Blurring the lines between fantasy and horror
by morgan on Feb.02, 2010, under F. Paul Wilson
Borders in one of the few stores that maintains a distinct Horror section. At Waldenbooks, horror titles find a home in fantasy or general fiction. B&N shelves their King, Koontz and Straub books with general fiction.
Horror fans seem to appreciate our commitment to their genre. On the flip side, trying to identify which titles belong in which section can be tricky. We feature Kelley Armstrong in fantasy but Kim Harrison in horror (her adult books anyway). We often keep an author’s work together. So Stephen King’s Eyes of the Dragon is a fantasy, but it’s shelved in horror. Dan Simmons’ Hyperion and Ilium novels stay in Science Fiction, but the Terror and Song of Kali live in Horror.
Sure, it would be nice to shelve a borderline book in two places. Financially, it could mean buying twice as much inventory. 
Technically, our computer system can’t handle it. Third, we’d risk confusing customers, who might find a title only in horror one week and then only fantasy the next, as one or the other sold out.
As genres blur together (which I encourage, mind you), determining the best home for a title gets trickier. The line between fantasy and horror is especially blurry. For better or worse, vampires, werewolves and zombies are everywhere from Young Adult to Romance. Zombie Romance? Really?
F. Paul Wilson, our latest guest, has made a nice home for his work in our horror section. What do you think? Did we find the right home for Repairman Jack?
Related posts:
- Welcome our next guest… Our next guest is F. Paul Wilson, author of the Repairman Jack novels. His latest, especially for young adult readers, is a Young Repairman Jack novel called Secret Circles. His latest book in the adult cycle is Ground Zero. Please join me in welcoming him to Babel Clash and please...
- Thank you! Paul, thank you for joining us on Babel Clash. With your last post or two, please take this opportunity to tell us anything else that you’d like us to know about Jack Secret Circles, your next “adult” Repairman Jack novel or any other project that you have in the works....
- Ground Zero Paul, in your latest “adult” Repairman Jack novel, you tackle a topic that couldn’t have been easy. Jack is tangled up in a mystery involving 9/11 conspiracies, an alternative history regarding the collapse of the Twin Towers and Osama bin Laden. Was tackling these topics a difficult choice? What was...
- The Adversary Cycle Paul, I was very pleased to see volumes of your Adversary Cycle return to print after several years out-of-print. The 2nd Adversary novel doubles as the 1st Repairman Jack novel, but Jack isn’t a prominent figure in this cycle. Many fans may be less familiar with the Adversary Cycle. It...
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February 2nd, 2010 on 11:57 am
Well, some of us feel that there never was a line, that horror is a subset of fantasy. In fact, before there was a World Horror Convention or an Horror Writers Association, all the horror authors gathered at the World Fantasy Convention. (In fact the founders of HWA made their first plans at a WFC.
I’ve always been one of the above. If horror fiction is going to give me a chill, it needs to be tinged with awe. They talk about a sense of wonder in SF…well, I need that in horror. Splatter has never done it for me. Neither has torture. They can cause suspense, terror, and revulsion, but I can’t ever remember being chilled. As far as I’m concerned, serial killer fiction isn’t horror either; it’s a subset of noir, which is a subset of crime fiction.
Chills come from outside. That supernatural element, no matter how subtle, adds wonder to the mayhem. It’s no longer explainable in mundane terms. We have to look outside for an answer. And the idea of the outside leaking into our reality is…chilling.
February 2nd, 2010 on 12:00 pm
I actually work in a Borders at the moment, and the Horror section (which lives on an island tucked into Romance for some reason) is my pet section. Still, I dream of a bookstore that throws away all distinction between fiction genres, and shelves the whole shebang in alphabetical order.
Less confusion regarding where to find a particular book, and no warning to those who snobbishly avoid genre fiction, thinking it’s somehow inferior.
February 2nd, 2010 on 1:11 pm
Yeah, Crow…I’ve found once you’re tagged “horror,” everything you do winds up in the horror section. My 3 medical thrillers were all shelved under “horror” in the stores with discrete horror sections. People who like medical thrillers probably never saw them.
February 2nd, 2010 on 1:42 pm
Magnetic Crow’s question resonates with me. One of the reasons I frequent Borders is that it has a separate “Horror” section, while that “other” major bookstore slides everything into Fiction. On the one hand, it’s a blessing for a fan of horror, because it allows him to see new genre authors he might miss if all the fiction were shelved together. I think this also helps the bookstores sell, because it allows for easier discovery of new authors within a customer’s favorite genre. On the flip-side, I can see how it might be problematic for authors like you, Paul, because you have so many kinds of novels. I used to be on the side of distinct shelving, but now, given what you wrote in the thread, I could be convinced that the homogeneous shelving approach might work better for authors and, perhaps, might not be such a hurdle for readers and sellers.
