definitions
It all runs together, if I let it.
Say I’m at a party and I get introduced to someone as Jim Kelly, the writer. "So what do you write?" comes the inevitable question. "Sciencefictionfantasyandhorror," I reply, knowing that this response will make perfect sense to upwards of 93 percent of those asking. I can almost hear the clunk as my career is dropped into a pigeonhole. The next line in the script reads, "Oh, really?" (as in, "You’re kidding! You don’t look like a fruitcake.") or perhaps, "You mean like Stephen King?" And there it is. How simple to say, "Yes, sort of like Stephen King," even though only some of what I type is horror. And if I am pushed hard enough, I might opine that science fiction has about as much–or as little–to do with horror as mystery does.
So what the hell is horror, anyway? According to the entry on horror in The Encyclopedia of Fantasy (edited by John Clute and John Grant and published by St. Martin’s Griffin–and yes, you probably need this book): "Unlike fantasy, supernatural fiction and science fiction–terms which describe generic structures–horror is a term which describes an affect. The horror story makes its readers feel horror." Later in the entry, the sagacious Clute writes, "It is not enough for the mundane world to be invaded, assaulted, seduced, taught or inveigled from another sphere, as generally happens in supernatural fiction, nor is it enough for monsters to exist–as they often do in fantasy. . . . What generates the frisson of horror is an overwhelming sense that the invaders are obscenely, transgressively impure." Which is fine, except then you might hear aficionados of this genre talking about something called dark fantasy. At one time I believe this was a high-faluting term for horror, used by folks who wanted to distance themselves from pop culture hackwork. Remember when science fiction writers tried to replace sci-fi with speculative fiction? But there is a useful, if slightly fuzzy, distinction to be made, if you imagine that dark fantasy might scare you in the course of pursuing other literary agendas unrelated to horror.
There’s a lot of horror, dark fantasy, supernatural fiction–call it what you will–on the web. Let’s shine some light on it, shall we?
bloody clicks
Start your exploration of the web’s dark worlds at either Horrorfind <http://www.horrorfind.com> or Crypt Crawl <http://www.cryptcrawl.com> two excellent search engines and directories. Both are like Swiss Army knives, in that they offer a surprising array of features. For instance, you can compose creepy greeting cards on both sites, which you can then email to your undead friends. Or else download horror fonts to add a little flair to your next ransom note. You can sign up for a horror email account. Both sites offer stories–Horrorfind’s are the more accomplished, since it’s a paying market. And then there’s the soundtrack. . . .
We interrupt this column for a late-breaking rant. Okay, so you’ve designed your own website and you want to give it that little something extra that will make it stand out from the trillion other sites in cyberspace. How about some music? You could download a free MIDI file, and have the theme song from Twilight Zone or Tales from the Crypt or Buffy playing while people look around your site. That would be cool, no?
NO! IT WOULD BE VERY ANNOYING AND WOULD MAKE PEOPLE FLEE FROM YOUR SITE SCREAMING. NEVER DO THIS. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER!
We now return you to your regularly scheduled column, already in progress.
. . . rather sit though the 1812 Overture played on bagpipes. However, I must say that Horrorfind’s background music is some of the very best I’ve heard–a low, eerie drone punctuated by tasty sound effects. Of course, what you’re looking to find at Horrorfind and Crypt Crawl are the links. Crypt Crawl lists about twenty-four hundred while Horrorfind has almost six thousand! Admittedly, the vast majority of these are homebrewed. You can waste a lot of time and witness more than your share of bad design and wonky HTML sampling them. There are, however, many gems. To help you find them, both sites segregate out their pick hits on "Top Rated" and "What’s Cool" pages.
The Horror Writers Association <http://www.horror.org> maintains an excellent website with goodies for readers and writers alike. The horror writers would like you to know that, "HWA is a worldwide organization of writers and publishing professionals dedicated to promoting the interests of writers of Horror and Dark Fantasy." Several essays on the craft of writing are posted on the site or you can check out the top forty horror books of all time, as voted by the members of HWA. Alas, only fourteen are currently in print. Anyone with an interest in the genre can fill out the online application to become an HWA Affiliate; in order to become an Active member, you have to have published. Like all writers’ organizations, the HWA gives out awards each year to recognize literary achievement: the "Stokers" are named for the author of Dracula.
I must admit that at first The Spook <http://www.thespook.com> took my breath away. As I clicked through this marvelous site, I got a serious alternate history vibe. Imagine a world in which one of our magazines had somehow broken out of the genre ghetto. Way, way out. We’re talking slick and upscale, with ads from the likes of Tiffany, Gran Marnier, Chanel, Acura, and Giorgio Armani. Or as The Spook’s Editor-in Chief Anthony Sapienza puts it: "Vanity Fair and The New Yorker meet the Twilight Zone." In this alternate world, Edgar Allan Poe lived to found The Atlantic Monthly and H. P. Lovecraft was President of Brown University.
