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Book Review: It’s Alive! Bringing Your Nightmares to Life edited by Joe Mynhardt and Eugene Johnson

It’s Alive: Bringing Your Nightmares to Life by Eugene Johnson

Crystal Lake Publishing (December 14, 2018)

ISBN-13: 978-1684545452

 

There are books on writing that inspire, ones that feed the muse, ones that teach, but rarely has there been one that encompasses all three aspects, resulting in a must-read, must-have companion for the writer’s lair.

Last year’s Where Nightmares Came From came pretty close, with articles and essays on the horror genre from a writer’s perspective. It’s Alive continues that journey, but burrows deep within the authors’ psyche to where the story lives and breathes, and pushes its way out into the world. The massive collection of articles and interviews has something for every fan and everyone who has ever thought of writing, in this genre or others. Yes, it’s a book on horror, but its knowledge can easily be transferred to other genres as it focuses on the true ART of storytelling, something most reference books fail to acknowledge.

The following pieces are highlights for this reviewer, but in no way do I mean to diminish the others. Wherever the writer is in his or her career, or whatever stage of the story they may gravitate towards, any chapter could hit the bullseye for them. Tomorrow, a new favorite may emerge, which is the beauty and accessibility of the book. Some chapters at first appear to cover similar material, such as the age-old “show versus tell” argument, yet how it’s approached varies in style and application. Reading how so many greats in the field carve into their imaginations and create something from nothing proves there are infinite paths to travel to arrive at the story’s end.

Jonathan Maberry kicks off the book with his recollections of learning from two of the greatest writers of the the twentieth century, Ray Bradbury and Richard Matheson. His experiences as a child playing the “What If” game with these giants sounds simple but delves into the crucial questions that every storyteller must answer.

Yvonne Navarro tackles the “to outline or not to outline” in a sensible manner that doesn’t demonize either and shows how both can aid the writer in distress. For the artist who abhors one method or the other, this should be mandatory reading as it can redirect a story over the roughest terrain.

“The Horror Writer’s Ultimate Toolbox” by Tim Waggoner at first looks simple for the seasoned writer but when read  thoroughly, it takes on different meaning. There exists here a trio of articles on characterization that all bring something special to the table,even though the initial premise is similar.

Paul Wilson, Brian Kirk, and Kealan Patrick Burke pen intelligent, easy to apply tutorials on how to craft the characters that will stand out in a short story or novel. Creating empathy, conveying the true heart of that main protagonist or villain, or simply adding layers to an existing person that will keep the reader engaged is something every writer strives for yet often comes up short on. The applications by Wilson bring to mind his iconic “Repairman Jack” character, who could have been a terribly bland player on the page, but by utilizing the suggestions in the chapter, force the writer to dig deep and give the characters life in ways he or she likely had not even considered. Kirk and Burke delve further into this, stoking empathy for even the toughest characters to love.

Delivering the writer’s voice onto the page is something that’s been written about in countless books, yet Robert Ford almost makes it sound easy. Del Howison’s interview with Heather Graham, Mick Garris, Steve Niles, Maria Alexander, and Mark Anderson unravels their methods of getting the idea stuck in the writer’s head onto the page or screen.

Finally, there’s the interview with the elusive, but legendary, Clive Barker, by Tim Chizmar. While several pieces can be pointed to as the pinnacle of the book, this one hits home with just one bit of advice from the master. Barker’s insight into the macabre art of creating is worth the price of admission.

It’s Alive creates something special here. Crystal Lake continues to prove why they’re at the top with this.

Highly recommended reading for anyone who feels the need to create—it should be required reading for the anyone starting out in the field.

 

Reviewed by David Simms

Editor’s note: It’s Alive: Bringing Your Nightmares to Life is on the final ballot for the 2018 Bram Stoker Awards in the category of Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction. 

Posted on April 5, 2019 by , Reply

Book Review: Sleeping with the Lights On: The Unsettling Story of Horror by Darryl Jones

Sleeping with the Lights On: The Unsettling Story of Horror by Darryl Jones

Oxford University Press, 2018

ISBN-13: 978-0198826484

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition

 

In Sleeping with the Lights On, Darryl Jones addresses the origins and evolution of horror, and provides a brief but wide-ranging, descriptive overview of the relationship of violence, taboo, and fear to culture, society, and storytelling that will provide newcomers with a readable and easy-to-understand guide to the horror genre’s major terms, critiques, subgenres, and tropes addressed in both lay and academic literature. Those more familiar with the horror genre, may be acquainted with many of the ideas and criticisms, but Jones organizes the information effectively. In his introduction, he starts by tracking the origins of horror through early literature, religion, and myth, following through to the present day and making predictions about the future of horror. He provides clear explanations of terror, horror, the Gothic, the uncanny, and the weird, citing major, primary sources for their origins and definitions, and argues that changing cultural anxieties inform the development of the horror genre. Further chapters discuss major branches of the horror genre: monsters, the occult and supernatural, horror and the body (this includes transformation and cannibalism as well as body horror), horror and the mind (focused on madness, doppelgangers, serial killers, and slashers), and mad science.

In each of these chapters, Jones explores the breadth of the topic by first addressing the general concept (monstrosity, in the chapter on monsters) and then getting more specific and discussing critiques and analyses of how their representations and meanings  have changed with the times, through a more specific examination (in this case, of the representation of cannibals, vampires, and zombies in society, culture, history, and literature). Although he is able to address these only briefly, it is clear that his knowledge is deep as well as wide.

