORBIDDEN FRUIT (taboo stuff).
Take The Tempest, add science fiction, and you have Forbidden Planet. Is it any the less science fiction because of its monster from the Id? Are the classic elements of the Gothis any the less present because it’s on another planet? I remember discussing with why she isn’t overly fond of doing horror fiction. I suggested that if we take one of her monsters from another planet or fantasy world, put it in a dungeon of a castle hidden away in dark woods, and send someone dressed as a foppish aristocrat to discover the thing, hesto presto, we have a horror story. A spaceman or knight-in-shining-armor goes to the same castle, and suddenly the story is different. The context is all!
For a definition of the ideal horror story, I offer this: it must suggest the possibility of grave danger lurking behind the commonplace, the quaint or the unusual. It must involve the suspension of Natural Law or of conventional expectations; but it can do these things from the standpoint of a greater-order-of-being just as readily as from an existentialist wallowing in disorder. It should have more to do with spiritual terror or intellectual overload than with messy details if death for their own sake. It should be literate. Above all, it must be poetic and Romantic (albeit the dark side of Romanticism); Horror is: Gothic and ornate, richly textured as a velvet curtain swaying in a cold breeze in the moonlight. I’m talking about the good stuff.
I guess it’s about time for me to wrap up Part One. I see the dark at the end of the tunnel. They are calling for me. My rubber room is waiting. It has lots of paper in it that I can make into little doilies with my plastic scissors. Sometimes I look at a page before I go snip-snip-snip, and I see it is a rejection slip. They say things like this:
DEAR CONTRIBUTOR:
Your story, “X,” is not quite right for our science fiction readers
because of its sinister qualities. Perhaps you should try a horror market.
DEAR CONTRIBUTOR:
Your story, “X,” is not quite right for our readers because it isn’t
nearly scary enough. But the extrapolation is well thought out. Have you considered a science fiction
magazine?
DEAR CONTRIBUTOR:
Sorry, but we don’t see any way of turning your story into a trilogy. Frankly,
it doesn’t even have possibilities as a role playing game. Try us again after the operation, why
don’t you?
DEAR CONTRIBUTOR:
We know you’re a libertarian. We suspect you have a college education. Ha,
imagine trying to slip some thought past us. Try an obscure, but politically correct, publication; and leave
the marketplace to pros, why don’t you? “X” marks the spot.
DEAR CONTRIBUTOR:
We at Anti-Deviationist Purist Movement Stories for the Terminally Convinced
were delighted to receive your manuscript, “X.” Because it sums up everything we believe.
Unfortunately, your sense of life really sucks. Have you considered a different diet? See you at the
revolution!
TERROR IS TO SEE THE WORDS
—to be continued—
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