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HORRIBLE_TRUTH

Algis Budrys, writing in the June 1983
issue of "Fantasy and Science Fiction":

   Horror writing has never been completely
   distinct from SF -- that is, speculative
   fiction, the literature, as distinguished from
   science fiction or newsstand fantasy, the
   genres -- starting even before Frankenstein's
   midnight resurrections and finding considerable
   nourishment in the talents of Poe and such
   nominally pure fantasists as M.R. James.  If
   there is a bent for speculation, for trying to
   make sense of worlds of supposition, the
   precursor for such a predilection must be some
   profound feeling that this seeming
   irrationality conceals a fearsome control by
   behind-the-scenes manipulators who have no
   concern for human piety or wit.

   Science Fiction in particular is the branch of
   SF that explicitly denies this proposition.
   The stated tenet of science fiction is that
   everything is explicable.  Furthermore, most
   science fiction is romantic; it declares that
   the universe is susceptible to intelligent
   intervention.  The credo of science fiction,
   then, can be read as an adult controversion of
   adolescent and pre-adolescent night terrors.


   I think, therefore, that inside most adult SF
   readers there may be some major element of the
   wondering child, and that at times the child
   trembles.  Oh pleasurably, perhaps.

   Why not?  We're not really so different from
   those who distinguish themselves by not liking
   speculation, sometimes so vehemently that one
   wonders where all the smoke comes from.  And in
   their nominally straight world, the fact is
   that the inhabitants are chronically terrified.
   Just listen to what they claim to believe, and
   what they deny.  Talk about living in a world
   of fantasy!


   There is some _geist_, some spiritual strain
   of affinity between those who claim the
   intellectual freedom of speculative thinking
   and a subliterature that declares humankind
   is in chains ...


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