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We Play Mix and Match with Our Favorite Authors and Genres
Genre is a funny thing. It acts as a signifier, label, and shorthand, telling readers what kind of book they’re holding in only a few words, and hinting at the flavor of a story to come. But in many ways, it is also a hindrance that, in many ways, can act as a limit. Many a writer has resisted the labeling of their work with one genre signifier or another. Granted, in an ideal world, writers would never feel pigeon-holed by critics or readers, free to write whatever the hell they want to.
But there are authors, who despite the labels, seem content to play in certain arenas of genre, reveling in those boundaries and finding new ways to poke holes in them—or burst them wide open. With brilliant, lived-in worlds and gamut-running protagonists, N. K. Jemisin has turned epic fantasy on its head more than once. Daniel José Older has ripped down the curtains of urban fantasy and let the light in to show what urban communities, families, and people are really like. Yoon Ha Lee’s space operas, from Ninefox Gambit to his short fiction, are beautiful and strange, much more than ships passing (and blowing each other up) in the dark of space.
Yes, the six below authors excel in their most traveled genres—so I thought it would be fun to brainstorm what other ones they should tackle and innovate next!
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Ada Palmer
Known for the mind-bending, ultra-dense science fiction series Terra Ignota, Palmer is an author I would love to see take on epic fantasy. The rich world of the novels Too Like the Lightning and Seven Surrenders is deep, complicated, studious, and meticulous, filled with wonders both fantastical and technological. So much work went into building her future Earth, I’d be excited to see that same rigor put into growing an epic fantasy landscape. With her deep roots in philosophy and history, I can only imagine what exotic blooms she’d cultivate.
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Max Gladstone
If there’s one thing Max Gladstone is good at, it’s craft. (Yes, that’s a pun, and no, I don’t care). His Hugo-nominated Craft Sequence, a blend of the magical and the mundane, of urban fantasy and epic, is like no other series running. Whether short stories or novels, his work shines because his worlds are beyond creative, his characters are miles deep, and he takes narrative risks while building reader trust While he’s played with elements of it in his novels, a Max Gladstone neo-noir story, with all the twists and turns, duplicity, and raw emotional honesty the genre can muster, would be right up his dark, smoke-laden alley.
Daniel José Older
I dare you to read a steamier scene than any in which Carlos and Sasha are reveling in each other’s company in Older’s Bone Street Rumba series. Sure, there are ghosts, half-dead guys, and more supernatural whatnots, but the true un-beating heart of the series is the tumultuous, passionate romance between Carlos, our main half-dead man, and the woman he loves. Between the tangled layers of emotion and love these two have for each other, a dedication to showcasing deep emotional truth between side characters, and his unwavering look at the love between young adults in his Shadowshaper series, I’d love to see Older give romance a whirl. With his intense interrogation of love between two distinct people, the complications and the numerous joys of such an act, and the passions that arise from all of the above, I have no doubt he could pull it off.
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N. K. Jemisin
N.K. Jemisin is a master at building mythologies up, and then tearing them down—expertly designing systems of magic, power, authority, and humanity, then opening them up, questioning them, manipulating them, and demythologizing them. Which brings us to superheroes, who are nothing but myth—in many cases, myths steeped in problematic, lazy, or thinly veiled agendas. If there’s anyone who can bring a fresh eye to superheroes and the morality of the worlds they inhabit, it’s N. K. Jemisin. (And from what I’ve seen on Twitter, she may already be doing something in this particular genre).
Victoria “V.E.” Schwab
Not to give yet more ideas to one of the hardest-working writers in the business, but Schwab is a literary chameleon already; she’s hopped from superheroes, to urban/epic fantasy, to young adult, and back, cranking out several novels a year and making it look easy (unless you follow her stress rants on social media, anyway). If there’s one genre I’d love to see her tackle next, it’s space opera. Already a writer of smart ideas, great characters, and living worlds, she is also incredibly accessible; her prose is clean and clear, and full of lush detail. If there’s anywhere those strengths can come together to make something brand new, I’d hope it can be among the stars.
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Yoon Ha Lee
Lee’s work is mind-bending in the most wonderful fashion. His short fiction is deep and lushly detailed, while maintaining complicated, fully-alive characters, and his novels offer more of the same, writ large: even grander scales of technology, worldbuilding, history, and character motivations. One of his strengths is bringing lore, sometimes thousands of years old, directly into conflict with modern concerns and characters. His talent is ripe for reinterpreting mythology of the oldest caliber—something similar to Gaiman’s Norse Mythology. Yoon Ha Lee’s spin on ancient myths of all kinds is something I’d pay good money for. (We’ll get a hint of it in his upcoming middle-grade novel, Dragon Pearl, which promises to be a space opera by way of Korean myth.)
What authors do you think transcend genre?