Mixing Genres

[sartorias]

I got into an odd conversation the other night, which led to some thoughts about mixing genres.

I really loved mixed genres. I loved Jo Walton's Small Change series, which mixed mystery with alternate history. Recently I read Chris Dolley's new ebook, Medium Dead which starts off with a psychotic serial killer holed up with a hapless woman who

Comments

[kalimac]

Gaudy Night is a better-integrated book, because the mystery turns out to be generated by the nature of the academic community, which is the principal other subject of the story. In Murder Must Advertise, the mystery has no thematic connection (though it does have a purely mechanical plot connection) with the life of the ad agency, but the latter is so well-written I don't care. I just skip over the ridiculous drug-culture parts.

There are occasions when flimsiness in characters is a virtue: mostly in short fiction, because it's hard to carry on a whole novel that way. In much idea-oriented hard SF, a heavy emphasis on the characters' personalities and problems would get in the way, and at worst create the "squid on the mantelpiece" problem, where they fret about e.g. their romantic relationships while the aliens are invading the planet. In real life they probably would, but a story has to decide what it's about. This was the problem I had with RC Wilson's Spin, which was a nifty gadget story overloaded with not particularly interesting personal relationships.

Robert Silverberg in his excellent Science Fiction 101, a writer's guide to creating classic-style SF, cites PK Dick's "Colony" as a story that works because the characters are cardboard. If you cared about them, it'd be a horror story, but that's not what Dick's writing here: he wants something amusing and diverting. Turning back to mysteries, this is one reason so many murder victims are loathsome and die before the story starts: not just to provide a plethora of motives and suspects angry enough to bump them off, but to prevent readers caring about them and getting distracted from the plot.

[sartorias]

I had a couple of problems with SPIN--one, the ending was a letdown after the sense of wonder build up, and also, the Sleazy Boyfriend thing: that the rival for the heroine's (or hero's) affections is a one-dimensional twit, in this case a fundie whose faith is conveniently weak. Soooo tired of the Dumb Fundie stereotype.

I liked the drug culture part of Murder Must Advertize because I thought Sayers had evoked the Bright Young Things rather well. (At least, they matched the inner picture I'd built up after reading Evelyn Waugh's letters and diaries, and the same from many of that particular group)

Your point also explains why I have so much trouble with certain types of story--including "Colony"--if I can't care about the characters, I can't care about the story.