Locus Online has a nice article on Horror writing and why it’s so hard to take most of it serously. Not only do I agree, but with the changing of a few words, it would be equally applicable to the SF/fantasy niche.

“Most normal readers - in the real world - saw horror as a tacky little subgenre popular primarily with teenagers, and ineligible for consideration as literature, or for that matter, “serious” reading. And, truth be told, probably 90% of what was published as horror did not deserve to be called anything other than trash. Still, there was a decent living to be made by hacks willing to churn out formula fiction, with the ever-present brass ring of a fluke bestseller, or better yet, a movie sale in the post-Exorcist boom times.” Read More…