In 2016, I began playing around with the idea of writing a non-fiction text that might explore the changing face of dark storytelling. I have always loved weird fiction, and I'm thankful that my parents encouraged me to read widely from an early age. When I was a kid, I devoured the catalogs of C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, Roald Dahl, and John Bellairs. I watched Monsters, Tales from the Darkside, and The Twilight Zone as often as I could. I relished Halloween and the changing of the seasons, and as I matured, my appreciation for science fiction, fantasy, and horror deepened and became more nuanced. I was fortunate to conduct interviews for Horror Culture in the New Millennium with many of the authors that I now admire. It was an invigorating piece of writing because I was able to synthesize so many of the stories that I love within a philosophical framework that illustrates the saving power of dark storytelling.
As Joe Hill notes in this engaging interview, technology enriches the human experience immeasurably, but there is also an inevitable element of loss as we gradually adjust our customs and behaviors. I wanted to wrestle a bit with the theoretical and philosophical underpinnings of that loss as communicated in our narrative tradition.
This book explores technohorror and digital dissonance--a pair of concepts located at the center of our modern literary culture. It comments on the changing face of folklore and interrogates such subjects as human longevity, transhumanism, artificial intelligence, and posthumanism.
I am very thankful to Nicolette Amstutz and Rowman & Littlefield for believing in the project and for doing such a phenomenal job of producing this book. The text will be available next week!
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