Babel Clash

Jeff, I very much looking forward to that reading. It means me coming out of the woods for an evening in the city. Haven’t done that for a while. It’ll be good fun, I’m sure!

Paul, I appreciate genre mixing. I have to admit I don’t feel cool enough to do it myself, though. I’m a bit too flat-footed for that. So far, at least. Ah well…

But genre hopping - as Morgan defines it - is something I’m into personally!

My first two novels, Gabriel’s Story and Walk Through Darkness were literary novels featuring African-American characters in historical settings. Going to tell of Hannibal’s war with Rome in the ancient world for my third novel was considered a shift. For one thing, my publisher had to put a good deal of effort into making sure book buyers considered Pride of Carthage as a mainstream historical novel – not as something geared only toward the African-American market. In some bookstores that distinction meant it got placed in the “Literature” section instead of the “African-American Literature” section – which is certainly beneficial for exposure and sales.

(Some readers may respond… “Wait, are you saying there are African-American literature sections in major bookstores – as in sections where fiction by black authors gets put instead of in the general literature section?” To which I would say, “Yep.” And then this hypothetical reader could respond, “I’ve never noticed that.” And I’d say, “Yep. But it’s true, and it remains a sore point for many writers of color.” But this is conversation for another time, I imagine.)

Pride of Carthage did get all the placement I could have wished for, and good sales. But instead of being happy to carry on in that vein I had to go and write an epic fantasy! Not even a cool hybrid urban fantasy steampunk noir or something. Just an epic fantasy that can’t make any pretensions at being anything else. That book is Acacia: The War With The Mein. I’m sticking with that genre for a while.

Was all this movement good or bad?

Well… yes. It was both. On one hand my genre novels don’t get the mainstream review attention that the literary ones did; on the other I’ve discovered how active the online reviewer/blogger/forum world is. I don’t think I’m in competition any more for literary awards that I was once considered worthy of judging (Pen/Faulkner and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards, for example), but the recent books have sold many more copies than the first two. I find I don’t get invited to the (often nicely paid) guest lecture engagements at US colleges as much as I used to, but my more commercial efforts have been published in quite a few foreign editions and have taken me as a guest to places like Jamaica, the Netherlands and France.

In terms of readers… Some of my early readers haven’t stuck around for the fantasy, but some have. My new fantasy readers don’t usually go back to my African-American novels, but a few do. In some ways I wish I had built a stronger core readership and that bookstore presence in one area that Morgan mentions. It’s easy to covet that when I see it working for other writers. But there are benefits to being spread out a bit, including that I have opportunities to teach college level writing courses readily – something which genre writers without the academic credentials often have a hard time doing.

So there’s some give and take. On balance, I’m very happy with the decisions, and I’m satisfied of having made them based primarily on following my creative impulses. I love it when other authors do the same!

I’ve enjoyed Margaret Atwood’s forays into sf – in particular Oryx and Crake and The Day of the Flood, which I just finished yesterday. I first read Mary Doria Russell because of her historical novel A Thread of Grace, but was thrilled to learn later that she’d begun as an sf novelist, with The Sparrow and Children of God. Same goes for Jonathan Lethem. I first read Motherless Brooklyn, and only later discovered his early sf novels, like She Climbed Across the Table. And yeah for Michael Chabon outspokenly having fun with writing across genres!

All these authors bring refreshing things to the genres they cross. I’m very glad they have, and I’m all for seeing more of it!

Related posts:

• Medium Hopping
  We’re talking about genre hopping, but we also have medium or format hopping.  We have authors such as Mike Carey and Dan Abnett writing comics.  Jim Butcher wrote a Dresden Files comic.  Neil Gaiman is writing screenplays.  George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones and Charlaine Harris’ True Blood are...
• Genre hopping
  Hey Paul, I look at genre hopping and genre blending as two very separate things.  Dan Simmons is a classic hopper.  He bounces from science fiction to mystery to horror.  Since he does it all well, that’s okay with me.  On the plus side, hopping exposed his work to different...
• Re: Re: Medium Hopping
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