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A guest blog from New Zealand fantasy author and podcaster Philippa Ballantine, whose Ace book, GEIST, comes out in October:

I confess I am not a fan of horror. My reading in that genre stopped back in the 1980s with Carrie and Christine. Back then I liked the scares, but once horror started moving towards the ick/squick factor I dropped off. I guess I am one of those people that doesn’t need to know about the truly meaty side of horror.

And yet I have been accused of writing scary and dark novels—and plenty of people have been disturbed by what I have committed to paper.  I tend to think my writing is more creepy—at least from time to time. My descriptions, I think, are restrained, but I certainly do not hold back as far as tormenting my characters. I believe that is what people find so disturbing; characters you like, put through challenges of life, and the afterlife too.

So when I wrote Geist I knew I would have the accusation levelled against me again. You see it is full of the creepy factor. The title might give it away. It is indeed about geists, poltergeists, spirits of the dead and from the Otherside. Creatures that are different iterations of zombies and vampires also make an appearance. Many of these geists come through, possess humanity and try to do some pretty unpleasant things to them.

So why does a nice girl from Wellington New Zealand want to write about the supernatural? Aren’t there nicer kinds of fantasy?

Well… yes, but where would be the challenge in that! Also I happen to think the supernatural is an amazing area to explore as far as the human psyche goes.

After all, let’s face it, we are all intrigued by the paranormal—no matter how sceptical we might be—the popularity of TV shows like Ghost Hunters and Ghost Lab is just a recent expression of that. Ghost stories have been around as long as there have been people to tell them, and there are good reasons for that.

It’s all about the unknown—the other. As scared as we are about supernatural beings… we do kind of yearn for them to be true. We want there to be something more than science can explain. We want there to be a life after death, even if it is something that frightens us.

So as far as a writer goes, they are fertile ground—after all there is a lot to choose from. Apart from poltergeists, spooks and apparitions, there is the rest of the rest of the supernatural world; vampires, zombies, werewolves… you begin to get the picture. There is a heck of a lot of scope there.

Then put characters up against the supernatural and you really get to see their metal. When faced with your own personal ghosts coming back, or something possessing your nearest and dearest, many would crack—that’s when we get to see the real quality of the hero.

And then there is the romance. After all, what goes better with the scares than the thrills. Supernatural fantasy all contain varying amounts of love and attraction, because you’ve got to have a good motivation for your character, and nothing is better for that than someone you care about being in danger.

Right from the grand daddy of supernatural romance Wuthering Heights, the pull and tug of romance has been deeply entwined with the story. These days of course, the heroine is more likely to be kicking butt than fainting, but the heat is still turned up pretty high.

Heroines are likely to be fighting the supernatural as cops, secret agents or Deacons, while heroes are fairly likely to be vampires, possessed by strange entities, or were creatures. If you think normal relationships are tough, those in supernatural fantasy crank the difficulty factor up to eleven. When the chances of your lover turning feral and biting you during a sweaty moment are high, so is the tension.

So when your hero and heroine (or whatever combination the writer chooses) finally gets together, we are that much more satisfied that they had to dodge a few poltergeists, demons or vampires to get there.

And as writers explore more and deeper in the mythos of other lands, finding more and more unusual creatures to add to their books, we as readers are exposed to a greater understanding of what it means to be human. You can tell a lot by what scares a culture: from the kitsune fox spirits of Japan, to the taniwha lurking at every river bend in New Zealand.

Supernatural fantasy reaches into our primitive past, and gives us a little frisson of excitement—something most of us lack in our day to day lives. It’s a fun, safe way to explore the outer reaches of our imagination, and as such is not likely to go away anytime soon.

So we best get used to geists, weres and vamps living on our imagination and in the pages of our books for a long time to come.

Philippa Ballantine is a fantasy writer hailing from Wellington, New Zealand. In the coming year she will have three books hitting the real and virtual shelves. The first of which a supernatural fantasy, Geist from Ace Books will available in late October 2010—just in time for Halloween. Find out more at booksoftheorder.com and pjballantine.com

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