From: Kieran Mullen <kieran@phyast.nhn.ou.edu>
Subject: (urth) Re:  Digest urth.v019.n026
Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 13:08:42 


>From: Michael Straight <straight@email.unc.edu>
>Subject: Re: (urth) Dualism & horror
>Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 08:46:18 -0400 (EDT)

>I haven't read much horror, however.  Are there many horror novels that
>have both a supernatural Good and Evil but the Evil wins?  (Not counting
>stories where the apparent "Evil" turns out to be morally superior to the
>apparent "Good".) 

   The classic example is the "Black Easter" series by James Blish.  It's
brilliant.

   One candidate is "Godstalk" by P.C. Hogdell.  In it the "heroes" are
superhuman warriors (sort of like angels) who have been fighting Evil for
millenia, and have been constantly losing.  God's not really talking to
them anymore, and they've been fighting a retreating action, losing world
after world.  Things are getting pretty desperate.  It's a bit of a cheat
though since the series has not really ended.  But I like the world she
has invented.  (I'm a big fan of theological science fiction).

   Hmmm...  In the original "Nightmare on Elm Street" movie, the villain
wins.  There are countless horror stories/movies/tv shows where the
villain secretly survives (shown in the last few seconds of the story).
The new Outer Limits has many episodes in which the villains win (it's
rather depressing and IMHO often poorly written).  There are a number of
sf books in which the Bomb goes off and everything ends.

                 Kieran Mullen

 
 Kieran Mullen                         email: kieran@mail.nhn.ou.edu
 Dept. of Physics and Astronomy        phone: (405) 325-3961
 The University of Oklahoma            FAX: (405) 325-7557
 Norman, OK 73019, USA                 http://www.nhn.ou.edu/~kieran/

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