Primal fear: A Darwinian perspective on Dan Simmons' Song of Kali

The emerging evolutionary approach to literature explores the way that culture and biology interact. As a branch of evolutionary literary criticism, Darwinian horror study sees horror fiction as crucially dependent on evolved properties of the human constitution. This article argues that a Darwinian perspective on Dan Simmons' 1985 novel Song of Kali best explains the atheist author's preoccupation with themes of the supernatural, and accounts for the novel's emotional impact as a result of humanity's evolutionary history.