Paul, if you have a chance, I’d enjoy any hints you might be able to provide about how events in the RJ Young Adult novels tie into events in the series. The first RJ YA was a lot of fun, and added a great deal to my enjoyment of the other books!
February 2nd, 2010 on 2:02 pm
I’m no book expert or author, just a book reader and Jack/Mr. Wilson fan and I’m sorry but I wouldn’t classify RJ in horror. Suspenseful, chilling, captivating, and mysterious, that’s Jack. Horror to me is very distrubing, scarey and pyschotic. Being afraid to turn off the lights before going to bed after reading a book, that’s horror. Heck, I don’t go to bed til I’m done with a Jack book, can’t put it down. With horror, there is no thinking, just complete sick chaos. Mr. Wilson has me thinking and wondering through each book. Even the most bizarre parts of his stories have that fine line of possible reality to them. Suspense/Thriller would classify a Jack book to me but not horror. Book stores need a Suspense/Thriller section.
February 2nd, 2010 on 2:05 pm
If you (Pgg) read Paul’s latest Repairman Jack novel (GROUND ZERO) you will see the connection to the RJ series.
The second YA novel has just been published, and I for one am awaiting its arrival in the mail — jiggling like a kid who has to go to the bathroom.
February 2nd, 2010 on 2:47 pm
@ Pgg - Thanks for the kind words about JACK: SECRET HISTORIES. I had a ball writing it. I’m contracted for 3 YA books and I may do a 4th, but certainly no more. I love writing for that audience but each book I do set in 1983 sends futureward ripples through the series. I’ve got to be very careful.
I sort of wanted the YAs to stand separate from the adult series, but I grew so fond of Weezy that I had to bring her into the present. And now, as I plot out the last Repairman Jack novel, I’m using an artifact discovered in passing in the second YA (JACK: SECRET CIRCLES) as a central piece of the new book.
So now the YAs are kind of an integral part of the whole.
February 2nd, 2010 on 2:53 pm
@ Veronica - I think the “cosmic horror” (thank you, HPL) of the Jack novels could almost be sf rather than fantasy. The huge forces at play could have a natural explanation; they’re operating on a scale that is so huge it appears supernatural to us. A variation on Clarke’s aphorism: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
February 2nd, 2010 on 3:06 pm
Like the other commenters have said, there are pros and cons to grouping books under genres. I like the way some online book stores use a suggested purchase or the “you might be interest in” section of the book’s description. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there was a web site that cross-referenced books with genres, authors, story locations, plots, etc where a person could say type in a search for “Repairman Jack type story based in Idaho with giant lizards” and get a list of closely related books (sorry Google, but your search engine is not quite up to the task).
February 2nd, 2010 on 4:10 pm
Now what about the fanatics that actually believe things occur or beings exist but the whole thing is in their head, for no one to see but themselves. Yet, they are so convincing in the real world to others, that people actually believe what that person says and does, and they then too have the same “illusions” as the first person, and in the end, they are fighting against themselves. No great higher being, it was just a mind game, an illusion which manifested into something so great no one could control it.
Take the nut job in, what was it, FL?, with the tent and his people. He conveyed a belief (crap of course), led others to believe so strongly that they died because of what was in their head…and there was nothing there to begin with.
Am I reaching, did I make any sense, probably not.
February 2nd, 2010 on 4:21 pm
I agree with you on serial killers a part of the noir fiction. I do not think of that as horror, or splatter stuff.
I want scary stuff, but sense of wonder as you say, in it too. Hopefully I do that when i write.
February 2nd, 2010 on 6:43 pm
for me the ultimate horror fantasy novel has been (and will probably remain) THE EXORCIST. I reread it 25 years later and it didn’t lose an iota of its power to chill and unsettle.
February 2nd, 2010 on 7:06 pm
Howdy, Paul.
Do you have a title for the last Young Jack novel yet?
How ’bout SECRET DESTINIES?
February 3rd, 2010 on 9:24 am
How about SECRET VENGEANCE?
March 3rd, 2010 on 11:21 pm
I read my first Repairman Jack because Stephen King was a fan and I love his work. I was hooked. I found another friend was a fan and I never knew it. I’ve shared you with other friends, some have been hooked others not. I prefer Jack, but I enjoy everything I’ve read of your’s so far. I’ll be sorry to see Jack end, but I’ll still have the YA titles for awhile. Please keep writing. I love horror although the mixing of horror and romance lately I find disturbing.