Occult fantasy

[jeregenest]

heron61 has been musing about occult fantasy and rpgs over on his livejournal. I think I disagree with his breakdown, mainly because the categories are so wide and overlapping. I'm not sure, for example, that I would place Rohan's Spiral Series in the same category as Charles de Lint, nor would I place McKinley's Sunshine in a different category from Anita Blake (well except for good versus bad). I think he also misses out on the whole occult crypto-thriller phenomena, or at least does it injustice by lumping it with Wheatley.

I think a problem is people confuse setting with genre all too often. Its one of the reasons I have come to dislike the term urban fantasy.

Someday I'll do the expansion of this line of reasoning I've been wanting to do. I'd like to, for example, follow Williams to Powers, stopping off at Katherine Neville and a few other points in between. The occult detective is another area that one could have fun exploring Carnack is to Anita is to Dresden, that sort of thing.

Comments

[heron61.livejournal.com]

While there are obvious similarities between the Anita Blake books and Sunshine, I placed them in different categories because at their heart the Anita Blake books are action-romps (with additions of mystery and romance novel), while Sunshine was about someone coming into her power - something that was never really an issue in the Anita Blake books, except on the level of Blake choosing to become a monster.

I agree about Rohan being a bit problematic in the modern-supernatural category. I'm not certain where the Spiral series fits.

As for occult crypto-thrillers (or at least the works of Tim Powers, who is the only author of such things that I'm familiar with, what are other examples). There are definite ties to occult-horror, since in all of Power's books, the supernatural is definitely an essentially corrupting force. OTOH, calling his work horror doesn't quite seen to fit. It's closer to horror than to any other category, but it's definitely different. My scheme definitely needs a new category. Btw, who besides Powers writes such novels?

In any case, I find myself remarkably ambivalent about Powers. I loved most of his work and think that Last Call is one of the finest novels I've read. However, I was rather unimpressed with Expiration Date, and the villain in Earthquake Weather struck me as so cheesy and cardboard that I gave up on the book (the fact that it struck me as a totally unnecessary sequel didn't help my lack of enjoyment). I'm not at all certain why I've loved On Stranger Tides, and The Anubis Gates, and very much disliked Earthquake Weather and The Stress of Her Regard.

[princeofcairo.livejournal.com]

I think you probably disliked Earthquake Weather because it's his least satisfactory mature work. (He wrote it while quitting drinking, and it shows, somewhat.) You probably disliked Stress because it is the closest to the subgenre you label "occult horror" -- the supernatural is so clearly malign and unnatural and inhuman that you can't even fool yourself with the prose the way you can in Anubis Gates or Stranger Tides. You would likely have the same problem with Declare, which is a shame, because it's among his best two or three books to date.

On a larger note, I don't see any problem with your subgenre breakdowns; unlike jeregenest, I have no problem with picking one topos and mapping genres to it, as long as you clearly label what it is you're doing. By your metric, I'd put Stress clearly in "occult horror" and both Last Call and Rohan's Spiral series in modern-supernatural. However, I'd rename modern-supernatural to something like "occult fantasy," which would match your other two categories while emphasizing that the difference is the generally (or at least potentially) positive role for magic and the supernatural. It would also let you include occult fantasies not set in the modern period, such as Lisa Goldstein's Strange Devices of the Sun and Moon. The only drawback is that you'd keep having to explain your system whenever someone asked why Anita Blake wasn't occult fantasy, but you have to do that anyway.

Since your question about other Powerses implies you're unfamiliar with Lisa Goldstein, I urge you to rectify that lacuna forthwith. Some of her stuff is "occult horror," by your definition, but not even Dark Cities Underground is as dark as Stress.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

I've read a number of books by Lisa Goldstein. I have loved most of her work. I did find that Dark Cities Underground reminded me of a rehash of some of her earlier work and didn't see as original as some of her (in my opinion) better work, like Walking the Labyrinth. I definitely don't consider her work horror. While almost all horror is quite dark, not all dark fiction is horror.

In any case, I agree that the term occult fantasy fits my scheme of categorization better.

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

The problem with defining stuff as horror is that horror isn't much of a genre its more of a style. Kim Newman is a good example, he writes fantasy but people label it horror ebcause it involves vampires and stuff.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

I disagree. Supernatural works involve vampires, magic, and suchlike. Sunshine is (to me at least) obviously not horror, despite the vampires.

From my PoV, horror is most definitely a distinct genre. It is a genre that focuses on morality, (internal or external) battles between good & evil, & moral choices. One of the reasons for my categorization is that not everything that uses vampires or similar creatures is horror.

[princeofcairo.livejournal.com]

I am shocked, shocked that you would write such a sentence. Go to your room. Horror is both (or either) a matter of intent -- works intended to be horrifying to the audience, usually because they horrified the artist at some stage -- and (or) a matter of content -- full of "horror genre tropes" like vampires and whatnot. This is Crit. 101, people.

However, I will also allow that the paltry linguistic kit of criticism is partially to blame, in that there's still, 2500 years post Aristotle, no pair of terms of art that distinguishes the two meanings above, although in academic studies, AFAICT, "genre" is usually taken in the latter sense.

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

I've never been happy with saying anything that uses the tropes of horror, no matt how it uses them, is horror. Seems to cheapen that which actually generates horror.

Crypto-Thrillers that are fantastic

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

I'd include works from the following: Powers, Goldstein, I'd put in Nichoals Christopher, some of Blaylock, Irvine Alexander, Jonathan Lethem, some of Jonathan Carroll, Katherine Neville, Steve Erikson, some Elizabeth Hand (and maybe some John Crowley).

Like any attempt at genre categorization its a vague term.