: Re: Mixing humour with horror in fiction I got into trouble last year for submitting an assignment (Masters in Creative Writing) that included a story that sprinkled elements of humour (think Despicable

@Kevin153

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There should be no problem with mixing genres. Genres are merely a publishing convention. That being said, some readers will dislike it, especially horror and humor.

However, one of my favorite series is Charles Stross' "Laundry Files." This is horror with dark humor. It mixes world-ending horror with spies with the bureaucracy of the civil service with computer geeks and parody/pastiche (the second book is one of the best James Bond pastiche's I've ever read). The premise of the series is that magic is a computational function and that by running the wrong program you can summon really nasty things from other dimensions. Everybody who discovers that magic exists is given a job that they can't refuse. Sometimes if they are safe, they will be allowed to go free, under a really strong geas.

But it's the humor of the series that really gets me. The hero is a computer geek (well, at the start, over the many books his character evolves) is an everyman compute geek. After being given a job at the Laundry he lives in a flat in London with two even geekier workmates, Pinky and the Brain. In one book, there is a hilarious chase scene with the main characters rushing about in a recently restored WWII Kettenkrad. His wife is the wielder of the White Violin, a very powerful occult weapon; its case has the sticker: "This Machine Kills Demons." Because of the anti-discrimination laws of England, a committee gives the acronym "PHANG" (Photogolic Hemophagic Anagathic Neurotropic and the "G" was stuck on there) to their vampire employees. In one book a young woman is killed and imitated by an extra-dimensional being, and would be horrifying if it weren't so cute!

These are just the short jokes I remember. There are other longer ones. I also love the code names they give to things. If you read it, start at the beginning and go forward. The books were published in chronological order.

I will say, however, that very few series have kept this sort of thing up. I've seen it more in short stories.

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