Blending genres has always been part of literature: Epic adventures with a tragic romance, science fiction with a touch of horror. Using different elements from different genres can often create a narrative guaranteed to transfix an audience. And adding a hefty dose of horror to any science fiction or fantasy story is one of those irresistible combinations.
While it’s possible to blend any two genres, the best results typically come when the merging feels natural. Science is always plunging forward into the unknown and that’s where authors can delve into all the terrors that might follow. Fantasy is only restricted by your imagination, allowing any monster to live in any nightmare.
In Between Two Fires, Buehlman goes back in time to the year 1348. There, the Black Death runs rampant and religion looms large. But the doctrine isn’t just in the Church. Angels and demons are real, and one girl stands in the middle of the war between good and evil with the soul of man hanging in the balance.
There’s something intoxicating and addictive in a novel that manages to bend genre to the point where it becomes something entirely new. And we can’t get enough. If you’re looking for your next unputdownable read, here are seven genre-bending books guaranteed to scare you in delightfully unexpected ways.
After the People Lights Have Gone Off
No one knows the horrors and fears of the supernatural as well as Stephen Graham Jones. In this new collection, he unveils 15 stories that explore what happens when the people lights go off. With two new stories, a few “best of year” additions, and several out-of-print included, Jones highlights the terror of everything from monsters to math. This collection promises to scare you and entertain—just don’t read in the dark.
A Feast Unknown
Author Philip José Farmer offers a gritty blend of science fiction and horror as we enter the controversial Wold Newton, a parallel universe where erotic lust and violent desires mar familiar heroes. There, we meet the legendary Apeman. He’s Lord of the Jungle and the bastard son of Jack the Ripper. Pitted in a struggle against Doc Caliban, Man of Bronze, the Apeman fights not just to live, but for immorality.
But why are these two men fighting when they seem to share common ground? Could there be forces darker than they are manipulating not just the men, but their entire destiny?
Agents of Dreamland
In Winslow, Arizona, a cult leader promises his Children of the Next Level the chance to usher in the future. He preaches transcendence but the truth is far more complicated. When strange events occur, they draw a special agent known as the Signalman to the desert to investigate. What he finds is so disturbing that he seeks out help from “other” sources. Only, instead of help, something outside the orbit of Pluto makes contact—and then the probe disappears. And outside of time, a woman floats, sifting through the past and the future hoping to find an answer that can save humanity.
Ring Shout
Ku Kluxes get their power from dark thoughts and fears. And when The Birth of a Nation is released in 1915, their ranks swell making their plan to bring Hell to Earth possible. But the Harlem Hellfighter’s won’t let that happen.
Maryse Boudreaux is a foul-mouthed sharpshooter trained to hunt these Klan demons and send them back to Hell. Can Maryse and her Hellfighter’s stop the Klan before they open the gates of Hell and destroy the world?
The Dead Take the A Train
It isn’t easy breaking into the NYC magic scene … especially when you’re coked up and burned out. But thirty-something Julie Crews has a lot of magic in her small body and she isn’t ready to give up. She’s willing to take the most gruesome gigs if that’s what it takes to make it to the top.
When her desperation catches the attention of an eldritch god hungry for revenge, she accidentally sets off a deadly chain of events that puts not just her closest friends, but the entire world, in danger.
Perdido Street Station
In this staple of weird fiction, New Crobuzon thrives in unsavory deals. A city built beneath the bleached ribs on an ancient beast would be versed in the strange. The gifted and eccentric scientist Isaac has spent his life immersed in unique research. When a half-bird, half-human creature known as Garuda presents him with a request that is scientifically daunting, Isaac can’t resist the challenge.
But curiosity can open strange doors, and soon, changes creep through every aspect of New Crobuzon. And with it, a malignant terror that permeates.
Kindred
The last thing Dana expects while she’s celebrating her 26th birthday with her new husband is to be suddenly taken from her home in California into the antebellum South. Even more alarming, she’s seemingly been called to the past to save Rufus, the plantation owner’s son. The shock of being ripped from her 1970s life into the past is jarring enough the first time.
But Dana continues to be called back to the slave quarters, each time staying longer and experiencing more and more of the horrors of slavery. Worse, with every harrowing experience, Dana’s life is placed in greater danger forcing her to confront the reality that her life might end before it ever had a chance to begin.
