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A Darkness Visible: Explorations of Horror in the Postmodern
What is postmodernism and what does it tell us about the things we fear? A Darkness Visible explores this and other compelling questions. Drawing together some of today’s leading voices in horror fiction, this anthology contains seventeen stories that take us from the streets of the modern metropolis to the digital wastelands at the edge of the internet.Films, video games, theatrical performances, and a global pandemic became the substance of nightmares as authors capture the horrors laying at the heart of our hyper-mediated and global twenty-first-century culture. A Darkness Visible seeks to dispel notions that horror is a “conservative” or formulaic genre. As these experiments in fiction make clear, horror is and remains a literature of disjunction, showing its potential to transport us to unknown realms while reflecting our human doubts, longings, and desires.Featuring new fiction Daniel Braum · Justin A. Burnett · Michael Harris Cohen · Brian Evenson · Michael Fassbender · Gemma Files · Tyler Jones · Jo Kaplan · Jackson Kuhl · Shelley Lavigne · Christi Nogle · Alistair Rey · John Joseph Ryan · Rhys Shanahan · Jonathan Sims · Richard Tamorva · Alexander Thomas
- GenresHorror
315 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 2, 2023
44 people want to read
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
October 16, 2023
Did you enjoy House of Leaves? Do you remember the uncanny feeling produced while perusing its pages? Do you enjoy Ligotti? Do you think jump scares are overrated? Do you love Stephen King, but also crave that eerie feeling of hollowness and disorientation you find in those Backrooms videos?
If so, this is the book for you.
Although it’d take an entire essay to define the notion of the “postmodern,” doubly so in horror literature, the editors of ‘A Darkness Visible: Explorations of Horror in the Postmodern’ have done a great job giving as many conceptual clues as possible, and whetting the reader’s appetite for more at the same time. This “more” comes in the shape of stories, seventeen in number, all shockingly original, meant to creep the living heck out of you. They’re also meant to show, without any drama, that horror is not a single monolithic system of formulaic themes and typical narrative techniques, but each horror story has the means to give the genre its own unique and individual twist. They succeed brilliantly in this; the stories are not only superb horror, each one a true pleasure to read, they are also dark, disturbing, horrifying, horror powerhouses, without a single drop of blood spilled!
Thematically, the stories range from cursed lost films and mysterious art installations to uncanny hauntings and liminal spaces (namely, places that give off eerie vibes, brimming with the poignancy of abandonment.) They are typically 21st century material, mining the digital landscapes (Michael Fassbender’s “Summoner of The Cryptic Fiend”) and the transitory, the ephemeral aspect of urban life (Jo Caplan’s “Where All The Streets Lead” and Alistair Rey’s “Heterotopia”). Stylistically, they combine many contemporary forms of communication (emails, transcriptions, mobile texting, etc.), coming up with ways to deploy them without falling into the trap of originality for its own sake (something unfortunately associated with the “postmodern” as well); on the contrary, they open up new vistas of all types of horror, whether it’s a parent dying and promising to haunt you (Tyler Jones’ “Carved In Salt”), a ghost featuring in a film without anyone realizing it (Gemma Files’ “Hagstone”) or even entering a labyrinth made only for you (Brian Evenson’s “Sunken Circle”).
All the stories I mentioned would be worth the price of admission, but all seventeen in one book? Well, that now is a rare treat! The authors are at the absolute top of their game. I wish I could read this kind of stories on a regular basis.
I can’t thank enough Alistair Rey for sending me a digital copy of the anthology!
If so, this is the book for you.
Although it’d take an entire essay to define the notion of the “postmodern,” doubly so in horror literature, the editors of ‘A Darkness Visible: Explorations of Horror in the Postmodern’ have done a great job giving as many conceptual clues as possible, and whetting the reader’s appetite for more at the same time. This “more” comes in the shape of stories, seventeen in number, all shockingly original, meant to creep the living heck out of you. They’re also meant to show, without any drama, that horror is not a single monolithic system of formulaic themes and typical narrative techniques, but each horror story has the means to give the genre its own unique and individual twist. They succeed brilliantly in this; the stories are not only superb horror, each one a true pleasure to read, they are also dark, disturbing, horrifying, horror powerhouses, without a single drop of blood spilled!
Thematically, the stories range from cursed lost films and mysterious art installations to uncanny hauntings and liminal spaces (namely, places that give off eerie vibes, brimming with the poignancy of abandonment.) They are typically 21st century material, mining the digital landscapes (Michael Fassbender’s “Summoner of The Cryptic Fiend”) and the transitory, the ephemeral aspect of urban life (Jo Caplan’s “Where All The Streets Lead” and Alistair Rey’s “Heterotopia”). Stylistically, they combine many contemporary forms of communication (emails, transcriptions, mobile texting, etc.), coming up with ways to deploy them without falling into the trap of originality for its own sake (something unfortunately associated with the “postmodern” as well); on the contrary, they open up new vistas of all types of horror, whether it’s a parent dying and promising to haunt you (Tyler Jones’ “Carved In Salt”), a ghost featuring in a film without anyone realizing it (Gemma Files’ “Hagstone”) or even entering a labyrinth made only for you (Brian Evenson’s “Sunken Circle”).
All the stories I mentioned would be worth the price of admission, but all seventeen in one book? Well, that now is a rare treat! The authors are at the absolute top of their game. I wish I could read this kind of stories on a regular basis.
I can’t thank enough Alistair Rey for sending me a digital copy of the anthology!
Displaying 1 of 1 review