Editing Colin Wilson (section)

=== Fiction ===
Wilson explored his ideas on [[Aptitude|human potential]] and consciousness in fiction, mostly [[detective fiction]] or science fiction, including several [[Cthulhu Mythos]] pieces; often writing a non-fiction work and a novel concurrently – as a way of putting his ideas into action. He wrote:

{{bquote|For me [fiction] is a manner of philosophizing....Philosophy may be only a shadow of the reality it tries to grasp, but the novel is altogether more satisfactory. I am almost tempted to say that no philosopher is qualified to do his job unless he is also a novelist....I would certainly exchange any of the works of [[Alfred North Whitehead|Whitehead]] or [[Wittgenstein]] for the novels they ought to have written.<ref>''Voyage to a Beginning'' (Cecil Woolf, 1968, p.&nbsp;160-1)</ref>}}

Like some of his non-fiction work, many of Wilson's novels from ''Ritual in the Dark'' (1960) onwards have been concerned with the psychology of murder—especially that of serial killing. However, he has also written science fiction of a philosophical bent, including ''[[The Mind Parasites]]'' (1967), ''[[The Philosopher's Stone (novel)|The Philosopher's Stone]]'' (1969), ''[[The Space Vampires]]'' (1976) and the four-volume ''Spider-World'' series: ''[[Spider World: The Tower]]'' (1987), ''[[Spider World: the Delta]]'' (1987), ''Spider World: The Magician'' (1992) and ''Spider World: Shadowland'' (2003); novels described by one critic as "an artistic achievement of the highest order... destined to be regarded to be one of the central products of the twentieth century imagination."<ref>Howard F Dossor: ''Colin Wilson: the man and his mind'', Element, 1990, p. 284</ref> Wilson wrote the ''Spider World'' series in response to a suggestion made to him by Roald Dahl to 'write a novel for children.' He also said he'd 'like to be remembered as the man who wrote ''Spider World.’''

In ''The Strength to Dream'' (1961) Wilson attacked [[H. P. Lovecraft]] as "sick" and as "a bad writer" who had "rejected reality"—but he grudgingly praised Lovecraft's story "[[The Shadow Out of Time]]" as capable science fiction. [[August Derleth]], incensed by Wilson's treatment of Lovecraft in ''The Strength to Dream'', then dared Wilson to write what became ''[[The Mind Parasites]]''—to expound his philosophical ideas in the guise of fiction.<ref>{{cite book| last = Wilson| first = Colin |title = The Mind Parasites (original preface)| publisher = Monkfish| year = 2005| page = xvii| isbn = 0974935999 }}</ref> In the preface to ''The Mind Parasites'', Wilson concedes that Lovecraft, "far more than Hemingway or [[William Faulkner|Faulkner]], or even [[Kafka]], is a symbol of the outsider-artist in the 20th century" and asks: "what would have happened if Lovecraft had possessed a private income—enough, say, to allow him to spend his winters in Italy and his summers in Greece or Switzerland?" answering that in his [Wilson's] opinion "[h]e would undoubtedly have produced less, but what he did produce would have been highly polished, without the pulp magazine cliches that disfigure so much of his work. And he would have given free rein to his love of curious and remote erudition, so that his work would have been, in some respect, closer to that of [[Anatole France]] or the contemporary Argentinian writer [[Jorge Luis Borges]]".<ref>
{{cite book| last = Wilson| first = Colin |title = The Mind Parasites| publisher = Oneiric Press| year = 1975| page = 112| url = https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Parasites-Colin-Wilson/dp/B000WU0PP8}}
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Wilson also discusses Lovecraft in ''Order of Assassins'' (1972) and in the prefatory note to ''The Philosopher's Stone'' (1969). His short novel ''The Return of the Lloigor'' (1969/1974) also has roots in the Cthulhu Mythos – its central character works on the real book the [[Voynich manuscript]], but discovers it to be a mediaeval Arabic version of the ''[[Necronomicon]]'' – as does his 2002 novel ''The Tomb of the Old Ones''.