A particularly unromantic treatment of fairies is Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy Book (graph 1994), written by Terry Jones and illustrated by Brian Froud, supposedly reproducing a commonplace book whose owner had literally squashed fairies between its pages. Sometimes they merely live on colonized and then forgotten planets, as in Christopher Stasheff's Warlock series. A number of such stories are collected in Judith Merril's lively anthology Galaxy of Ghouls (anth 1955 vt Off the Beaten Orbit 1959), which contains Walter M Miller Jr's "The Triflin' Man" (January 1955 Fantastic Universe vt "You Triflin' Skunk" in The View from the Stars, coll 1965), in which the demon lover turns out to be an Alien, a common explanation for supernatural manifestations.Įlves and fairies likewise often turn out to be aliens, as in Clifford D Simak's The Goblin Reservation ( 1968) and Poul Anderson's "The Queen of Air and Darkness" (April 1971 F&SF), or Neanderthal or atavistic survivals, as in several stories discussed under Mythology, John Blackburn's Children of the Night ( 1966) among them. Many supernatural stories of the jokier kind can be found in Theodore Cogswell's The Wall Around the World (coll 1962) and Avram Davidson's Or All the Seas with Oysters (coll 1962) Davidson was editor of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for a period. Ray Bradbury's "Homecoming" (October 1946 Mademoiselle) is a touching story of the one "normal" in a jolly, clannish family of supernaturals. One of the best is "O Ugly Bird!" (December 1951 F&SF) they were collected in Who Fears the Devil? (coll 1963). The latter published the John the Minstrel stories by Manly Wade Wellman (probably his best work), whose hero is faced with a variety of supernatural menaces, though occasionally some sf jargon is used to bring them down to earth a little. Unknown magazine published quite a few stories of this kind, as did Weird Tales earlier and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction later. Many stories of supernatural creatures which appear in supposedly sf collections are in fact straight Fantasy that is, the supernatural status of these beings is left unquestioned. Familiars are often symbiotes also, as is the case with the sinister little creatures who accompany the "witches" in Fritz Leiber's Gather, Darkness! (May-July 1943 Astounding 1950). An electronic, remote-control form of possession is central to Frederik Pohl's A Plague of Pythons ( 1965 rev vt Demon in the Skull 1984). Stories of demonic possession, such as John Christopher's The Possessors ( 1965) and many others, are commonly rationalized in terms of Psi Powers or as a form of parasitism, usually by an Alien several of these stories are discussed in Parasitism and Symbiosis. In both a far-fetched rationale is given, Matheson being particularly ingenious in explaining the traditional stigmata of the vampire in terms of symptoms of an illness. The former is a Werewolf story which links lycanthropy with artistic talent, and allows the reader some empathy with the Shapeshifting killer the latter tells of a plague which transforms its victims into Vampires, who besiege the one immune left in the city. Two stories illustrating this clearly are James Blish's "There Shall be No Darkness" (April 1950 Thrilling Wonder) and Richard Matheson's I Am Legend ( 1954). Also, by making the condition of vampirism or lycanthropy, for example, a natural affliction, it is often possible to evoke pity for the Monster as well as its victims. More commonly he or she hopes to retain the horror, or the wonder, while rendering it a believable phenomenon of the world we live in. The sf writer does not, however, wish to demythologize all that is strange to the point of rendering it utterly matter-of-fact. Sometimes these involve racial memory of unusual but natural creatures, or they may involve Mutants (commonly) or abnormal Psychology (occasionally). Just as it is common in sf to give empirical explanations of ancient myths and stories of the gods (see Gods and Demons Mythology Shaggy God Story) and to seek a rationale for Magic, so too, when sf deals with supernatural creatures, it commonly invokes quasiscientific rationalizations. This entry provides an overview of the treatment of supernatural beings in sf, some of the more important, interesting or simply popular subsets of such entities also being given separate entries: Gods and Demons, Golem, Poltergeists, Shapeshifters, Vampires, Werewolves and Zombies.
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