My husband and I have a long-standing conversation regarding movie adaptations of books. Should you read the book first or watch the movie first? After years of discussion, countless examples as evidence for both sides, we came to the conclusion. It happened because of Game of Thrones. I had not yet read any of the books and he had. Let’s just say the Red Wedding was a very big, fantastic, horrible surprise to me. For my husband, not so much. Because of that episode of Game of Thrones, we both agreed that it is best to see the movie (or TV show) and then read the book, because, we agreed, the book will almost always be better. So it’s important to go to a movie and be able to enjoy it instead of sit there comparing it to the book you remember reading. That way, you can enjoy yourself while watching the movie, then read the book after and enjoy it just as much because? The book is almost always better.
It’s extremely rare when I think a screen adaptation of a book (or books) is better than the book. I actually can’t think of one example… oh wait. Legend of the Seeker was about fifty times better than the first fifty pages I was able to get through of Terry Goodkind’s Wizard’s First Rule. That exception aside, it’s almost just as rare when I like the movie just as much as the book. And at the top of that list is The Princess Bride, book by William Goldman, movie directed by the great Rob Reiner.
Is it worth your time? It’s absolutely worth your time, and that’s really all I have to say by way of argument for you to read it. If you loved the movie, you will find a multitude of reasons to love the book (although alas, we can’t see Mandy Patinkin, but you can just imagine him as Inigo Montoya). However, I’ve heard some blaspheme whispered near and far about how the book was okay, but the introduction was weird.
Let me dispel any fears by saying the introduction is a work of genius. In it, Goldman tells a fictitious account of how the book got made. It’s not even real. Who writes a fictitious introduction? No one that I know of. When I first started reading the introduction, I thought, “Is this quirky little beginning really Goldman? Is this part of the book? What’s going on?” So to you I say this: just enjoy. It’s Goldman poking fun at himself and the classic needy writer stereotype.
This holiday season, do yourself a favor and curl up with a classic. “What’s it about? Fencing. Fighting. True Love. Strong Hate. Harsh Revenge. A Few Giants. Lots of Bad Men. Lots of Good Men. Five or Six Beautiful Women. Beasties Monstrous and Gentle. Some Swell Escapes and Captures. Death, Lies, Truth, Miracles, and a Little Sex. In short, it’s about everything.”
I’ve already got a confession to make, and it’s the very first line of post. This is actually one of my biggest pet peeves: when people assume horror fiction is the exact same as horror movies. But can I blame them? Both are the horror genre, so why wouldn’t someone assume they were the same?
First, let’s take a look at horror movies. Georges Melies, a French filmmaker, created the very first horror film Manior Du Diable (The Devil’s Castle). It’s about three minutes long, and reminds me of a little bit of Jack the Giant Killer from 1962. Manior Du Diable is a quirky exploration of the magic of camera work and editing at the time, but it’s also a great frame of reference in which to see horror: horror deals with the supernatural, things in which we don’t quite understand, and the unexplained.
Unlike Manior Du Diable, more contemporary horror classics focus on the later part of the definition: shock. Friday the 13th. The Exorcist. Saw. We cringe in the theater seats at these movies saying, “Oh no. Don’t do that!” and “Oh no, don’t go in there!” We cover our eyes and peek out between our fingers. We see characters getting their limbs torn/ripped/chopped/pulled/blown off. Blood and gore are a cornerstone for many a horror film, in particular the B-movie variety. Some films even go so far as including triggering subject matter, like rape and violation. But most horror movies are going after the same effect: to make the audience jump in their seats, to scare audiences. A lot of thought, time, and care is put into production in order to achieve just the right music, lighting, and make-up effects for the big scary moments and the big reveals in order to make the audience all but pee their pants.
Horror literature seems to take the definition of horror more figuratively, deeply exploring the things we find scary or shocking, things we might not be able to explain, and examines them in depth. Instead of going for the screams, horror writers go more for effect. Where horror film may adopt the literal definition of the word horror (fear, dread, shock), horror literature seems to capture more of the thrill. Part of that could also be a byproduct of the medium. While movies are a more sensory experience with sight and sound, with books, the reader is allowed to imagine as much or as little as what’s on the page. It takes time to read a book, and the mind has more time to come up with possibilities and presumptions about what’s coming. More telling, popular horror literature deals with different subject matter. While a movie’s big focus may be the blood and gore, horror lit still needs to stand on its own two feet as a story. That means strong characters and character development, some element of the fantastic, whether it be a human hell-bent on murder or a vampire, and a bare-bones foundation of a story that is more than a cheap thrill.
