The Reader's Shelf: Crossing Boundaries: The Pleasures of Blended Genres, March 15, 2011
Mar 15, 2011The Reading List Council, RUSA’s committee to select the best genre titles of the year, identifies books that will please fans and introduce new readers to the pleasures of genre fiction. You can see the 2011 list at bit.ly/e8EGxS. Increasingly, however, the debates around which books should make the list also involve the question of genre itself. Is this horror or dark fantasy? Is this romance or romantic? While the questions (and answers) are important, the rules sometimes eliminate books that committee members enjoyed deeply and want to share. Here are six titles that, while too blended to exemplify the best of a genre, undoubtedly offer readers of all genres great pleasure.
The City & The City (Del Rey: Ballantine. 2010. ISBN 9780345497529. pap. $15), China Miéville’s fantasy novel–cum–hard-boiled detective story, depicts two “topelganger” cities, the depressed Beszel and the booming Ul Qoma. Their citizens, with distinct cultures and languages, coexist in an overlapping urban environment where people in one city learn to “unsee” the residents, buildings, and cars of the other. In Beszel, Inspector Tyador Borlú investigates the murder of American archaeology student Mahalia Geary. Within a standard mystery plot frame, Miéville invokes a creeping sense of dislocation as he skillfully examines how borders, although existing only in the mind, can dictate the details of our lives.
Part thriller, part historical fiction, and part horror tale, Mister Slaughter (Subterranean. 2010. ISBN 9781596062764. $24.95) is Robert McCammon’s third Colonial adventure involving Matthew Corbette, a law clerk–turned–problem solver. In 1702, Corbett is enlisted to collect a captured mass murderer held near Philadelphia and transport him back to the budding metropolis of New York. Dazzling language, exotic characters, and moments of sheer terror propel the story as Corbett’s life intertwines with that of a man who revels in violence and mayhem, Tyranthus Slaughter. Horror author McCammon has won multiple Bram Stoker Awards, but this title is sure to delight and disturb fans of historical thrillers.
With Who Fears Death (DAW, dist. by Penguin. 2010. ISBN 9780756406172. $24.95), Nnedi Okorafor has created a vivid far-future Africa that is filled with exotic folklore-based magic but also echoes the continent’s current tragedies. A child of ethnic rape, Onyesonwu is an outcast among her mother’s people but discovers she has power that could avert the genocide of the oppressed Okeke tribe. Quests and magical apprenticeships are familiar fantasy elements, but this moving and unique novel also features strong touches of literary fiction and a far-future setting more often found in sf.
In Danielle Trussoni’s fiction debut, Angelology, (Penguin: Penguin Group [USA]. 2011. ISBN 9780143118466. pap. $16), Evangeline, a nun, is drawn into the 1000-year-old conflict between the Society of Angelologists and the Nephilim—powerful, cruel creatures that are half-human, half-angel—when she comes across letters referring to an ancient artifact that the Nephilim are desperate to claim. The scholarly blending of biblical and mythical lore as well as historical and political references greatly enriches this contemporary epic fantasy while the multilayered plot and sustained suspense also make it an adrenaline-paced thriller.
Blending women’s and historical fiction, Sarah Blake’s The Postmistress (Berkley: Penguin Group [USA]. 2011. ISBN 9780425238691. pap. $15) is a poignant examination of friendship, love, and loss. In the months just before America enters World War II, the lives of three women become intertwined. Postmaster Iris James learns the everyday details of her neighbor’s lives as she sorts their mail; reporter Frankie Bard enters the lives of her listeners as she reports on escalating events in Europe; and newly married Emma Fitch, whose doctor husband has felt compelled to volunteer during London’s blitz as penance following a patient’s death, wanders through her days waiting for his return.
Justin Cronin’s The Passage (Ballantine. 2010. ISBN 9780345504968. $27) is a grand mix of horror, apocalyptic sf, and thriller. The world has gone dark; surviving in isolated pockets of light are humans who are losing touch with how life once was—before the vampires that were created in a secret lab broke out to ravage and consume. Interweaving the stories of amazing characters—the agent who will risk all, the Sister who knows, the stalwart kids who have cobbled together a new society, and the young girl who is the key to it all—Cronin’s literary thrill ride is richly immersive and grandly envisioned.
This column was contributed by members of the 2010–11 Reading List Council (selections and annotations are in the order given): Kathleen Collins, University of Washington Libraries, Seattle; Craig Clark, formerly with Cuyahoga County Public Library, OH; Megan McArdle, Berkeley Public Library, CA; Jacqueline Sasaki, Ann Arbor District Library, MI; Sharron Smith, Kitchener Public Library, Ont.; and Neal Wyatt
| Author Information |
| Neal Wyatt compiles LJ’s online feature Wyatt’s World and is the author of The Readers’ Advisory Guide to Nonfiction (ALA Editions, 2007). She is a collection development and readers’ advisory librarian from Virginia. Those interested in contributing to The Reader’s Shelf should contact her directly at Readers_Shelf@comcast.net |
