To my readers: Hello everyone. I want to talk to you…
But before I do anything, I must apologize for my prolonged absence from Old Sins Cast Long Shadows.
Old Sins Cast Long Shadows began as an exploration of select topics within the Victorian Era. But, pretty quickly the blog refocused itself into a survey of lesser known works of Victorian and Edwardian horror. Over time, Old Sins shifted again to highlight various themes and tropes in horror literature from roughly the same time period – late 19th through early 20th centuries. From there, Old Sins’ repertoire stumbled into time-travel tales as presented in early pulps.
Some of my readers may have realized that I had been exploring this theme already in my still-on-going series of blog posts, “A Supplement to 11/22/63: A Novel.” These posts were my launch point in trying to fathom time-travel tales and any meaning behind them. Subsequent blog posts also supported the evolution of my ideas concerning time-travel tales.
In the course of exploring this theme, I stumbled upon a quirky realization.
When the sub-genre of time-travel tales was in its infancy, it concerned itself with matters greater than self and family: i.e. culture, nation, world, even life itself; from killing Hitler, to saving JFK, to rewriting the entirety of history. However, at some point, this changed. Time-travel tales morphed from addressing past great evils and wrongs; to addressing a deeply personal past evil or wrong. I am interested in investigating this changeover in the nature of time-travel tales. I want to know when it occurred and why.
Issue 62 of the horror fiction periodical, Cemetery Dance, asked several genre authors to give their thoughts on the future of horror. The comment that resonated with me the most was “The future of horror is the past – the sins of the past …” From this statement, I developed this thesis – Modern Time Travel stories have little to do with science, technology or righting some great past wrong; rather, they have everything to do with the quest for personal atonement and redemption.
I have at least two more posts to include under A Supplement to 11/22/63: A Novel blog series before I feel I can bring that series to a satisfying close. With any luck and grace, these should be posted within a few months. Carrying on from where A Supplement to 11/22/63: A Novel leaves off, I want to add a new blog series that will discuss select time travel tales. This new series will be called In Search of Atonement: The Meaning Behind Modern Time Travel Tales. On a side note, several time-travel tales I have previously written about more accurately belong in this new series. The next post (and officially first of the new series) to be published on this blog will explore the superb short story, “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate” by Ted Chiang.
All of the above is not to say that I intend to abandon my pursuit of horror fiction studies – quite the opposite, in fact. I fully intend to continue my delve into horror fiction and horror fiction studies in its various forms.
And finally, on a personal note, I cannot express just how pleased I am to be returning to Old Sins Cast Long Shadows. I have so very much missed our eccentric conversations. And, I look forward to all the interesting talks we will share in the future.
Good night.