I’d argue it goes much deeper still. It comes down to a question: what is the purpose of a horror movie and what is the purpose of a book in the horror genre? In movies, we are given very little time to empathize with our characters before the action begins. Because it isn’t necessary. When a moviegoer pays their money to see a horror flick, they are banking on the promise that they will get a good scare. When a book buyer pays money for a horror book, they pay for a more cerebral experience: they will spend hours with the characters, get to know them, and feel what they feel as the book progresses. In a horror movie, we are watching horrible things happen to the characters. In a horror book, we are experiencing the fantastic, the uncomfortable, right along with them.
I should note that I’m not trying to diss horror films. One of my favorite movies is a horror film (The Thing). And there are many exceptions to the points I’ve brought up here. There are some horror movies that I find downright artful (Let the Right One In and 28 Days Later…come to mind), and go beyond the stereotypical horror genre. And there are certainly horror books where the only purpose is to shock and cause dread to the readers. But I’d argue you’re going to find that those are the few and far between.
The horror genre is more saturated with books like The Shining by Stephen King that, while dealing with horror elements, also deals with Jack Torrance’s fear of succumbing to alcoholism. You care about Jack Torrance as you read The Shining. The Walking Dead, the long-running comic book series and the TV show, doesn’t just deal in zombies. The Walking Dead is about what happens to humanity and how humanity changes in the wake of near-extinction and the constant threat of death. I Am Legend (the book by Richard Matheson, one of my favorite books) is about the loneliness of being the last of your kind. Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice has less to do with vampires and more to do with the question of what it means to be mortal. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is not about the monster, but what it means to be human, the power of science, and the power of creating life from death.
From Bernie Wrightson’s Frankenstein
Finally, the most notable difference between horror movies and horror literature has to do with who the bad guy really is. In most horror films, there is a clear line between the protagonists and antagonists. Us vs. Them. Predator vs. Prey. One force hunts the other force down. Horror books, I’d argue, more so examine the darkness that comes from within, and duality of our own nature. We can be both the good guy and the bad guy. We can have good intentions (just as Victor Frankenstein did in bringing back the dead), but instead create a monster of ourselves. What horror literature looks to achieve is to strike empathy within the reader in the most dire and uncomfortable of circumstances, not necessarily to shock or scare, but to say, “Here’s the darkness, let’s go in and look around together.”
I have to admit, I have an affinity for the early science fiction, fantasy, and weird tales that came out in the beginning of the twentieth century. Some of the tales are cringe-worthy these days, especially when viewed from a scientific perspective. Remember, nobody landed on the moon, airplanes were still in the experimental stage, and many people in rural areas had never even seen a car yet. Everything beyond the atmosphere of our pale blue marble was up for speculation, and science fiction authors were more than happy to think of wild new ideas as to what was “out there”.
A good example of the strangeness that was contemplated was Captain Sterner St. Paul Meeks, who wrote a set of early science fiction stories in the pulp magazines that included weird amoeba-like creatures that lived in the “heaviside layer”, a boundary between our atmosphere and outer space. These creatures were chowing down on the tasty rockets the humans kept sending up. Eventually, scientists discovered the truth, and the stories migrated onwards using the new information to write even weirder stories.
Harold Vincent Schoepflin, who thankfully went by the pen name of Harl Vincent, wrote for many of the early science fiction pulp magazines. He was born in 1893 in chilly Buffalo, New York. Harl was an educated gentleman who worked as a mechanical engineer for Westinghouse, specializing in industrial electrical devices. He used his engineering background to great success with his stories, giving his tales an air of scientific possibility.
Harl Vincent’s first sale was to a new pulp magazine called Amazing Stories. Harl read an issue of the magazine, headed by Hugo Gernsback (the namesake of the Hugo awards), and decided he would try to pen a story for fun. To his surprise, his story, The Golden Girl of Munan, was picked up and published in the June 1928 edition. It was the start of a beautiful friendship, and Harl went on to write many stories for Amazing Stories and several other of the speculative fiction pulps. He developed quite a following, and his name appeared often on covers to alert his fans that there was a new Harl Vincent story inside.
As Harl’s genre skills developed, he branched out to other pulps including Argosy All-Story, a highly respected weekly magazine that ran from 1882 to 1978. Most of his longer works were either novellas or serialized short novels, with the exception of his full-sized novel, The Doomsday Planet, that came out in 1966.
During World War II, Harl stopped writing for the pulps and focused on his family and his engineering career. He didn’t get back to writing until he was 73 years old, when he published the aforementioned Doomsday Planet and a short story for the speculative fiction magazine If in 1967.
Before Harl started writing, he had married Ruth Hoff and had a son and a daughter. Unfortunately, he was an avid smoker, and he eventually succumbed to emphysema and pneumonia when he was 75.
