Wednesday, May 20, 2020

Truly Monstrous: The Leopard

Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman


According to The Complete Book of Southern African Mammals (178-180), in hunting, the leopard relies mostly upon two of its senses: hearing and sight, both of which are keen.


The leopard has a number of natural “enemies and competitors,” including the tiger, the lion, the cheetah, the spotted hyena, the striped hyena, the brown hyena, the African wild dog, the dhole, the Nile crocodile, the Burmese python, and several species of bear. However, it remains an apex predator in its habitats in Sri Lanka, Central Asian and Middle Eastern “preserves,” and African rainforests.


The leopard has, on occasion, eaten people. In hunting, it employs hiding, stalking, and ambushing, which is aided by its camouflaged fur pattern, and, according to big game hunter Jim Corbett, has been known to terrify a herd of elephants into stampeding, despite the pachyderms' indifference to the presence of the larger tiger (The Temple Tiger and More Man-Eaters of Kumaon). It is possible, also, that the leopard is a predator to the gorilla: “Gorilla remains have been found in leopard scat, but this may be the result of scavenging.”


The male tiger is a lone wolf, so to speak, rather than a pack or herd animal, associating only with the opposite sex during mating season. Its solitary nature benefits it by reducing the leopard's need to feed an entire group, but weakens its survivability by preventing both the safety that comes with numbers and the multiple  defenses that a group provides. The female tiger, on the other hand, maintains a relationship with her cubs even after they have been weaned. Adept at climbing trees, the leopard can run at a rate of fifty-eight miles per hour and will distance itself from a threat by up to forty-five miles.

Like the other predators we've considered in earlier posts, the tiger's abilities make it an apex predator in various habitats:
  • Acute hearing and vision
  • Great speed and agility
  • Climbing skill
  • Ambush and stalking skills
  • Camouflage
  • Independence
  • Avoidance of threats

 Its own predators have superior physical size and strength or numerical superiority.

Wednesday, May 13, 2020

Truly Monstrous: The Electric “Eel”

Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman


The electric eel isn't an eel.

It's a fish—a knifefish, to be exact. Such fish have long bodies, which they undulate as they swim, and they are equipped with “elongated anal fins.”

The electric eel can grow to a length of over six-and-a-half feet, lacks scales, and has a specialized two-chamber swim bladder that allows the fish to keep its balance while greatly magnifying its ability to hear.

The electric eel must surface every ten minutes to breathe, as it takes almost eighty percent of its oxygen from the air.

High frequency–sensitive tuberous receptors distributed in patches over its body” helps the fish to hunt others of its species.


Three organs produce the fish's electric charge: a main organ, the Hunter's organ, and the Sach's organ, which comprise eighty percent of its body, allowing the electric eel to discharge both low and high voltage charges.

Low-voltage discharges enable the electric eel to “sense” its surroundings, while high-voltage discharges enable it to stun, paralyze, or kill its prey. Shocks can be produced for as long as an hour when the fish is “agitated.”


At the top of their food chain, electric eels have no natural predators. Even larger animals tend to leave them alone. For those that do attack them, electric eels use a special tactic to repel or kill them. As the Smithsonian's national Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute's website explains:

Water efficiently conducts electricity, providing a wide surface area for the electric eel’s shock to be applied. This means that an electric pulse delivered through the water may not be as painful for a large predator as one delivered outside of the water. As such, an electric eel can instead jump out of the water, sliding its body up against a partially submerged predator to directly target its shock. The eel then delivers its electric pulses in increasing voltages.


Electric eels also use their ability to generate electricity to communicate. The frequencies of the electrical pulses generated by male and female eels differs, allowing the sexes to distinguish themselves from one another and to signal their “sexual receptivity” during “breeding season.”

The astonishing knifefish lives in a variety of habitats: “fresh waters of the Amazon and Orinoco River basins in South America, . . . floodplains, swamps, creeks, small rivers, and coastal plains. . . . often . . . on muddy bottoms in calm or stagnant waters.”



These amazing creatures eat a variety of prey, including other “fish, crustaceans, insects and small vertebrates, such as amphibians, reptiles and mammals.” Newly hatched electric eels are also cannibalistic, eating unhatched eggs.

