Cosmic Horror Cares Not What Sits its Throne

I’ve been thinking and talking a lot about cosmic/existential horror lately, and what codifies it as cosmic or existential horror. Obviously, the threats being, well, cosmic or existential helps, but on a more mechanical narrative level, it seems to require a small group of criteria:

1. That the threat is inhuman. More on this in a second.
2. That the threat is (obviously) existential⏤to humanity, to civilization, to culture, to sanity. Not a mere “this monster’s gonna kill and eat you,” but something more profound.
3. The threat follows an internally consistent logic that is utterly incompatible with its own, a whole different set of laws and rules than ours. When I talk about a threat being profound in criteria 2? I’m talking about this. A normal horror threat is either a) a violation of the normal rules; or b) punishment against the characters for violating the rules, with a lot of overlap between the two. Cosmic horror? It’s neither a violation of the rules nor punishment for breaking them, but a whole new ruleset being forcibly overlaid atop our own⏤whether that be the rules of civilization, culture, or even the laws of nature. That ruleset? It’s also a common source of the inhumanity of the threat.
4. Usually, the cosmic threat is profoundly indifferent to humanity. And even when it’s not, the danger is usually nothing personal- we’re just in its way, or are useful resources for it. (There are quite a few notable exceptions⏤Lovecraftian depictions of the fae, like in Charles Stross’ later Laundry Files novels, are commonly more actively malicious.)
5. Vibes. (Let’s be honest, this is just most of what differentiates subgenres.)
   From a writing perspective, the first three are the most

H.P. Lovecraft? His threats were, well… racist, xenophobic delusions, for the most part. Sometimes common for his time, sometimes niche, but all existing xenophobias against different cultures, nations, religions, ethnicities, etc. On a literary level, he presented them as fundamentally a threat to his preferred way of life, with dangerous alien rules. (Even for his own time, he was an over-the-top bigot.)

Well, that and fish.

Modern cosmic horror, though? Its writers have realized that there’s so many alternatives to xenophobic myths to enthrone as the threat. P Djeli Clark in Ring Shout turns the KKK and racism itself into the threat. Victor LaValle brilliantly contrasts very personal, vicious human racism with the impersonal, indifferent threat of cosmic entities in The Ballad of Black Tom. Terry Pratchett posited malls as cosmic horror in Reaper Man. Jeff Vandermeer’s Annihilation trilogy has an alternate, out-of-control alternate process of evolution as (at least part of) a cosmic threat. In my own Mage Errant series (and a number of other series), the cosmic horrors are basically just capitalism.

(In Mage Errant, the cosmic threat is an answer to the question “what horrific extents could extractive capitalism turn to in an effort to preserve itself?” Specifically in a universe suffering a heat death, but more generally as an analogy for extractive capitalism’s efforts to preserve itself here and now.)

There’s so, so many ways to take it. The paperclip maximizer, the fascinating thought product of the silly, awful little Rationalist cult in the Bay Area? It’s a fantastic cosmic horror threat. It’s pretty straightforward: It’s an AI built to maximize its production of paperclips, even to the point of wiping out humanity and tearing apart the Earth, Solar System, and eventually universe to make more paperclips. Obviously inhuman. Obviously existential. Obviously operates on alien but consistent logic. (Works great as a creepy metaphor for modern corporations and profit. Modern corporations are basically Lovecraftian entities.)

Like, you could have hard SF cosmic horror⏤Von Neumann swarms that have developed emergent, possibly intelligent ecosystems, for instance. Suburban sprawl as cosmic horror. Or, I dunno, Regency romance cosmic horror, where regency romance plotlines try to brainwash all sentient beings into looping regency romance stories eternally. As long as the threat is existential in some way, and is inhuman operating on inhuman logic, it works.

Or it’s just fish. Sea critters are evergreen cosmic horror. You ever seen a bigfin squid? Or a viperfish?

Fucking fish.

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Originally posted on Tumblr.