The Dark Side of SFBy Martin Theodore Science Fiction has a dark side. It has since the early days...Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus being a prime example of the shadowy borderlands where sf and horror come together. Seen by many as the first science fiction novel, it paved the way for such works as HG Wells' The War of the Worlds, a radio adaptation of which scared the bejeezus out of many folks in the New York/New Jersey area when it was broadcast, for those folks took it seriously. Indeed the chill of deep space is a large part of the literature of the fantastic, and the shudders come in the future too. Who can forget the alien ripping out of the man's chest in Alien, or the awful premise of George Orwell's 1984? There are whole subgenres of fiction treading that border...from the far-flung tales of HP Lovecraft to the British school of Dystopia, exemplified by John Brunner's Stand On Zanzibar and paid homage to by Stephen King's The Stand. Tales of the nuclear wasteland following the dropping of the Bomb are common, and the fear of that bomb informed the filmic medium as well, bringing to the screen such nuclear horrors as Them, Godzilla, and the later Night of the Living Dead. These were foreshadowed by Lovecraft's the Colour Out of Space, perhaps his finest work, in which a meteor causes the death of a town...and such examples of the dark underlining of sf are everywhere these days, with mutants and creatures abounding in films, books, and the ubiquitous videogames. Not to mention the Twilight Zone...Serling's masterpiece of a series, with pieces written by Bradbury, the thoroughly excellent Richard Matheson, who returned again and again to the shuddersome borderlands between sf and horror, Charles Beaumont, and Serling himself. Another fine example of this subgenre would be the two filmic adaptations of John W Campbell's Who Goes There, both titled The Thing. As long as the fear of the Unknown is with us, then science fiction will keep producing the thrills and chills of discovering that the unknown is not only there, but hostile. Selected works: http:/moderan.members.easyspace.com |