The electric eel is well-suited to its environment. Its specialized electricity-generating organs makes it more than a match even for larger predators that make the mistake—sometimes the fatal mistake—of attacking them, and other specialized organs assist them in hearing and otherwise sensing their environment and detecting prey.

The offensive and defensive abilities, heightened senses of hearing and balance, communication abilities, and omnivorous feeding habits of the so-called electric eel places it at the top of its food chain, making it an apex predator.


Such abilities can dramatically increase the threat of a horror story's monster, especially if the monster uses its abilities in other ways and against human prey and, perhaps, possesses additional powers that this extraordinary knifefish itself lacks.

Tuesday, May 12, 2020

Truly Monstrous: The Alligator Snapping Turtle

Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman


An apex predator is at “the top of a food chain” and itself has no “natural predators” (except, of course, human beings). A food chain is a hierarchy of the eaters and the eaten. Each higher link up the “chain” is occupied by a superior predator, until the top link is reached, which is occupied by the apex predator. Each lower link is occupied by a predator-become-prey. For example, this food chain depicts the hierarchy of predators and prey in a Swedish lake, in which “Osprey feed on northern pike, which in turn feed on perch which eat bleak.”


Some well-known apex predators include alligators, the alligator snapping turtle, bears, the Cape wild dog, crocodiles, the dhole, eagles, the electric eel, the giant moray, the giant otter, the great horned owl, the great skua, the great white shark, the grey wolf, the jaguar, the killer whale, the komodo dragon, the lion, the reticulated python, the snow leopard, and the tiger.

We can guess some of the abilities that contribute to such animals' status as apex predators: size, strength, armament (e. g., teeth and claws), speed, and agility. Others have unique, highly specialized abilities, such as an armored hide (alligators and turtles), flight (eagle, great skua), electric shock (electric eels, giant moray), enhanced swimming (electric eel, giant moray, great white shark, killer whale, snapping turtle), constriction (reticulated python), and an unbreakable bite (snapping turtle).

But what other abilities do apex predators have that give them an advantage over lesser predators (i. e., their prey)?

Knowing the answers to these questions can help us to create monsters that are truly monstrous!


Often, one ability, such as armament, combines with another, such as biting, so that an ability that would be mundane becomes extraordinary: the alligator snapping turtle has such a strong bite that it can snap a broom handle.

It is also equipped with a worm-shaped extremity “on the tip of its tongue” that it uses “to lure fish, a form of aggressive mimicry.”


Although such prey isn't typical of their diet, alligator snapping turtles have been known to eat not only snakes and other turtles, but also “small alligators.” (Their consumption of alligators didn't inspire their name, however; they were named because the sharp edges of their shell resemble the “rugged, ridged skin of an alligator.”

Their superior biting ability, the worm-shaped lure at the end of their tongues, and their alligator-like shells give them advantages that other animals in their freshwater habitat lack, making alligator snapping turtles the apex predators of their food chain.


While the abilities of apex predators are themselves important, other facts also contribute to their success. In future posts, we'll consider these other factors.

In addition, while surveying all the apex predators is a bit too ambitious a project for blog-size articles, we'll take a look at several, so that, when we finish doing so, we can compile a decent list of some of the most effective or commonly employed abilities of apex predators and suggest how horror authors can use these amazing abilities to create truly monstrous monsters of their own.


Monday, May 11, 2020

A Monster Scale

Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman


One way to energize a genre of fiction is to introduce into it a hierarchy, or some other type of analytical or descriptive scheme, that is commonly used in a different type of narrative literature.


As Don Lincoln, author of Alien Universe: Extraterrestrial Life in Our Minds and in the Cosmos, observes, science fiction employs the scale “popularized” in J. Allen Hynek's “1972 book The UFO Experience,” which identifies three types, or “kinds,” of “close encounters” with extraterrestrial spacecraft or beings:


1st Kind: UFO sighting


2nd Kind: UFO sighting supported by "physical evidence"

 
3rd Kind: Encounter with alien beings

These original “kinds” of “close encounters” have been extended, says Lincoln, by four other types, although these additional levels “are “not universally accepted”:



4th Kind: Abduction with "retained memory"


 
5th Kind: "Regular conversations"


 6th Kind: "An encounter" resulting in a human's "death or injury"


7th Kind: Hybrid progeny resulting from human-monstrous mating

Although hybrid horror-science fiction narratives or dramas sometimes include extraterrestrial beings (e. g., Stephen King's Dreamcatcher and such films as Alien, The Thing from Another World, and Invaders from Mars), space aliens are primarily a staple of sci fi fiction. Monsters, on the other hand, are more often antagonists in horror fiction.

