The best cross-genre books with highly personal narratives.
Character-driven stories set in huge speculative worlds.
The following originally appeared on Shepherd in October, 2022.
I’ve always been interested in personal, character-driven stories set in huge speculative worlds. Not every story should be about saving the world/galaxy/multiverse. Sometimes, the best story is just about surviving growing up or navigating a rocky relationship.
If that happens on a spaceship or in the Wild West, great. And if that spaceship happens to be in the Wild West, all the better! Making the fantastic ordinary through a personal POV lets us see the otherworldly as plainly as we see the mailman or grumpy alien cowboy. Fortunately, my dueling careers as a UX designer, historian, and writer give me a lot of material and appetite for cross-genre storytelling.
The books I picked & why.
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August.
By Claire North
I found North’s mind-bending novel as I was crossing the threshold from cancer patient to cancer survivor (my own cross-genre personal narrative!). A blend of historical fiction, science fiction, and Groundhog Day, Harry August shows us fifteen iterations of the twentieth century through Harry's uncanny repetitive immortality and a conveniently perfect memory. The book uses its Groundhog Day plot device to raise interesting questions about love and memory and inheritance (even to himself!). And its historical and science-fiction angles reveal something of a Stoic/Zen parable about what you can control and what you can’t.
The Gunslinger.
By Stephen King
A series I read over more than a decade, King’s self-described fantasy series is so much more. It combines Western, Lovecraftian horror, Medieval fantasy, apocalyptic science fiction, portal fiction, alternate history, Groundhog Day, and even King’s own autobiography! A small clutch of diverse POV characters keeps the impossible scope of the series grounded—sometimes from beyond the grave!—and the genres collide in an organic way that drives the action and feels really unique. I’d recommend disregarding the movie and starting with The Gunslinger, a short entry we’d probably describe as a weird western, these days. But don’t let the volume of the volumes intimidate: The Dark Tower is worth the read and its ending is both transformative for the characters and the cosmos.
Saga, Volume 1.
By Brian K. Vaughan , Fiona Staples (artist)
While published as an Image comic series, Saga is best approached in its collected graphic novels. I particularly love taking in the ebook version’s artwork on my iPad. This space opera vs. fantasy epic is beautifully scaled down by both its illustrated panels and its close focus on a family of characters through which we encounter a surreal and hostile universe. Hazel, the unlikely daughter of the series’ leading couple, steps in to provide memoir-esque insights from time to time and serves as something of an (adorable) cipher for her parents’ cross-genre Romeo and Juliet arc. Conceived “to do absolutely everything [the author] couldn't do in a movie or a TV show,” Sagapushes both genre envelopes.
Drunk on All Your Strange New Words.
By Eddie Robson
If Bridget Jones and Black Mirror had a baby with Arrival/“Story of Your Life” and a crime thriller, you might get something close to Drunk. In it, we encounter a familiar-but-changed post-First Contact world where Lydia (an alien in her own right, being a small-town Brit in Manhattan) works as a translator for a telepathic alien cultural attaché. The narrator’s lack of technical expertise and her fluency with the alien Logi keep the science-fiction elements of the book familiar and largely devoid of exposition. I actually listened to this book and Amy Scanlon does a great job putting you in Lydia's (and Fitz’s!) head.
The Yiddish Policemen's Union.
I’ll read anything Chabon writes but this novel has the distinction of being the first book I ever read to my oldest (he was a baby! It was for the words). The Nebula award judges described it as a cross between science-fiction and alternate history but I feel it’s more of a Sam Spade-style crime noir story crossed with alternate history more similar to Robert Harris’ Fatherland. Through the lens of a hard-boiled detective, we encounter a world that might’ve been had the US followed through with the real-historical possibility of settling World War II’s Jewish refugees in Sitka Alaska. Decades later, Sitka is both the new Jewish homeland and the setting for a bizarre murder that lets us explore the highs and lows of a changed world.
Explore my book. 😀
Calamity: Being an Account of Calamity Jane and Her Gunslinging Green Man.
By JD Jordan
Calamity is a violent reimagining of a frontier legend and her alien gunslinger as they face off against extraordinary enemies in the Wilder West. A temperamental, teenage outcast and a hardened, alien gunslinger burn their way across the West—living as outsiders, killing like outlaws, and surviving calamities of their own making. An unexpected pair of underdogs, they confront savage spacemen, avenging posses, and native tribes on the warpath—reframing the frontier legend of Calamity Jane with a gritty and witty sci-fi twist.