Always interested in science fiction, he continued to read the popular pulp magazines until he returned to writing his novel and a short story before passing away. Harl was a staple at the local science fiction conventions in Los Angeles, where he and his wife relocated from the snowy winters of the western New York area. He joined the Count Dracula Society and the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society, and he attended meetings as often as he could.
As for me, I’ve always enjoyed Harl Vincent’s work. I have a collection of original pulps with his stories in them, and I’ve worked with Villainous Press to bring out some of his forgotten works. Currently in print are Barton’s Island (my personal favorite), The Golden Girl of Munan (which consists of both of his novelettes combined on the lovely Golden Girl), Purple & Gray (which was fascinating in how it foreshadowed the fight between the working class and the rich and powerful elite), and several others. I plan on editing and releasing two books per year until all of his works are once again available.
If you happen to have some old brittle pulps that are not in collectible condition, feel free to contact me. I’m always looking for the original appearances of his stories so I can scan them. Reading the pulps still brings a smile to my face.
About the Author:
Guy Anthony De Marco is a disabled US Navy veteran speculative fiction author; a Graphic Novel Bram Stoker Award® nominee; winner of the HWA Silver Hammer Award; a prolific short story and flash fiction crafter; a novelist; an invisible man with superhero powers; a game writer (Sojourner Tales modules, Interface Zero 2.0 core team, third-party D&D modules); and a coffee addict. One of these is false.
A writer since 1977, Guy is a member of the following organizations: SFWA, WWA, SFPA, IAMTW, ASCAP, RMFW, NCW, HWA. He hopes to collect the rest of the letters of the alphabet one day. Additional information can be found at Wikipedia and GuyAnthonyDeMarco.com.
It was a dark and pulpy night. Dark because it’s nighttime. Pulpy because of the hordes of disemboweled pumpkins that will be lined up in front of houses all over the world, like heads on pikes as you enter a town to let you know they don’t take any shenanigans lightly.
Well, either that or because the month of October is dedicated to two of my favorite topics. Dark fiction, from horror to splatterpunk to atmospheric creepiness. Pulp as in the old pulp magazines from the mid-twentieth century. Magazines like Amazing Stories, Weird Tales, If, Galaxy, and Astounding Stories.
For the month of October, some of our Fictorians and honored guests will be providing you with articles about adding dark elements to your writing, while other authors will focus on the old pulp magazines, stories, and authors. Guest posters include Dr. Amanda Faith writing about dark fiction and avid fan/author/publisher Ron Fortier of Airship 27 combining the dark and the pulp to re-introduce us to the classic hero Brother Bones the Avenger. I will join in by chatting about one of my favorite science fiction pulp authors, Harl Vincent.
At the cusp of Halloween, we will have another interview with a Fictorian. The interview series runs once a month and introduces another person behind the enigmatic curtains of the Fictorians.
With that, I will creep back into the shadows and carefully unwrap my brittle copies of Astounding Stories and Weird Tales so I can enjoy more classic adventures.
Enjoy!
About the Author:
Guy Anthony De Marco is a disabled US Navy veteran speculative fiction author; a Graphic Novel Bram Stoker Award® nominee; winner of the HWA Silver Hammer Award; a prolific short story and flash fiction crafter; a novelist; an invisible man with superhero powers; a game writer (Sojourner Tales modules, Interface Zero 2.0 core team, third-party D&D modules); and a coffee addict. One of these is false.
A writer since 1977, Guy is a member of the following organizations: SFWA, WWA, SFPA, IAMTW, ASCAP, RMFW, NCW, HWA. He hopes to collect the rest of the letters of the alphabet one day. Additional information can be found at Wikipedia and GuyAnthonyDeMarco.com.
My husband and I have a long-standing conversation regarding movie adaptations of books. Should you read the book first or watch the movie first? After years of discussion, countless examples as evidence for both sides, we came to the conclusion. It happened because of Game of Thrones. I had not yet read any of the books and he had. Let’s just say the Red Wedding was a very big, fantastic, horrible surprise to me. For my husband, not so much. Because of that episode of Game of Thrones, we both agreed that it is best to see the movie (or TV show) and then read the book, because, we agreed, the book will almost always be better. So it’s important to go to a movie and be able to enjoy it instead of sit there comparing it to the book you remember reading. That way, you can enjoy yourself while watching the movie, then read the book after and enjoy it just as much because? The book is almost always better. 
Is it worth your time? It’s absolutely worth your time, and that’s really all I have to say by way of argument for you to read it. If you loved the movie, you will find a multitude of reasons to love the book (although alas, we can’t see Mandy Patinkin, but you can just imagine him as Inigo Montoya). However, I’ve heard some blaspheme whispered near and far about how the book was okay, but the introduction was weird.
