Darwinian Horror

bendk

bendk

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Having just finished the book Evolving Out of Eden by Robert M. Price and Edwin A.Suominen, and reading the recent thread on ATMOM and Del Toro (whose first movie was Mimic) it got me to thinking about Darwinian horror stories. I think Donald A. Wollheim's story "Mimic" is the epitome of Darwinian horror. I know I have read at least a couple more but I can't recall the story titles. I know one was written by Lisa Tuttle. Do you guys know of any other stories that would fit this description? I realize that Darwin informed some of Lovecraft's work, but I would differentiate between cosmic horror and Darwinian horror, the latter being more tooth and claw kind of stuff.





As an aside, I think this is a very good book and I highly recommend it. And this might be Price's funniest book to date, and that is saying something.

Book description:

http://evolvingoutofeden.com/

Not the least interesting thing for me was the reason Edwin A. Suominen, a lifelong Evangelical Christian, became an atheist. He describes the reason on the below podcast from 9:00 to 12:00.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=DCd3Jtt1HVg


A facsimile of the pulp story "Mimic" by Donald A. Wollheim
pages 119 - 122

http://www.unz.org/Pub/FantasticNovelsSF-1950sep-00118


And an article on HPL and Darwinian horror.

http://mikeduran.com/2013/06/h-p-lovecrafts-darwinian-horror/
 
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Ben, don't overlook Lovecraft's Arthur Jermyn! I think a case can be made that that's more Darwinian Horror than Cosmic Horror.

I wonder if we can fully appreciate how disturbing such tales were when they were first written close in the wake of the revolutionary theories of Freud and Darwin.

The bit in Jermyn when the baronet Sir Alfred Jermyn meets his grisly death by gorilla is pretty "tooth and claw!" (Henry S. Whitehead's "Williamson" is similar in theme to Jermyn and fiendishly clever.}

I'll rack my brain and see if I can come up with any others.

What about David H. Keller's "Chasm of Monsters?" It's been a long time since I read it but I seem to recall it was about a number of monstrous evolutionary freaks trapped in a valley.

John Taine's novel "The Greatest Adventure" (which has always reminded me a bit of Lovecraft's At The Mountains of Madness), has an Antarctic expedition discover horrible evolutionary life forms but I'm pretty sure they were the products of genetic manipulation from a forgotten age...

It's hard to think of one similar to Mimic; a life form that evolves separately and undetected by humans. It's easier to think of stories that remind us we're not so special in the Darwinian scheme of things...
 
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I agree, Druidic, Arthur Jermyn is definitely Darwinian. It somehow slipped my mind. A case could also be made for "The Rats in the Walls" for its atavism. Another grisly affair.

Somehow I missed "Williamson" by Whitehead. I've only read a few of Keller's stories. I'll have to check of "Chasm of Monsters." Never heard of Taine's novel.

I just thought of another one. The Island of Dr. Moreau by Wells. On a related note, I was lucky enough to see The Island of Lost Souls on the big screen a couple of years ago. A theater in my area was doing a revival of sorts. A fun time.
 
Most of the biological sf/horror stories I can think of aren't about evolution per se, but about genetic engineering, pandemic diseases, biological warfare, ecological catastrophe, or horrific aliens. Probably evolution is part of the conceptual background of many such stories.

It's been a long time since I read James Tiptree, Jr.'s novella "A Momentary Taste of Being," but I think it could be considered Darwinian horror. Members of a space expedition discover that humans are basically just sperm cells evolved to fertilize some egg-creatures on another planet to create some unknown type of being. Glancing through the story (it's much too long to reread quickly), I found this passage near the end:

Coby's right, I know he's right. We're gametes.
Nothing but gametes. The dimorphic set -- call it sperm. Two types, little boy sperms, little girl sperms -- half of the germ-plasm of . . . something. Not complete beings at all. Half of the gametes of some . . . creatures, some race. Maybe they live in space. I think so. The, their zygotes do. Maybe they aren't even intelligent. Say they use planets to breed on, like amphibians going to the water. And they sowed their primordial seed-stuff around here, their milt and roe among the stars. On suitable planets. And the stuff germinated. And after the usual interval -- say three billion years, that's what it took us, didn't it? -- the milt, the sperm, evolved to motility, see? And we made it to the stars. To the roe-planet. To fertilize them. And that's all we are, the whole damn thing -- the evolving, the achieving and fighting and hoping -- all the pain and effort, just to get us there with the loads of jizzum in our heads. Nothing but sperms' tails. Human beings -- does a sperm think it's somebody, too? Those beautiful egg-things, the creatures on that planet, evolving in their own way for millions of years . . . maybe they think and dream, too, maybe they think they're people. All the whole thing, just to make something else, all for nothing --​
 
John Taine was the pen name used by Eric Temple Bell, a celebrated mathematician and early science fiction writer. The Greatest Adventure was published in 1929 and there are definite similarities to Lovecraft's novel. I also wondered if Lovecraft ever read it though I can't recall him mentioning it. This link shows the pb copy I have:

https://www.createspace.com/4737089

How about the Morlocks from The Time Machine? Do they count as Darwinian Horror? I suspect they may have inspired "The Lurking Fear", Lovecraft's only non-supernatural story. All inbreeding and mad degeneration. Sawney Bean eat your heart out...or more likely the heart of someone else...
 
Druidic said:
John Taine was the pen name used by Eric Temple Bell, a celebrated mathematician and early science fiction writer. The Greatest Adventure was published in 1929 and there are definite similarities to Lovecraft's novel. I also wondered if Lovecraft ever read it though I can't recall him mentioning it. This link shows the pb copy I have:

https://www.createspace.com/4737089

How about the Morlocks from The Time Machine? Do they count as Darwinian Horror? I suspect they may have inspired "The Lurking Fear", Lovecraft's only non-supernatural story. All inbreeding and mad degeneration. Sawney Bean eat your heart out...or more likely the heart of someone else...
Click to expand...

