Jan 17, 2012
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.