I've been thinking a lot lately about the relationship between fantasy and horror. This started many years ago when I was casually reading science fiction and fantasy. It seemed that the line between science fiction and fantasy was a fairly solid one. In the years that followed, I heard a lot of people try to pinpoint the differences between the two genres (rarely discussing their speculative similarities). It really wasn't that big an issue for me then or now, although people still discuss it at length.
After I started writing – and especially after I attended Clarion - I realized that most of what I was writing was fantasy. Even my "science fiction" stories had very little science in them. Most used some aspect of science as a speculative springboard to launch the story.
But then I began reading more horror stories and things got murkier. As I read stories in several of The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror anthologies, I was often surprised to see that some of the stories that I would have called fantasy were chosen by Ellen Datlow (the horror editor for the series) rather than Terri Windling. Sometimes I'd read a story and purposely cover up the introduction containing the editor's initials to see if I could guess the genre. It was pretty much a crap shoot.
A few years ago I heard Datlow on a WFC panel. She said that she looks primarily for horror stories (or horror elements), even when reading submissions for (the now defunct) SCIFICTION. Since then, I've heard people discussing different stories, arguing back and forth over whether a certain one is fantasy or horror. Other than discussions of the blatantly obvious (elves vs. vampires, for example), I haven't heard anything tangible differentiating the two genres.
I've been reading Jeffrey Ford's new collection The Empire of Ice Cream, asking myself if some of the stories are fantasy or horror. Or both? (Of course much of this speaks to Ford's versatility as a writer.) I guess it really doesn't matter. It's all speculative fiction and I love both genres. I also tend to write in both genres, although I would be the last to tell you which of my stories are horror and which are fantasy. I don't know what the stories are and don't really want to spend too much time thinking about it. But for the purposes of sending out stories to markets, it helps to know.
I've probably heard them before – maybe not – but I'd like to hear your thoughts on the differences between fantasy and horror.
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2 comments:
I think the problem with these labels is that horror is often "fantastic" out of necessity. Elizabeth Hand's "Cleopatra Brimstone" comes to mind.
Fantasy, however, is not necessarily imbued with the "horrific." "Magic for Beginners." Albert Cowdrey's "Animal Magnetism" in the latest F&SF.
Still, I think most good fantasy has some horror element in it, some unflinching vision of the darkest part of humanity. I think of George R.R. Martin's books with their hard choices and harder, often chilling consequences--some of which are "horror" (Melisandre's "shade assassin") and some of which are just painful (the Red Wedding).
I'm also thinking of M. Rickert's "Bread and Bombs." This is obviously fantasy, but how anyone can say that the ending is not "horror" is beyond me.
I guess part of this is that these examples of fantasy are also concerned with character above all, which may necessarily imbue them with the horror of reality, however "fantastic" their settings or ideas.
I'm sure I heard someone at a Con joke that in fantasy, the fantastic and the unreal can happen to you, but in horror, the fantastic and the unreal happen to bite you on the leg and keep on gnawing...
Silly, but I like it.
As someone who writes (and reads) a lot of hard SF, I find the distinction between scientific SF and non-science SF to be something of a canard. Either Dune is a great SF story which almost single-handedly gave birth to a generation of environmental scientists or it is a political novel which happens to be set in a distant future.
Frankly, I'm glad that Datlow and Windling work together and do a combined anthology.
The problem with labels is that sometimes you just need to use more than one. But see, then that destroys the nature of the dichotomy. We like to bifurcate the universe into THIS or THAT.
I often tell my students that "There are two kinds of people in the world: those who believe there are two kinds of people and those who don't." (grin)
Dr. Phil
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