A week ago, I was driving through Seattle when I spotted a giant black and orange banner spanning a building in its entirety.
It turned out to be my local, seasonal Halloween store.
I love Halloween. There is something magical about becoming someone—or something else—for a night. It’s an escape. A ruse. A way to have a friend look at you while entering a party and having them say, “Who are you?” If science fiction and fantasy are an escape in the literary world, Halloween fits that bill just fine in our real world for one day a year.
What costumes will be big this year? No idea. Still too early to tell. Amy Winehouse? Steampunk? Captain America? A lot of possibilities for the adults. But for the kids, there will always be the standard fare—monster, vampire, and equally scary Miley Cyrus costumes.
Then I began to think about The Monster and the Vampire. No, not Miley Cyrus, although I suppose she could be both from time to time. My questioning as I drove passed the Halloween store led me to this:
Which book has more informed our current sci-fi/fantasy industry? Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein or Bram Stoker’s Dracula?
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Frankenstein is the quintessential science fiction novel. No, it doesn’t take place in space or have aliens. It does, however, ask probing questions about life, morality, and the pursuit of knowledge. It asks big questions. Through Victor Frankenstein, we see a man struggling with the immensity of life and death, and it’s in his downfall we ask very similar questions about our place in this world. Frankenstein focuses on the big questions of the cosmos and leaves behind the hero’s journey of the heart.
Dracula, on the other hand, is as fantasy as it gets in my opinion. Good versus Evil. Love versus Hate. Humanity against the supernatural that craves our demise. Although Bram Stoker did not invent the myth of the vampire, he created a vampire that would resonate through the centuries until our present day. It’s the characters around Dracula though that make it fantasy. The big questions of the cosmos? They rarely enter into their hearts. It’s the every day man overcoming extraordinary circumstances. It’s questions of the heart being answered before questions of the universe.
Ironically, when you look at these two beginnings, they have informed our very reading right now. Science fiction is alive and well, asking its big questions, thanks to Frankenstein. Dracula, on the other hand, has blazed a way for our current paranormal romance and urban fantasy influx of novels.
So I ask you: Which book has more informed our current reading habits?
Would love to hear what you guys think!
