As promised, here’s a few examples of cross-genre speculative fiction—novels that have found the sweet spot of honoring genre tropes while finding creative ways to mix things up.
Fonda Lee’s Jade City was nominated for a “Best Novel” Nebula, and won the World Fantasy award in 2018. The sequel, Jade War, was released in 2019.
At times, it feels like someone has a gun pointed at your head.
“Choose a genre. Sci-fi. Dystopia. Supernatural thriller—it doesn’t matter. Just pick one. But then don’t you ever step outside the prescribed tropes. Or your writing career’s gonna be in the toilet, capisce?”
As an author working on a couple of future releases which I’d describe as “supernatural thrillers set on another world,” I chafe at the implied genre constraints.
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