Science Fiction and Horror have had a long-standing relationship. Where horror stories are some of the first stories ever told, Science Fiction, or Science Romances, are newer.
For me, and many others, the Modern Age of Science Fiction began with Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus" in 1818. While considered by many to be a Gothic Horror novel, it only has the trappings of a true Gothic Horror. The work is pure science fiction of a brilliant man, the titular Dr. Frankenstein, and his attempts using science to reanimate dead tissue resulting in the creation of his monster, who is NOT named Frankenstein.
Like all good science fiction, it is far looking and attempts to tell us something about our society or morals. Which is why when people ask "When did Sci-Fi become so woke?" I say "In 1818 when it was invented by a Regency-age, teenage feminist." This was 10 years before Jules Verne, the so-called Father of Science Fiction was born and almost 50 years before H.G. Wells was born.
It would be disingenuous to ignore the horror elements of Frankenstein in favor of its Sci-Fi elements. They go hand in hand. The story was conceived from a nightmare, the same night that John Polidori gave us "The Vampyre."
Almost a century later we would get another popular horror/Sci-Fi mix in H.G. Wells War of the Worlds. This give us the popular and potent combination of Sci-Fi, Horror, and Mars.
Sci-Fi tends to organized into two large camps; the hopeful and the dystopian. YES there is more, I am not talking about ALL of sci-fi right now. But you make some clear demarcations alonge the line of Hope.
Star Trek for example tends to be on the side of hope. Hope for what the future can bring and be. Again "Woke" since 1966. Star Trek is about hope in the face of all sorts of diversity. But what about hope in the face of fear?
"Space is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence."
- Leonard 'Bones' McCoy, Star Trek (2009)
The goal of Star Trek: BlackStar very early on was the horrors of space. Often times, especially in the TNG days, space travel was depicted as fun, and easy (ish), and the horrors were the ones we brought with us. While that made for great TV in the 90s, I was still left wanting something more. Star Treks Voyager and then Enterprise got back to the idea that space travel was not easy nor always fun. BlackStar I hope delivers on the "in space no one can hear you scream" angle. I opted for mythos monsters and settings with the idea that "in space the stars are always right." Even though that was also the same time I was lamenting you can't just slap Cthulhu on something to make it sell.
Well. I am not "selling" anything with BlackStar save for my own home games. Still, I feel I owe it at least to myself not to "just slap Cthulhu onto Star Trek."
On the flip side of this I have my Star Trek: Mercy. Which is nothing if not about hope. A Starfleet full of various species from across the Galaxy, even ones the Federation are not allies with, all working together to run a hospital ship to save lives. Not that I can't run into horror elements, that is not the goal here.
I have, thanks to many of the October Horror Movie Challenges had the chance to watch some great Horror/Sci-fi. I have also had the chance to read a lot of horror sci-fi over the years, but sadly nothing recently.
It is a topic that I would love to explore more in depth and find stories that are unique to this combined genre. Much like how Sci-Fi lead me to Fantasy and Fantasty lead me to Dark Fantasy and Horror, Horror is bringing me full circle back to Sci-Fi.
I think it would be fun to get back to some sci-fi games. Even if I have to add horror to them.
I am not sure where this is taking me, but I am looking forward to finding out. Hopefully I'll have some more insights later this week.
1 comment:
_The Last Man_ as even more SF elements than _Frankenstein_: worth checking out if you've not read it!
Allan.
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