Genre Benders to Remind You That Genre Is a Malleable and Arbitrary Category

Sometimes the best books don’t fit perfectly into one category. These works put genres in a blender and mix them up into a delicious literature smoothie — and what’s more refreshing than that in the summer?

A special and heartfelt thanks Elise Ringo (Tor Books) & Colleen Callery (Books Are Magic) for their contributions to this article.

1. Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer

This series, beginning with Annihilation, is a mind-bending blend of science-fiction with a heavy dose of the surreal touches of magical realism. It’s hard to compare Vandermeer to anyone else writing: his work tends to dwell on the grotesque while at the same time rendering it beautiful. The Southern Reach Trilogy is about Area X, a mysterious region that suddenly appeared and drastically altered all life within it. Vandermeer offers very few explanations, but this peculiar series doesn’t really need them.

See VanderMeer at Strand as he discusses his newest work, Borne, on Thursday June 29th. Click here for event info.

2. The City and the City by China Mieville

Mieville is perhaps the master of blending genre: every book seems to tackle a different medley of subjects, wide-ranging and continually fascinating. The City & the City combines the genre known as “weird fiction” with a police procedural, as Inspector Tyador Borlú investigates a murder in the city of Besźel that seems to lead back to its “twin city” Ul Qoma — existing in the same space, but perceived as separate.

3. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

David Mitchell is another widely recognized master of genre bending and pastiche; most recently, his Slade House embraced the haunted house story. Cloud Atlas showcases Mitchell’s abilities to their fullest, though, nesting the intertwined stories of five lives spanning centuries and genres, from Sonmi-451’s dystopian future to Adam Ewing’s 1850 travelogue. Changing style as fluidly as he changes characters, Mitchell both toys with and subverts genre tropes to craft a story entirely its own.

4. The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson

Released in 2015 with relatively little fanfare, this gem of a book is a mash-up of postcolonial literature, fantastical setting, a revenge plot and political thriller. The novel is centered on prodigy Baru Cormorant, who watches her people absorbed into a powerful overseas empire, their culture suppressed. She resolves to turn the empire’s strategy against itself — by joining its bureaucracy. The Traitor Baru Cormorant grapples openly with issues of race, gender, sexuality and imperialism while telling a story that will keep you guessing until the last page.

5. City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett

Another novel that takes its inspiration from the aftermath of empire and its long lasting consequences, framed around the story of a murder in a city whose gods are dead. Bulikov was once the seat of power for the Continental Empire, made powerful by its gods. When its former colony rebelled, however, it killed the deities, provoking widespread disaster. In the present, agent Shara of the once conquered Saypur investigates the murder of a scholar that leads to a conspiracy, making her wonder if the gods are really dead after all. The sequel, City of Blades, was just released January 2016.

6. Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link

Any of Kelly Link’s short story collections could easily fit on this list, containing a variety of genres not just within the collection but also within the stories themselves. Link ranges freely from fairytale to magical realism to literary fiction. “Stone Animals” is a particularly stunning story, simultaneously psychological horror and domestic drama. You can read the story, posted in its entirety, on Electric Lit here.

7. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke

The Jane Austen-esque Regency fantasy you didn’t know you needed. Susanna Clarke writes a book that flies by despite its intimidating thickness, spinning interconnected stories of a variety of characters — centered around the conflict between the cautious, traditional Mr. Norrell and his student Jonathan Strange, determined to push the limits of what magic — seemingly long absent from England — can achieve. Clarke remains fairly peerless in the realm of Regency fantasy, though the buzz around Zen Cho’s 2015 release, Sorcerer to the Crown, suggests this particular blend is still developing.

8. Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson

Autobiography of Red is an unconventional retelling of a Greek epic through narrative poetry. It is both a queer romance novel and a poem, a reimagined Greek myth and a bildungsroman with contemporary characters. This verse novel fuses together several different genres all while keeping the reader enraptured with the story of Geryon, a red boy with wings.

9. Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James

A murder at the idyllic home of Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy sets the stage for this Pride & Prejudice sequel with a mystery twist. Written as a pastiche in the style of Jane Austen, this book is a delight for both Austen fans and mystery buffs.

10. The Princess Bride by William Goldman

Everyone has seen the movie, but the book is even better (as so often!). The novel is presented as an abridgment — or all the good parts — of the book titled “True Love and High Adventures” by the fictional S. Morgenstern, and Goldman’s “editorial commentary” asides are constant throughout. The Princess Bride is romance and fantasy that comments on itself, making the reader intensely aware of the book they’re reading.

11. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon

Blending immigrant Jewish culture with comic book history, Michael Chabon writes a novel following the lives of two Jewish cousins before, during, and after World War 2, paralleled alongside the comic about the anti-fascist hero the Escapist that they create together. Eminently literary, this Pulitzer Prize winner nevertheless wholeheartedly embraces pop culture and the pulpy history of early superhero comics.

12. The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes

This mystery blends time-travel with no small amount of horror, following the parallel lives of the murderer Harper Curtis as he murders “shining girls” across time, and Kirby Mazrachi, the only survivor. Kirby hunts her would-be killer, leading them inexorably toward confrontation. The strength of Beukes’ book lies especially in her weaving in of the other victims’ stories, leaving open the question of just what it is that makes these women “shine.”

13. The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

A mystery for the book nerd, Fforde’s clever first book in the Thursday Next series brims with literary inside jokes. The twist here is the way that Fforde’s universe blends fiction and reality. Books are vitally important in a way that book lovers in our world can only dream of, and disagreements over literary questions (such as the authorship of Shakespeare) can spark violent conflicts. “Real world” characters are able to slip into works of fiction, and fictional characters are aware of their fictional status. The heroine, Thursday Next, finds herself pursuing criminal mastermind Acheron Hades through Jane Eyre.

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