That book looks so cool!

As soon as I submitted my post about Moreau, I got to thinking about Wells. A number of his stories might qualify: Food of the Gods, "Valley of the Spiders", etc. He was big on Darwin. I guess the Morlocks could be viewed as Social Darwinism (gulp).

Darwinian horror may be too broad a term encompassing anything to do with naturalism.

I can see this thread creepily crawling all over the place. I'll have to draw the line on irradiated organisms or who knows where this will lead?

 
bendk said:
Darwinian horror may be too broad a term encompassing anything to do with naturalism.
Click to expand...

Yes, indeed. The more you think about it, the more you realize it's not a niche topic after all, but something rather . . . pervasive. :eek:
 
gveranon said:
Yes, indeed. The more you think about it, the more you realize it's not a niche topic after all, but something rather . . . pervasive. :eek:
Click to expand...

Oh dear, I agree.. I just read this....disturbing even for me (although it should be my genius loci), though faithful to the mythological geography of faerie and evolutionary tenets.... I think I may need a palate cleaner prior to spectral link (now arrived)...

http://www.amazon.com/Beautiful-Darkness-Fabien-Vehlmann/dp/1770461299/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1405237974&sr=8-2&keywords=beautiful+darkness
 
I interpret some of the fiction of John Wyndham as Darwinian horror.

In some of Wyndham's fiction, the conflict is between humans and another species. In _The Day of the Triffids_, the conflict is between a mostly blinded humanity and mobile, killer plants.

In his novel _Web_, which is sort of a first draft of a novel that was published after his death, the conflict is between natives on an island and mutant spiders.
 
Also, don't forget Wells' The War of the Worlds. On the surface it's more about alien invasion, but the Martians are defeated by pure Darwinian logic.
 
What about the hyper-organisms from the Red Tower?

"From its beginnings as a manufacturer of novelty items of an extravagant nature, the factory had now gone into the business of creating what came to be known as 'hyper-organisms.' These new productions were also of a fundamentally extreme nature, representing an even greater divergence on the part of the Red Tower from the bland and gray desolation in the midst of which it stood. As implied by their designation as hyper-organisms, this line of goods displayed the most essential qualities of their organic nature, which meant, of course, that they were wildly conflicted in their two basic features. On the one hand, they manifested an intense vitality in all aspects of their form and function; on the other hand, and simultaneously, they manifested an ineluctable element of decay in these same areas. To state this matter in the most lucid terms: each of these hyper-organisms, even as they scintillated with an obscene degree of vital impulses, also, and at the same time, had degeneracy and death written deeply upon them. In accord with a tradition of dumbstruck insanity, it seems the less said about these offspring of the birthing graves, or any similar creations, the better."
 
It does seem that science fiction has its share of Darwinian horror, which shouldn't be a surprise considering that people who write in that genre value science.

I've never read Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids, but I have always admired the cover of the first edition.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers is another story about the competition between organisms to survive. A more frightening case of natural selection I am hard-pressed to think of.

MTC makes a good point about War of the Worlds.

I read Kersh's "Men Without Bones" so many years ago that I only have vague recollections of it. I could name one aspect of it, but I won't for fear of spoilers.

I am ashamed to say that I haven't yet read "Polyphemus" by Shea. I know it is a much anthologized and respected work. I will have to remedy that.
 
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Maybe " The Spider" by Hanns Heinz Ewers? (Its been a while since I've read it, but I seem to recall a Darwinian element to it)


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The first 3 minutes of this lecture by Daniel Dennett on ant zombies, etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=KzGjEkp772s



Just the bit around the 3 minute mark. Lynch does a good job setting it up by way of contrast.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=uVW_BaNpmx4
 
Ben, a lot of great titles here!
Knygathin brings up Shea's classic "Polyphemus" and ChildofOld "Men Without Bones" and...the titles keep comin'!
Maybe NJ's suggestion is a pretty good one!
The Evolution of Darwinian Horror!!! It started out as one of the Great Intellectual Forces, along with Freud and Marx, to rock the early Twentieth Century. A story like Lovecraft's Jermyn shows the profound horror and repulsion that many folk felt regarding this theory. But now...
As in the Shea story mentioned above, it's become in general, not a source of horror itself, but an absolutely essential consideration for a writer who wants to give authenticity to his tales.
 
- That reminds me of some more suggestions; Michael Shea was mentioned earlier, and I'd been considering 'The Autopsy' as an example of darwinian or evolutionary horror. Also, Laird Barron's oeuvre in large part explores such territory in a number of diverse stories such as 'Proboscis', 'The Forest', 'The Light is the Darkness', 'Vastation', etc. Bob Leman's 'The Unhappy Pilgrimage of Clifford M.' and Karl Edward Wagner's '.220 Swift' both qualify in the 'Arthur Jermyn' vein - also from Wagner, his 'Where the Summer Ends' as well, perhaps? If artificial or enhanced evolution counts, then Philip Dick's 'Second Variety' and George Martin's 'Sandkings' can be considered, as can Neal Asher's novel The Skinner and the other novels set on the viciously Darwinian, monster-inhabited ecosystem of planet Spatterjay. Asher's work, like that of Alastair Reynolds and Peter Watts, is basically weird/cosmic horror fiction inside of a hard-sf container.
 
What about Avram Davidson's brilliant short story (which brings us back again to mimicry which is fitting since Mimic was mentioned in Ben's original post) about safety pins being the early stage of this organism's reproductive cycle, then clothes hangers and...bicycles?
What was that title? This is a BIG one for Darwinian Horror!

Or All The Seas With Oysters!!!
 
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