Book: A is for Alien
Nov. 3rd, 2009 09:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vcmwA is for Alien is a science fiction short story anthology from Subterranean by Caitlin R. Kiernan. I'm pretty sure that I read one of her horror novels sometime between 2003-2006, and I've had a sort of similar reaction to the short stories - beautifully done, and not the kind of horror that I enjoy.
The writing makes me feel tense and depressed and nervous, which I think is something certain kinds of excellent horror writing aim to do. I just can't handle the feeling for very long, and even one of these short stories is enough to make me feel that way for a few hours. I checked it out of the library because I want to encourage them to buy short stories in sf/f, and because I'm psyched that stuff from Subterranean is showing up in so many libraries and want to encourage that as much as possible. Bar those two factors I don't think I'd have checked it out; once I'd checked it out I felt like a cheater if I didn't read it.
One insight I have come up with is that I find horror in sf much harder to deal with than horror in fantasy. I had to go and reread some of Wilhelmina Baird's Psykosis last night because I wanted to be reminded that having alien symbiotes infest your body could, in some hands, be a terrifying/exciting/world-changing/life-affirming thing, as opposed to an invitation to pus and decay and nightmares.
I dunno - I admire the dense specificity of the language and the world-building, I'm just not that much interested in the psychological theme of alienation, no matter how beautiful the construction of the androids, cyborgs, and parasites that manifest that alienation. I think I come from a starting point of alienation and am more excited and terrified by the immense leap that's involved in asserting connection. I think an interesting essay could probably be written tearing apart a few of these stories and comparing them a few Tiptree stories though - I get a sense that a similar problem is being treated from very different emotional outlooks or along very different vectors.
The writing makes me feel tense and depressed and nervous, which I think is something certain kinds of excellent horror writing aim to do. I just can't handle the feeling for very long, and even one of these short stories is enough to make me feel that way for a few hours. I checked it out of the library because I want to encourage them to buy short stories in sf/f, and because I'm psyched that stuff from Subterranean is showing up in so many libraries and want to encourage that as much as possible. Bar those two factors I don't think I'd have checked it out; once I'd checked it out I felt like a cheater if I didn't read it.
One insight I have come up with is that I find horror in sf much harder to deal with than horror in fantasy. I had to go and reread some of Wilhelmina Baird's Psykosis last night because I wanted to be reminded that having alien symbiotes infest your body could, in some hands, be a terrifying/exciting/world-changing/life-affirming thing, as opposed to an invitation to pus and decay and nightmares.
I dunno - I admire the dense specificity of the language and the world-building, I'm just not that much interested in the psychological theme of alienation, no matter how beautiful the construction of the androids, cyborgs, and parasites that manifest that alienation. I think I come from a starting point of alienation and am more excited and terrified by the immense leap that's involved in asserting connection. I think an interesting essay could probably be written tearing apart a few of these stories and comparing them a few Tiptree stories though - I get a sense that a similar problem is being treated from very different emotional outlooks or along very different vectors.
