[karaoglan]

I wondered what other people think about the difference between horror and dark fantasy? and why are they not the same? Look forward to reading your views on this topic:)

[Randy M.]

I wondered what other people think about the difference between horror and dark fantasy? and why are they not the same? Look forward to reading your views on this topic:)

Some possibilities:

1) The term 'dark fantasy' seemed to start showing up shortly before the horror market busted. It may have originated as a way of marketing horror without calling it horror.

2) Dark Fantasy stresses the more horrific aspects of fantasy -- think of Tolkien if he had stressed Morder and Shelob and not mentioned so much the Shire and Galadriel and the elves. William Beckford's Vathek, Lafcadio Hearn's Kwaidon, and H. P. Lovecraft's The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath are good example of dark fantasy written 100+, 80+ and 60+ (respectively) years before the term became current. They are not Tolkienesque or epic fantasy, though the Beckford and Hearn both stem from the mid-19th century vogue for Oriental fantasy.

3) Horror, both the publisher category and the emotion that gives the category its name, often contains elements of fantasy from vampires and werewolves to ghosts to djinn, and on and on. The area in which the tropes of horror overlap with the tropes of fantasy needs a name so ... Dark Fantasy.


I'm sure there are other possibilities. Feel free to pick and choose, quibble, or add others.

Randy M.

[Pulp]

I think Robert E. Howard falls into "dark fantasy". He has the staples of fantasy: Magic, ancient gods, often settings in another world or a remote part of ours. But he stresses the evil, violent and generally dark elements of his world rather than the fantastic.