Scrolls Chapter 17: Genre Blenders

In which the team try to pin down the essence of genre: what differentiates it from a style; who makes them and how it affects our reading experience. We go on to discuss the benefits and problems with blurring those boundaries. Actually, for the first fifteen minutes we try to stop Mattie playing SW:TOR and attempt to discuss a series of books that none of us has actually read - but then we get on topic. Honestly. The conversation was to have gone on for a good twenty minutes longer but technical difficulties plagued us in the latter part of the episode. On the plus side, all being well you will be hearing a little more from Scrolls 'somewhere' on the Geek Syndicate Network this month. Genre Blends that we recommend, but didn't have opportunity to discuss properly (or at all in some cases) include Artemis Fowl, the 'Jon Shannow' books, The 'Pax Britannia' series, Coraline, The 'Merrily Watson' series, 'The Tales Of The Otori' series, The Fifth Child, The 'Shadows Of The Apt' series, and Cloud Atlas. You should google them if they are unfamiliar to you, track down copies and read them. I would also heartilly recommend reading a short story by William Hope Hodgeson called The Derelict. It's about a 'ghost' sailing ship, yet has an old-world sci-fi vibe more in line with The Thing than The Fog. You can read it for free online but I particularly enjoyed the full audio dramatisation from Audio Comics in their Horrorscopes series. You should definitely give some of those a listen. As a hobby, both Phil and Dion have been entering a Flash Fiction competition on the writer Lily Childs' blog. These are stories of no more than 100 words, so easy to flick through, tricky to write. As a tenuous link to encourage people to go take a look (and potentially join in) I offer you my own little genre blender 'Bete Noir.' We post our stories in the comments section, so you'll need to scrolls down the page to find it. Finally, regarding Jeffrey Kacirk's Forgotten English calendar mentioned near the beginning of the podcast. The words I was supposed to fit in to conversation was 'Good Man's Croft.' You won't hear me getting it into conversation for technical reasons that I won't bore you with. The episode as a whole, though, may be considered to be a practical modern-day demonstration of the phrase. Hopefully we'll meet some of you lovely people at the SFX Weekender in February. Until then, keep reading.