Hynek's scale, and its extension, provide a means of re-imagining monsters:


1st Kind: Monster sighting


2nd Kind: Monster sighting supported by "physical evidence"


3rd Kind: Encounter with monster(s)


4th Kind: Monster's abduction recalled (or recovered through the discovery of a lost film or video

5th Kind: Periodic communications with the monster, vocally or otherwise (e. g., through mental telepathy)


6th Kind: "An encounter” with the monster which results in a human's “death or injury”


7th Kind: Human/monster mating resulting in a hybrid progeny

Many of these types of “close encounters” with monsters have already been depicted in horror novels, short stories, or movies. There have been many sightings of monsters, as in Frank Peretti's 2006 novel Monster; encounters with monsters (as in Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein), periodic communications with the monster (as in Anne Rice's 1976 novel Interview with a Vampire), encounters with monsters that end in human's deaths (so many there's no need to cite an example), and even matings between women and monsters that result in births of hybrid human-monster children (as in Ira Levine's 1967 novel Rosemary's Baby).

However, an imaginative use of this extended scale of “close encounters” with monsters, rather than with aliens—which, it could be argued, represent simply another type of monster) can still introduce innovations into the horror genre. For example, the scale could be used to structure a novel or, for that matter a heptalogy, or series of seven works, each of which is inspired by one of the seven types of “close encounters” with monsters listed in the “monster scale” adapted from Hynek's hierarchy.

Paranormal vs. Supernatural: What’s the Diff?

Copyright 2009 by Gary L. Pullman

Sometimes, in demonstrating how to brainstorm about an essay topic, selecting horror movies, I ask students to name the titles of as many such movies as spring to mind (seldom a difficult feat for them, as the genre remains quite popular among young adults). Then, I ask them to identify the monster, or threat--the antagonist, to use the proper terminology--that appears in each of the films they have named. Again, this is usually a quick and easy task. Finally, I ask them to group the films’ adversaries into one of three possible categories: natural, paranormal, or supernatural. This is where the fun begins.

It’s a simple enough matter, usually, to identify the threats which fall under the “natural” label, especially after I supply my students with the scientific definition of “nature”: everything that exists as either matter or energy (which are, of course, the same thing, in different forms--in other words, the universe itself. The supernatural is anything which falls outside, or is beyond, the universe: God, angels, demons, and the like, if they exist. Mad scientists, mutant cannibals (and just plain cannibals), serial killers, and such are examples of natural threats. So far, so simple.

What about borderline creatures, though? Are vampires, werewolves, and zombies, for example, natural or supernatural? And what about Freddy Krueger? In fact, what does the word “paranormal” mean, anyway? If the universe is nature and anything outside or beyond the universe is supernatural, where does the paranormal fit into the scheme of things?

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word “paranormal,” formed of the prefix “para,” meaning alongside, and “normal,” meaning “conforming to common standards, usual,” was coined in 1920. The American Heritage Dictionary defines “paranormal” to mean “beyond the range of normal experience or scientific explanation.” In other words, the paranormal is not supernatural--it is not outside or beyond the universe; it is natural, but, at the present, at least, inexplicable, which is to say that science cannot yet explain its nature. The same dictionary offers, as examples of paranormal phenomena, telepathy and “a medium’s paranormal powers.”

Wikipedia offers a few other examples of such phenomena or of paranormal sciences, including the percentages of the American population which, according to a Gallup poll, believes in each phenomenon, shown here in parentheses: psychic or spiritual healing (54), extrasensory perception (ESP) (50), ghosts (42), demons (41), extraterrestrials (33), clairvoyance and prophecy (32), communication with the dead (28), astrology (28), witchcraft (26), reincarnation (25), and channeling (15); 36 percent believe in telepathy.

