The last couple of days I have featured two of the debut I reviewed in the October 2023 issue of Library Journal. Today I have the author of a debut I began 2023 by reviewing it in the January 2023 issue of Library Journal, Melinda West: Monster Gunslinger by K.C. Grifant
But the book alone is not why I asked Grifant to share why she loves horror with you. Grifant is also a part of the StokerCon 2024 San Diego team. And for that reason, she is someone everyone needs to get to know better
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Horror is an Arachnidby KC Grifant
At first, I thought it was a misplaced Halloween decoration, one of those fuzzy black spiders from Target.
But then I had the horrific moment of realizing the tarantula—larger than my hand and standing in my backyard—was quite alive.
When I first moved from San Diego from the northeast ten years ago, I was enchanted by the desert vibe, the succulents, and the lack of humidity. What I wasn’t prepared for, however, was coming face to face with a massive tarantula in the wild.
Staring at the unexpected wildlife, my latent fear of spiders (that I’ve since mostly outgrown) evoked a deep, shuddering dread. Every terrifying scene from Arachnophobia immediately came to mind—if the spider perceived me to be a threat, would it charge and jump onto my face? Alas, I did not have fire power like Jeff Daniels nor full body protective gear like John Goodman.
I stood a good eight feet away, watching. I was simultaneously rooted to the spot while a primal urge to flee screamed at me to run. I stayed frozen, waiting. Eventually, the tarantula crawled slowly toward some succulents, feeling things out with its feet as it went. This was a spider larger than my hand and I couldn’t help but imagine how fast it could run, how high it could spring, if it decided to attack.
But while I watched its gentle, careful movements as it continued its sojourn across my yard, I gradually saw the beauty in its docile nature. It wasn’t trying to hurt anyone; it was just trying to find a safe hiding place and maybe eat some garden pests. My fear subsided and eventually the tarantula disappeared under an especially overgrown succulent.
When I told people about the sighting, responses were one of two extremes, consisting of essentially: “I’m jealous, that is the coolest thing ever!” or “Burn it all down!”
This experience—and the reactions—is like the genre of horror. Horror can be frightening and beautiful. It means different things to different people. Horror can be pulpy and fun, brutal, goofy, serious. It can consist of the real-world horror of serial killers and pedophiles, dragging us into the darkest corners of the human mind. It can fling us out into the furthest regions of space or keep us trapped in a 6-foot coffin. It disturbs, it makes you think, it nudges you out of your comfort zone and forces you to examine your beliefs, your expectations, your assumptions.
For me, horror is an arachnid: I am terrified but fascinated by it; drawn but also repelled. We all have complex boundaries that dictate if a type of horror story will exhilarate and delight versus
upset us in a way that isn’t cathartic. I believe the horror genre can be enjoyable for everyone, once you find that line of what makes you feel deliciously disturbed versus unhappily distressed.
My preferred horror veers toward the fantastical. Serial killers and realistic horrors stress me out way too much, but I will take a creature feature any day. Spiders relate to the subgenres that I love: monsters and sci-fi horror. (It’s no coincidence a lot of alien depictions are insect-like.) Give me all the creative monsters: the experiments gone wrong, the alien invasions, the demon-vampire-zombie mashups, the parasitic entities. Living creatures are so strange and unusual, they are ripe for scary storytelling (see: tardigrades, diving ants, Ophiocordyceps fungus, amblypygi, the flashlight fish, the bobtail squid, Vampirococcus bacteria, etc.).
I especially love the creative remixing of monster horror that underscores a healthy fear of nature and its capabilities: the mega shark attacks in underwater horror; the mind altering- fungi in zombie horror. Monsters show us what can go wrong and are a somber reminder to respect the unknown, tread carefully, and do what you need to to survive.
Naturally, many of my stories star monsters that hunt the unfortunate protagonists. From a shape-shifting Big Foot in disguise, to zombies that seem more human than humans themselves, I adore a good twist on a monster trope.
My fear of arachnids and love of monsters inspired a key antagonist in my debut book, MELINDA WEST: MONSTER GUNSLINGER (Brigids Gate Press, 2023). The first of a series, this supernatural western introduces creatures galore as two monster exterminating gunslingers in the Old West set off on an impossible mission. I had a lot of fun imagining the most bizarre animals possible in this iconic setting while staying in the vein of the type of horror I love—high-stakes, outlandish adventure stories like Buffy, Evil Dead, or The Witcher. In these tales, the evils are (for the most part) contained to discrete and destroyable creatures. But alongside fierce battles, the characters must contend with their own fears and insecurities.
In the book, I strove to push the limits of tropes, both for the genre and for typical monsters. Readers will find enormous flying scorpions, snow kraken, soul-snatching shadows, mega-leeches—and, not surprisingly, plenty of demonic spiders.
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