Salome And Other Decadent Fantasies
Author: Brian Stableford
Title: Salome And Other Decadent Fantasies. “Salome”
Form: short story
Published: 2004
Location: United States
Reflections:
A modernization of the Decadent style. Stableford imagines Salome is an orphaned captive of her magician father, Herod. Herod is selfish, violent and manipulative in his desire to possess the seductive power of Salome’s dancing. Salome’s movement intoxicates the men who watch her, which allows Herod to bind them to his will.
This story exaggerates men’s desire to control women’s power for their own selfish purposes. Salome is akin to a sexual slave of her father. She is used to capture and kill John the Baptist, and ends the story in hell, unable to stop dancing.