As can be seen from this list, which includes demons, ghosts, and witches along with psychics and extraterrestrials, there is a confusion as to which phenomena and which individuals belong to the paranormal and which belong to the supernatural categories. This confusion, I believe, results from the scientism of our age, which makes it fashionable for people who fancy themselves intelligent and educated to dismiss whatever cannot be explained scientifically or, if such phenomena cannot be entirely rejected, to classify them as as-yet inexplicable natural phenomena. That way, the existence of a supernatural realm need not be admitted or even entertained. Scientists tend to be materialists, believing that the real consists only of the twofold unity of matter and energy, not dualists who believe that there is both the material (matter and energy) and the spiritual, or supernatural. If so, everything that was once regarded as having been supernatural will be regarded (if it cannot be dismissed) as paranormal and, maybe, if and when it is explained by science, as natural. Indeed, Sigmund Freud sought to explain even God as but a natural--and in Freud’s opinion, an obsolete--phenomenon.

Meanwhile, among skeptics, there is an ongoing campaign to eliminate the paranormal by explaining them as products of ignorance, misunderstanding, or deceit. Ridicule is also a tactic that skeptics sometimes employ in this campaign. For example, The Skeptics’ Dictionary contends that the perception of some “events” as being of a paranormal nature may be attributed to “ignorance or magical thinking.” The dictionary is equally suspicious of each individual phenomenon or “paranormal science” as well. Concerning psychics’ alleged ability to discern future events, for example, The Skeptic’s Dictionary quotes Jay Leno (“How come you never see a headline like 'Psychic Wins Lottery'?”), following with a number of similar observations:

Psychics don't rely on psychics to warn them of impending disasters. Psychics don't predict their own deaths or diseases. They go to the dentist like the rest of us. They're as surprised and disturbed as the rest of us when they have to call a plumber or an electrician to fix some defect at home. Their planes are delayed without their being able to anticipate the delays. If they want to know something about Abraham Lincoln, they go to the library; they don't try to talk to Abe's spirit. In short, psychics live by the known laws of nature except when they are playing the psychic game with people.
In An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural, James Randi, a magician who exercises a skeptical attitude toward all things alleged to be paranormal or supernatural, takes issue with the notion of such phenomena as well, often employing the same arguments and rhetorical strategies as The Skeptic’s Dictionary.

In short, the difference between the paranormal and the supernatural lies in whether one is a materialist, believing in only the existence of matter and energy, or a dualist, believing in the existence of both matter and energy and spirit. If one maintains a belief in the reality of the spiritual, he or she will classify such entities as angels, demons, ghosts, gods, vampires, and other threats of a spiritual nature as supernatural, rather than paranormal, phenomena. He or she may also include witches (because, although they are human, they are empowered by the devil, who is himself a supernatural entity) and other natural threats that are energized, so to speak, by a power that transcends nature and is, as such, outside or beyond the universe. Otherwise, one is likely to reject the supernatural as a category altogether, identifying every inexplicable phenomenon as paranormal, whether it is dark matter or a teenage werewolf. Indeed, some scientists dedicate at least part of their time to debunking allegedly paranormal phenomena, explaining what natural conditions or processes may explain them, as the author of The Serpent and the Rainbow explains the creation of zombies by voodoo priests.

Based upon my recent reading of Tzvetan Todorov's The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to the Fantastic, I add the following addendum to this essay.

According to Todorov:

The fantastic. . . lasts only as long as a certain hesitation [in deciding] whether or not what they [the reader and the protagonist] perceive derives from "reality" as it exists in the common opinion. . . . If he [the reader] decides that the laws of reality remain intact and permit an explanation of the phenomena described, we can say that the work belongs to the another genre [than the fantastic]: the uncanny. If, on the contrary, he decides that new laws of nature must be entertained to account for the phenomena, we enter the genre of the marvelous (The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, 41).
Todorov further differentiates these two categories by characterizing the uncanny as “the supernatural explained” and the marvelous as “the supernatural accepted” (41-42).

Interestingly, the prejudice against even the possibility of the supernatural’s existence which is implicit in the designation of natural versus paranormal phenomena, which excludes any consideration of the supernatural, suggests that there are no marvelous phenomena; instead, there can be only the uncanny. Consequently, for those who subscribe to this view, the fantastic itself no longer exists in this scheme, for the fantastic depends, as Todorov points out, upon the tension of indecision concerning to which category an incident belongs, the natural or the supernatural. The paranormal is understood, by those who posit it, in lieu of the supernatural, as the natural as yet unexplained.

