Why I dislike the use of period-specific gimmicks, redux

I just finished H.G. Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau, and it’s helped me realise why I dislike the use of narrative elements bound to a specific time period.

Today’s dreck, tomorrow’s classics

Today, I was discussing a number of canonical works of British literature that me and a friend are going to be tested on tomorrow. We discussed The Turn of the Screw, Tess of the D’Urbevilles, Great Expectations, Alice in Wonderland, Wuthering Heights, Lord Jim, Silas Marner, and Sherlock Holmes.

Psychopaths done properly

I generally don’t buy that many horror novels. Sometimes I’ll pick something up, if it’s a name I recognise, or a title I know is a classic. The only writer who many connect with horror that I actively follow is Stephen King. (I’m one of the few people who actually prefers his newer stuff to the stuff he wrote pre-accident.)