Further thoughts on the topic of Friday’s post. (Busy weekend.)
The first thing to understand about the very broad generalizations I made there is that there is no one type of “science fiction,” no one “fantasy” genre, no one idea of “horror.” In the essay I got published last year I made an attempt to describe a “hierarchy” of science fiction — in fact, an early version of that hierarchy was post back in 2020, here. The key difference is between the crude ‘popular’ idea of science fiction — spaceships, aliens, robots, and so on — and the more refined examples that take reality into account and speculate honest about the nature of reality.
There is a similar range in horror. The crude ‘popular’ example of horror emphasize fear and disgust — monsters, gore, threats to existence. The subtler examples of horror focus more in creepiness and unease, even cosmic unease.
The notion of cosmic, or existential, horror, is captured fairly well by the Copilot summary I get when using Google:
Existential horror is a subgenre that explores themes of insignificance, isolation, and the unsettling realization that humanity is merely a speck in a vast, uncaring universe. It delves into the fear and anxiety stemming from the human condition and the search for meaning in a seemingly indifferent world. This genre often evokes feelings of dread and existential dread, making it a profound source of horror in literature and film.
Key themes are cosmic indifference, existential dread, unknowable entities, forbidden knowledge, decline of sanity, and atmosphere of dread.
Look at the SF hierarchy again; the third and fourth levels of that incorporate a similar key element: the fragility of human understanding in the face of a vast, indifferent universe. What aligns with our best current understanding of the universe. Here’s the overlap in the Venn diagram between philosophical SF and existential horror. The difference between SF and horror here is the reaction to being in a vast, uncaring universe. For horror, the reaction is dread and fear — the conservative reaction. For SF, as in science, the reaction is one of opportunity: the chance to learn what’s out there. The progressive reaction. Let’s go!
Now I’m wondering if fantasy doesn’t fit in here too somehow. The popular notions of fantasy include sword & sorcery battles between good and evil, and chosen children who learn magic in order to restore all that is good and right to the world. But there are other varieties of fantasy, at least in literature, about subtler things: senses of place, how modern civilization creates new ‘gods’, and so on. I’m not well-enough read in fantasy to be able to cite examples — though Crowley’s LITTLE, BIG and Holdstock’s MYTHAGO WOOD come to mind, perhaps Leiber’s OUR LADY OF DARKNESS (which I’ve read!).
The core of the Venn diagram is human nature. There’s no way human writers or readers can understand or speculate about reality except through the filter of human nature. (The best we can do is the process called ‘science.’) Science fiction reacts with wonder, searching for conceptual breakthroughs; horror reacts with fear and existential dream; fantasy? by deeply imbuing the unknown with human traits, perhaps.
Will think about these things.
