What are you reading in 2025?

[overgeeked]

Can you give an example of things that are of the same piece that are tough to fit together?

To me it’s not about tough fits, you can make most combos work. It’s more about easier vs harder to explain what you mean by a given combination.

Like a Mystery-Romance. They’re both plot-based genres, so you have to figure out which dominates and how they interact with each other. Is the detective in love with the victim, the murderer, both, neither?

Or two setting-based genres like Victorian and Western. They’re both roughly the same time period…or there’s overlap at least. So explaining how one story hits both takes more work. A Victorian Englishman goes to American or an American cowboy goes to Victorian London?

Or two tone-based genres like Comedy and Horror. They’re seemingly diametrically opposed but can work quite well together depending on how they’re handled, so again it takes more explanation to communicate what you mean with those. Is it so over-the-top gory that it’s comedy? Does it slide back-and-forth between the genres? Etc.

But a Western Rom Com just clicks. Because you’re dealing with a setting-based genre (Western), a plot-based genre (Romance), and a tone-based genre (Comedy). You don’t really need to explain how those fit together because the elements aren’t occupying the same conceptual space.

 

[Autumnal]

Or two setting-based genres like Victorian and Western. They’re both roughly the same time period…or there’s overlap at least. So explaining how one story hits both takes more work. A Victorian Englishman goes to American or an American cowboy goes to Victorian London?

We pause here to wave at Mr. Calvin Morris, the inexplicable cowboy in Dracula.

 

[overgeeked]

We pause here to wave at Mr. Calvin Morris, the inexplicable cowboy in Dracula.

Exactly. But basically no one would say the genre of Dracula is Western.

 

[overgeeked]

To me it’s not about tough fits, you can make most combos work. It’s more about easier vs harder to explain what you mean by a given combination.

Though, thinking about it more there are some that just wouldn’t work because they are mutually exclusive.

How I define horror (huge power imbalance between protagonists and antagonists) makes it mutually exclusive with action-adventure and pulp. You can have horror-themed monsters in a pulp or action-adventure story, but it stops being horror.

There’s also similar dynamics along a spectrum that can’t really work together. Like suspense, mystery, and thriller. To me, suspense is the protagonist being weaker than the antagonist but overcoming in the end and the setting is usually smaller and closed in. Mystery is both protagonist and antagonist being about the same in power and skill but struggling to win. Thriller is generally the protagonist being more powerful but needing to get through a lot of obstacles to reach antagonist, the setting is also generally global. Think James Bond spy movies.

But that’s really getting into the weeds.

 

[Reynard]

"The Lost City of Z" is done and I must say that the last 20% ish where it is about how people who believe things very much yet fail and then turn to magical systems in order to "succeed" is horribly depressing for me.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Also a good take. Very few genres are exclusive, because they’re different kinds of things. They mostly look that way because shelves are mostly two-dimensional. Barring deep shelves with multiple layers of books, books stacked lying down, etc.

There's also, in the past at least, been a tendency to focus very heavily on what would be read as single-genre things, enough so that even when you did get multi-genre works, there was a tendency for people to only see them as one of them. Lovecraft is a notorious example here, since he's viewed as a horror (or occasionally dark fantasy) author, where some of his works were also science-fiction in ways that are hard to ignore.

In the more modern period romantic fantasy, science fiction with fantasy elements, and SF-horror have become common enough its hard to play that particular sorting card as strong any more (and some have become common enough--the aforementioned romantic fantasy for example--they've come to pretty much lead a life of their own).

 

[Thomas Shey]

Or two setting-based genres like Victorian and Western. They’re both roughly the same time period…or there’s overlap at least. So explaining how one story hits both takes more work. A Victorian Englishman goes to American or an American cowboy goes to Victorian London?

In fact there's a fairly well known example of this (mixed with horror): Penny Dreadful. Though its mostly set in Victorian England, and important character is an American gunslinger.

(Come to think of it, that was true in the novel Dracula, too).

 

[Thomas Shey]

Though, thinking about it more there are some that just wouldn’t work because they are mutually exclusive.

How I define horror (huge power imbalance between protagonists and antagonists) makes it mutually exclusive with action-adventure and pulp. You can have horror-themed monsters in a pulp or action-adventure story, but it stops being horror.

And yet things are called action-horror all the time. There's usually one of two things going on when that's the case:

1. The main protagonist is an exception to the general rule that the antagonists exceed the capability of the protagonists, sometimes because the power level of the antagonist is uneven, or;
2. The purpose of the strength of the protagonists is to show that even that isn't enough to handle the antagonists.

 

[Voadam]

And yet things are called action-horror all the time. There's usually one of two things going on when that's the case:

1. The main protagonist is an exception to the general rule that the antagonists exceed the capability of the protagonists, sometimes because the power level of the antagonist is uneven, or;
2. The purpose of the strength of the protagonists is to show that even that isn't enough to handle the antagonists.

Predator, Aliens

 

[overgeeked]

In fact there's a fairly well known example of this (mixed with horror): Penny Dreadful. Though its mostly set in Victorian England, and important character is an American gunslinger.

(Come to think of it, that was true in the novel Dracula, too).

Not really. Neither is a Western in any real genre sense. They each have one character from the Old West in Victorian England in a Gothic Horror story, but in no real way does the presence of that single character change the genre of the whole. Especially in Dracula where the cowboy is a tertiary character at best. But in Penny Dreadful, Ethan, the cowboy is also a werewolf, reinforcing the horror genre. So in neither case would anyone reasonably describe either as a Western.

ETA: If someone asks you to recommend them a Western and you point to either Dracula or Penny Dreadful…that person will justifiably never ask you for recommendations again. LOL.

And yet things are called action-horror all the time. There's usually one of two things going on when that's the case:

1. The main protagonist is an exception to the general rule that the antagonists exceed the capability of the protagonists, sometimes because the power level of the antagonist is uneven, or;

2. The purpose of the strength of the protagonists is to show that even that isn't enough to handle the antagonists.

Yes, exactly. But other than a few jump scares in most of those films, they feel far more like war movies than anything I'd call horror. The two mentioned examples, Predator and Aliens, are great films. Two favorites of mine, especially Aliens. But at best they are action movies that have a horror monster in them.

Compare those two to just about any movie that would normally be called a horror movie. Saw, Sinister, Hereditary, etc. You can even look them up on ScaryMeter. Aliens gets a 5.7. Predator gets a 3.9.

Predator, Aliens

Arnie is a the final girl in Predator.