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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.144.6.140
Posted on Friday, June 14, 2013 - 05:13 pm:   

I have noticed a few notable Horror names transferring very successfully from Horror Fiction to Crime Thrillers. Congratulations to them.
But is this a trend?
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 86.24.62.55
Posted on Friday, June 14, 2013 - 05:37 pm:   

I'm not a great fan of modern crime fiction, Des, as I tend to find it overly populist and unconvincing, unlike the more literate and character based crime classics of the 30s to 60s. There have been a few notable exceptions since, Derek Raymond chief among them and he was very much a crime/horror writer.

I grew up when populist horror fiction ruled supreme, 70s & 80s, and swallowed it all with very little critical evaluation. Since then the same market has long been conquered by the crime genre and there is still no sign of it waning in popularity. Whether horror fiction ever again scales such heights of public acceptance as entertainment is very much in doubt and authors who may have dreamed of becoming the new Stephen King still have to earn a living in these ever more competitive times.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 2.30.199.76
Posted on Saturday, June 15, 2013 - 12:17 am:   

Crime fiction has been a core aspect of the literary development of some major supernatural horror writers – Bradbury, Matheson, Bloch, Campbell and others. At the moment, horror writers may be turning to crime fiction in the hope of finding a bigger readership – but they're also, I think, drawing on the noir DNA that has been tangled up with the horror fiction genotype since the 1930s.

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