Doug Bassett wrote:
> I review horror magazines for a small horror
magazine.
> Yes, of course there's still good work being done
in
> the field. But I think I know whereof I speak on
this
> point: the genre as a whole really needs a
new
> approach. They've been sifting the same pile of
sand
> ever-more finely, and it shows.
The same might be said for the hardboiled P.I.
I've been reading horror stories for forty years, and for
most of that time it was a very small genre, existing mainly
as short stories, with only a few novels, and even fewer real
classics. Blatty's THE EXORCIST and Levin's ROSEMARY'S BABY
changed all that. Suddenly the publishers discovered that
horror, hitherto a virtually ignored category, could actually
generate bestseller revenue. Next thing you knew, the shelves
were crowded with millions of books about demon babies and
demon teenagers. King's CARRIE caught the crest of this wave,
and King himself ushered in a flock of lesser, and in a few
cases better, writers.
And practically before you could say "Horror boom," the bust
was already in sight. It looks like horror is going they way
of the category western -- a few top performers survive, but
the midlist team is sent back to the bleachers to hack out TV
or movie novelizations, sell their vision to the small
presses, or maybe even to find real jobs. This is not
necessarily a bad thing.
Because horror, for the most part, is a small arena, with a
limited amount of space for maneuvering. I'm not saying there
isn't room for another vampire novel. But it needs to be
reconceived in the way, say, Dan Simmons' CARRION COMFORT
reconceived it. And so on, through the basic types,
supernatural and non. Do we really need another serial killer
or slasher novel? It had better be as good as THE SILENCE OF
THE LAMBS, and definitely not as bad as HANNIBAL.
So you may be right about the field needing a new approach,
but it's hard to see what that might be. Good original
writing is hard to come by in any genre, but somehow it keeps
happening. And good original writing is the answer. You're
obviously reading a lot of work that doesn't hit the mark,
but ask yourself this: was there ever a time when things were
better?
BobT
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