An afterword discusses post-millenial horror and Jones’ predictions for the future of horror. Noting that one of horror’s defining characteristics is its existence on the margins and manipulation of boundaries, he observes that its recently gained respectability in academic circles and the way it is now marketed to mainstream popular culture may be compromising its transgressiveness. Jones coins the term “unhorror” to describe movies that use horror tropes, sometimes exaggeratedly, and using computer-generated effects, without actually being horrific (he seems to be focused on recent kaiju movies, which do definitely differ in tone depending on who is making them. I don’t think anyone can say that Shin Godzilla is “unhorror” despite its CGI, though) and introduces “Happy Gothic”,  which uses a Gothic mode but in a romantic, whimsical way.

Jones also notes that recent storytelling in the genre is rooted in cultural anxieties about economic, ecological, racial, technological, and political horrors, all of which are very real parts of people’s lives right now, as well as a return to “old-school horror”, but that Asian and Hispanic horror are also having a major impact on the genre, as well as television, podcasts, and Internet memes such as Slender Man. Jones concludes that horror is expanding past the page and movie screen directly in front of our faces, to include new voices and new fears in ways that, at this time, we can’t even imagine.

As this is a short book, it really isn’t possible to cover everything, and I feel like Jones maybe stretched himself a little too far in trying to include as much as he did, especially in his afterword. He devotes just a few sentences to YA horror and paranormal romance(entire books have been written about this), and a few to the “Happy Gothic”, without really elaborating or providing examples (I have never heard of this and now I am curious). His attempt to describe “unhorror” was fragmented as well. He just didn’t have the space for everything I think he would have liked to have said, so the end felt a little unfinished.  I was also a little frustrated with the index. While it lists authors and titles of books and movies cited, movies were not always identified by the date (there are a number of movies titled Godzilla, for example) and terms defined in the text were not always included (abjection, taboo, and sublime, for instance). This is less of a big deal if you have a paper copy that you can just flip through, but doing that on the Kindle is more difficult. The “further reading” section was also difficult for me to read, and I would have liked a little space between citations. These are minor quibbles, though.

This is a great book for anyone looking for background on the genre or arguments for its validity, or who is just interested in the topic, and especially for newcomers seeking a good overview of the horror genre in literature and cinema. Highly recommended.

 

Posted on February 9, 2019 by , Reply

Book Review: Making the Monster: The Science Behind Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein by Kathryn Harkup

Making the Monster: The Science Behind Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein by Kathryn Harkup

Bloomsbury Sigma, 2018

ISBN-13: 978-1472933737

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook, MP3 CD

 

 

The primary takeaway I got from Making the Monster: The Science Behind Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is that Frankenstein really truly is science fiction. There are things implied in the book that science today still isn’t able to accomplish! I think in today’s world we don’t really have the ability to imagine the time that Mary Shelley was writing, when the way people saw the world was in flux, with alchemy only very reluctantly ceding its way to the barely understood beginnings of chemistry, biology, and physical science, and the materials for experimentation not easily available. The potential of science to change what makes us human, as exciting and mysterious as it was, also activated anxieties and fears that, while they have changed in specifics, still affect us today. The mystery of what science could accomplish, though, was so profound at that time that Shelley’s novel of an ambitious, obsessive scientist has so little actual science in it, and so little of the text actually devoted to creating the monster itself.

Harkup breaks her topic down by first summing up the life of Mary Shelley to the point at which she wrote Frankenstein, and then, about 80 pages in, addressing the specific aspects of science and experimentation described in the text. She does a good job of recreating the gruesome aspects of science at that time, and the enthusiasm scientists had that sent them past the point of what we would consider ethically acceptable. She covers some fascinating people and ideas, such as anatomist John Hunter (evidently the model for both Dr. Doolittle and Dr Jekyll); foundational chemist Antoine Lavoisier; serial killers William Burke and William Hare, who sold the bodies of their victims to anatomy schools; and Luigi Galvani and Alessandro Volta, the major players in the debate on the role of electricity in animal and human bodies, among others. Bodysnatching, graverobbing, transplants, preserving body parts in jars, the creation of batteries, chimeras, body decomposition, electroshock therapy, acromegaly, transfusions, feral men, Lamarck’s theory of genetics, all are covered in the pages as the flotsam surrounding educated (and not as educated) people at the time, often simultaneously as entertainment and education.

Making the Monster is interesting, even compelling at times, but there were some stretches that took me a long time to get through. I got impatient when Harkup moved too far into the past or too close to the current day, and much of what she said about where Shelley got her ideas was farfetched supposition. That is, not that Mary couldn’t have encountered these ideas and people, but that she might have encountered (for example) John Hunter’s ideas because of a one-time encounter between Hunter and her father. Despite it running only 274 pages, I ended up picking it up and putting it down several times.

As it’s the 200th anniversary of the novel, this is a good addition to a Frankensteinia collection, and some of the stories about the science of the times make for interesting reading if you are interested in the history of science in the 1800s. Making the Monster is a mostly enjoyable read, but outside of the specific applications of science that tie into the novel, it treads some pretty familiar ground, so it’s not an essential item for most collections.  Recommended for large public library collections and Frankenstein lovers.

 

 

Posted on December 12, 2018 by , Reply
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