What Genre Do You Write In, Anyway?

Saturday, March 29, 2025 at 10:00am

Oh, the question of genre, that perennial literary piñata.

A friend and colleague recently asked me, “Your work is all science fiction, right?” I broke out in a grin. My response: “Mostly. The answer’s more complex than you think.”

I proceeded to break it down as follows.

Of my ten major publications, six are solidly science fiction. Those are: Voyage Embarkation, Alterra, Our Algorithm Who Art Perfection, The Other, Intersection Thirteen, and Chronicles of Ytria.

One is solidly fantasy: The Shipwright and Other Stories.

Transmutations is a collection of stories, all of which are either science fiction or fantasy, but the collection contains both.

Now we come to the two real oddities.

First up is Insomnium. This book has a science fiction frame and a fantasy interior. The first chapter and the last chapter take place in the same universe that Voyage Embarkation is set in. This is fully science fiction. The interior chapters are something else. The characters discover early on that they are trapped in someone or something’s dream. The imagery is thoroughly phantasmagorical. An argument could be made for science fiction, but the content is really a better fit for fantasy. So, that makes Insomnium... both.

Schrödinger’s City is even harder to pin down. Just as City’s streets shift between two configurations, this novel seems to at one moment be science fiction and fantasy the next. Is it possible to explain how City works or why? No. However, is magic real? Definitely not. The only thing that can be said is that this novel relates to genre the same way sub-atomic particles relate to existence.

So, it seems safe to say that I do mostly write science fiction, but given the breadth of my style, it’s hard to say that that’s the only genre I write in.