Babel Clash

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?

For me, horror is the creepy feeling you get that something is behind you, something you are helpless against that has malevolent intent.  Blood splatters, screams, and psychological catch-22 figures into it.  So now I’m wondering, what makes up horror for you?  The physical or the mental?  –Kim

Hi Kim.  You can’t read horror?  Wait a minute!  You have vampires, werewolves and demons in your stories.  Doesn’t that make you a writer of said “horror” genre?  What’s the scoop?  Demanding readers want to know!

Sad, but true, I can’t stomach horror in movies and books, and I avoid them like the plague, which some people find funny since I write about vampires, but really, that stuff scares the peas out of me.  I think the last horror film I saw was Poltergeist. Yup, the one where the little girl says “They’re back-k-k-k.”  It’s what, twenty years old, and I still can’t watch it.  I know it’s tame to what’s out there now, but I still give oddly shaped trees a wide birth. And yet, in LOTR, I could happily watch a hobbit being eaten by one.  (Maybe I just don’t like hobbits.) What keeps you up at night?  Man eating trees?  Hobbits?  –Kim

In an earlier comment Kim said, “Horror scares me. Yeah, I know. I write vampires and demons, and I am scared of horror.”

Where’s the line between dark fantasy and horror?  What makes a horror story work?  Also, which books or movies have scared you the most?

My pick:  the classic “Psycho.”