Picking Genre...

[fajrdrako]

for April 15, 2010: God* comes to you and tells you that, from this day forward, you may only read ONE type of book–one genre–period, but you get to choose what it is. Classics, Science-Fiction, Mystery, Romance, Cookbooks, History, Business … you can choose, but you only get ONE.

What genre do you pick, and why?

Can I cite "the really good books" as a genre?

I don't necessarily care what kind of books I'm reading, if the writing style is good. And beautifully written books happen in every genre.

The thing is, I haven't seen a lot of good writing in my favourite genre over the last while, and got somewhat discouraged about looking for it. The genre is historical fiction. So if I can't cite quality as the criterion, then I'll choose the genre I most love and most want to be of high quality. Yup, historical fiction: with fond thoughts of Samuel Shellabarger, Norah Lofts, Sergeanne Golon, Baroness Orczy, Anthony Hope, Geoffrey Trease, Louise Andrews Kent, Mary Renault, Georgette Heyer, and, of course, Dorothy Dunnett.

This does not include mystery novels set in the historical past, with the exception of Ellis Peters. These books always get my hopes up and always disappoint me. Unless there's something I missed, they are usually substandard as mysteries and stylistically substandard as fiction.

My next choice would be the fantasy writers whose fantasy most resembles historical fiction: Megan Whalen Turner, Guy Gavriel Kay, Karin Lowachee, and Ellen Kushner, to name a few.