And now, back to a fate worse than death: grading students’ papers.

My Cup of Blood

Anyone who becomes an aficionado of anything tends, eventually, to develop criteria for elements or features of the person, place, or thing of whom or which he or she has become enamored. Horror fiction--admittedly not everyone’s cuppa blood--is no different (okay, maybe it’s a little different): it, too, appeals to different fans, each for reasons of his or her own. Of course, in general, book reviews, the flyleaves of novels, and movie trailers suggest what many, maybe even most, readers of a particular type of fiction enjoy, but, right here, right now, I’m talking more specifically--one might say, even more eccentrically. In other words, I’m talking what I happen to like, without assuming (assuming makes an “ass” of “u” and “me”) that you also like the same. It’s entirely possible that you will; on the other hand, it’s entirely likely that you won’t.

Anyway, this is what I happen to like in horror fiction:

Small-town settings in which I get to know the townspeople, both the good, the bad, and the ugly. For this reason alone, I’m a sucker for most of Stephen King’s novels. Most of them, from 'Salem's Lot to Under the Dome, are set in small towns that are peopled by the good, the bad, and the ugly. Part of the appeal here, granted, is the sense of community that such settings entail.

Isolated settings, such as caves, desert wastelands, islands, mountaintops, space, swamps, where characters are cut off from civilization and culture and must survive and thrive or die on their own, without assistance, by their wits and other personal resources. Many are the examples of such novels and screenplays, but Alien, The Shining, The Descent, Desperation, and The Island of Dr. Moreau, are some of the ones that come readily to mind.

Total institutions as settings. Camps, hospitals, military installations, nursing homes, prisons, resorts, spaceships, and other worlds unto themselves are examples of such settings, and Sleepaway Camp, Coma, The Green Mile, and Aliens are some of the novels or films that take place in such settings.

Anecdotal scenes--in other words, short scenes that showcase a character--usually, an unusual, even eccentric, character. Both Dean Koontz and the dynamic duo, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, excel at this, so I keep reading their series (although Koontz’s canine companions frequently--indeed, almost always--annoy, as does his relentless optimism).

Atmosphere, mood, and tone. Here, King is king, but so is Bentley Little. In the use of description to terrorize and horrify, both are masters of the craft.

A bit of erotica (okay, okay, sex--are you satisfied?), often of the unusual variety. Sex sells, and, yes, sex whets my reader’s appetite. Bentley Little is the go-to guy for this spicy ingredient, although Koontz has done a bit of seasoning with this spice, too, in such novels as Lightning and Demon Seed (and, some say, Hung).

Believable characters. Stephen King, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, and Dan Simmons are great at creating characters that stick to readers’ ribs.

Innovation. Bram Stoker demonstrates it, especially in his short story “Dracula’s Guest,” as does H. P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, Shirley Jackson, and a host of other, mostly classical, horror novelists and short story writers. For an example, check out my post on Stoker’s story, which is a real stoker, to be sure. Stephen King shows innovation, too, in ‘Salem’s Lot, The Shining, It, and other novels. One might even argue that Dean Koontz’s something-for-everyone, cross-genre writing is innovative; he seems to have been one of the first, if not the first, to pen such tales.

Technique. Check out Frank Peretti’s use of maps and his allusions to the senses in Monster; my post on this very topic is worth a look, if I do say so myself, which, of course, I do. Opening chapters that accomplish a multitude of narrative purposes (not usually all at once, but successively) are attractive, too, and Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child are as good as anyone, and better than many, at this art.

A connective universe--a mythos, if you will, such as both H. P. Lovecraft and Stephen King, and, to a lesser extent, Dean Koontz, Bentley Little, and even Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child have created through the use of recurring settings, characters, themes, and other elements of fiction.

A lack of pretentiousness. Dean Koontz has it, as do Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, Bentley Little, and (to some extent, although he has become condescending and self-indulgent of late, Stephen King); unfortunately, both Dan Simmons and Robert McCammon have become too self-important in their later works, Simmons almost to the point of becoming unreadable. Come on, people, you’re writing about monsters--you should be humble.

Longevity. Writers who have been around for a while usually get better, Stephen King, Dan Simmons, and Robert McCammon excepted.

Pacing. Neither too fast nor too slow. Dean Koontz is good, maybe the best, here, of contemporary horror writers.


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