But these things never happened, more’s the pity. And even though it exists and would seem to be flourishing, The Spook itself has the shimmer of unreality, a ghostliness, if you will, which is part of its charm. It arrives on your screen as an Adobe PDF file. PDF stands for Portable Document Format; to access The Spook you must first download the free Adobe Acrobat Reader <http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html>, currently in version 5.0 as I write this. This gives The Spook the look and feel of a well-designed magazine, not a clunky web page. However, reading The Spook takes some getting used to. Since the pages don’t fit on the screen and the text is laid out in columns, you’ll have to do a lot of scrolling. Until you become an accomplished PDF user, the stories will squirm perversely beneath your gaze. But stick with it, because The Spook is serving up fiction by the likes of David J. Schow, Jonathan Carroll, Damon Knight, Ramsey Campbell, and Joyce Carrol Oates as well as a raft of lively interviews, reviews, and essays.
old and new
Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890–1937) is considered by many to be the best writer of weird fiction since Poe. Lovecraft is all over the web; The Cthulhu Webring <http://v.webring.com/hub?ring=cthulhu> boasts three three and forty-nine sites! Consider starting your visit to the realm of the Great Old Ones at The H. P. Lovecraft Archive <http://www.hplovecraft.com>. This comprehensive site offers not only biographical and bibliographical material, but also such delightful esoterica as a list of his correspondents and his favorite foods: "Pie is my favourite dessert, and blueberry (for summer) and mince (for winter) are my preferred kinds." The bibliography has links to The H. P. Lovecraft Library <http://www.gizmology.net/lovecraft/index.htm> where many of his most famous works are reprinted online. According to the proprietor, William Johns, almost all of Lovecraft has passed into public domain, although long time Lovecraft publisher Arkham House <http://www.arkhamhouse.com> disputes this claim.
I suppose I have no right to be disappointed by The Official Stephen King Web Presence <http://www.stephenking.com>, but I am. It says here you’d be better off checking out some of the ninety-five sites on The Stephen King Webring <http://www.stephenking.net/webring>. The most substantial pages on King’s site are his biography, written in part by his wife Tabitha, and his bibliography. There are pages dedicated to "The Now," "The Future," and "The Answers" but they are either advertisements for upcoming projects or else explanations of why he doesn’t do stuff, like sign photographs or books or answer fan mail. This appears on the "Rumors" page: "Q: Is it true that he has retired? A: That hasn’t happened yet. There are still books coming out through both Scribner and Pocket Books and plans to complete The Dark Tower series, so there will be new books for several more years to come." The "Downloads" page, where his famous experiment in e-publishing, "The Plant" used to live, informs us that "The Plant has furled its leaves." It is otherwise blank. Now there is no rule that says that literary superstars have to give anything away to their fans, but this site struck me as downright parsimonious, especially if you contrast it to that of King’s sometime collaborator. Click over to Peter Straub <http://www.net-site.com/straub> and you’ll find complete chapters of various novels, reviews, interviews, and hilarious commentary on Straub’s career by his (imaginary) friend, Professor Putney Tyson Ridge, Ph.D., four-time winner of The International Popular Culture Society’s prestigious Elmer J. Atwood Award.
exit
You may have noticed that I haven’t listed any media sites in this column. Well, at least not directly. Querying Horrorfind or Crypt Crawl will turn up hundred of hits. Besides, we’re all readers here, right? The movie and TV and videogame folk grab much more than their share of our attention, at least in this writer’s opinion.
But I will admit to a prejudice when it comes to horror, that has often kept me on the sidelines, both as a producer and a consumer. I’m a little squeamish. I don’t mind if Sir Frederick dies trying to stuff his guts back into the gaping wound in his belly, or, the Evil Ones tie young Jennifer to a chair and slice her ears off so they can stick lighted candles into the bloody holes, but I won’t stay with any work, no matter how well crafted, where this happens every few minutes–or even every other chapter. The gratuitous escalation of violence in horror films has long since put me off, and I’m afraid I was never much of a fan of splatterpunk.
Which leads me to wonder how much overlap there is in the genre of sciencefictionfantasyandhorror. Certainly Gardner and Sheila have published SF with horrific grace notes, and I believe I could make the case that dark fantasy has occasionally appeared in these pages. Many of the writers who appear here regularly also publish horror elsewhere. So what about it, Asimov’s readers?
Do starship captains dig vampires?
