Interesting genre bending content to consume!

These days, there is so much content that it takes a little extra to keep a reader interested. And combining genres is one of the best ways to achieve this. A genre has its own rules, horror genres have certain tropes, rom-coms have others but when themes and elements of two or more genres blend together, a hybrid genre evolves. They are referred to as multi genre or cross genre. An example of a genre bending content can be Giannia Braschi’s linguistic and structural bending of tragic comedy and comic fantasy in Spanish, Spanglish and English poetry and prose. The balance that is created with blending two or more genres together creates its own tone. Let’s find out more about popular genre bending books.

At the Mouth of the River of Bees by Kij Johnson

These tales feature future seeing queens, enigmatic bee plagues, bridges dangling over a poisonous mist that hides creatures, and folktales brought to life, with imagery and writing that will captivate you completely. The amount of information Johnson crams into these stories, entire kingdoms, futures, continents, and tremendous loves, will leave your mind spinning for days.

Never Have I Ever by Isabel Yap

These stories combine Filipino folklore, science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Women, girls, and couples are approached by monsters who entice them with deals they can’t refuse. Even the monsters from our nightmares seek out love and compassion in Yap’s tales, as tenderness triumphs over horror.

All my friends are superheroes by Andrew Kauffman

You’ll be turned upside down by this odd little story and wonder where it came from. Tom actually married The Perfectionist, a superhero, and all of his pals are superheroes. Unfortunately for Tom, Hypno, the ex-boyfriend of The Perfectionists, is not happy about their engagement and hypnotises her on the wedding day to make her forget about Tom. Tom has to quickly persuade The Perfectionist of his existence before she completely vanishes from his life. Tom will need to use the most all encompassing superpower to accomplish this. In under 140 pages, Kauffman skillfully blends comedy with a sci-fi twist and the cutest touch of romance, managing to cover a variety of genres.

The Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer

This trilogy, which starts with Annihilation, is a strange fusion of science fiction with a heavy dosage of magical realism. It’s difficult to compare Vandermeer to any other author because his writing frequently dwells on the ugly while yet making it beautiful. The Area X in the Southern Reach Trilogy is a mystery location that unexpectedly arose and fundamentally changed all life there. Vandermeer provides relatively few explanations, but they are not really necessary for this strange series.

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

Fforde’s smart debut book in the Thursday Next series is full of literary inside jokes and a mystery for book nerds. The way Fforde’s universe combines fiction and reality is the twist in this story. Fictional characters are conscious of their position as fictional, and “real world” individuals have the ability to slither into fictional works. Through Jane Eyre, the protagonist Thursday Next finds herself pursuing criminal mastermind Acheron Hades.

All these  books demonstrate the creative flexibility that exists in writing. The examples I’ve given above merely touch the surface of the wide range of works that are available and subvert whole genres. Books that bend genre lines are great reminders that we don’t have to do this. For every ardent lover of a particular genre, there are at least one or two readers who seek out novels that will challenge, surprise, awe, and please them. Whether it’s completely original stories or a creative retelling of an old tale. The popularity of books that bend the lines between genres gives us hope that there will always be readers for whatever kind of story  that is created and genre bending content will be the future of consuming content. 

The idea for this post was given to us by

Sukaina,
Varunika Rajput,
Sivaranjini,
Kashish and
Manali.

A big shout out to them!

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