Skal, David J
Entry updated 12 January 2024. Tagged: Author.
(1952-2024) US critic and author who occasionally published as Dave Skal, as in his first work of genre interest, "Chains" in Clarion (anth 1971) edited by Robin Scott Wilson. His first novel, Scavengers (1980), suggests some sf basis for a plot involving Memory transfer in a corrupt world. His second, When We Were Good (1981), evokes a powerful sense of cultural despair in the tale of a sterile world in which Genetically Engineered hermaphrodites (see Gender) fail to represent an emblem of hope for the terminal remnants of normal humanity. A sense that Skal is by inclination a horror writer is intensified by the entropic dismay evoked by Antibodies (1988), a short accusatory trawl through the subcultures of California, where sf characters emit pretentious twaddle about Transcendence, and the military-industrial complex conspires to transform pseudo-hippies into spare Computer parts; all this is told with a sense of gnawing revulsion.
Hollywood Gothic: The Tangled Web of "Dracula" from Novel to Stage to Screen (1990), The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror (1993) and Screams of Reason: Mad Science and Modern Culture (1998), are all extremely competent nonfiction studies (see Horror in SF); here and in other nonfiction texts [see Checklist below] Skal's main emphasis was on the Vampire in literature and in the Cinema. [JC]
David John Skal
born Garfield Heights, Ohio: 21 June 1952
died Los Angeles, California: 1 January 2024
works
- Scavengers (New York: Pocket Books, 1980) [pb/Gerry Daly]
- When We Were Good (New York: Pocket Books, 1981) [pb/Gerry Daly]
- Antibodies (New York: Congdon and Weed, Inc, 1988) [hb/J K Potter]
works as editor
- Dracula: The Ultimate Illustrated Edition of the World-Famous Vampire Play (New York: St Martin's Press, 1993) [anth: various text and essays, including Dracula: The Vampire Play in Three Acts (1933) by John L Balderston: hb/]
- Vampires: Encounters with the Undead (New York: Black Dog and Leventhal, 2001) [anth: hb/]
nonfiction
- Hollywood Gothic: The Tangled Web of "Dracula" from Novel to Stage to Screen (New York: W W Norton and Company, 1990) [nonfiction: Bram Stoker: hb/]
- Hollywood Gothic: The Tangled Web of "Dracula" from Novel to Stage to Screen (London: Faber and Faber, 2004) [nonfiction: exp of the above: Bram Stoker: hb/]
- The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror (New York: W W Norton and Company, 1993) [nonfiction: Horror in SF: hb/Edward Gorey]
- Dark Carnival: The Secret World of Tod Browning, Hollywood's Master of the Macabre (New York: Anchor Books, 1995) with Elias Savada [nonfiction: hb/]
- V Is for Vampire: An A to Z Guide to Everything Undead (New York: Plume, 1996) [nonfiction: Vampires: pb/Todd Radom]
- Screams of Reason: Mad Science and Modern Culture (New York: W W Norton and Company, 1998) [nonfiction: Horror in SF: hb/]
- Romancing the Vampire: Collectors Vault (Atlanta, Georgia: Whitman Publishing, 2009) [nonfiction: Vampires: hb/]
- Something in the Blood: The Untold Story of Bram Stoker, The Man Who Wrote Dracula (New York: Liveright, 2016) [nonfiction: Vampires: hb/]
- Fright Favorites: 31 Movies to Haunt Your Halloween and Beyond (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Running Press Adult, 2020) [nonfiction: in the publisher's Turner Classic Movies series: hb/]
links
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