Genre Defining Novels

[merper]

I suppose if you go back far enough, you'll find that every story's been told in some for or another at some point. Maybe Icarus's flight was one of the first sci fi stories. Fantasy's been with humanity since the caveman days. Romance probably just as long.

Yet, when it comes to literature, some books seemed to be held as launch points for entire movements. Like how Lord of the Rings helped define fantasy or I am Legend helped define horror.

I was going to post this in the sci-fi/fantasy, because it seemed to have the most distinctions(urban fantasy, epic fantasy, cyberpunk, etc.), but I guess this can apply to a lot of other books, such as thrillers and mysteries and romance.

What are good examples of books that created or at least vitalized a genre/subgenre? Are there any in recent memory(Past 25 years)?

[DeleyanLee]

Neuromancer by William Gibson created the entire Cyberpunk sub-genre. I remember the shock waves well. LOL!

[PeeDee]

Frankenstein created science fiction and fantasy. Although there is the argument for a 17th Century story in which the author, logically, harnessed his capsule to a flock of passing geese in order to reach the moon which I would place as the first science fiction story, for science fiction as we know it.

There was the Boys Adventure Magazine in the late 19th Century which created the pulp sci-fi market with the electric robots and steam powered robots, and eventually lead to people like Jules Verne and H.G. Wells (bitter rivals,a fascinating story) having homes.

Tolkien brought fantasy into the public spotlight, but he hardly created it. I could make a case for Rudyard Kipling (and I mean for "fantasy as we know it now" not the general definition of fantasy, because then we go all the way back to the ancient Greeks).

[Prawn]

The Virginian created the modern western.

[JoNightshade]

Frankenstein created science fiction and fantasy. Although there is the argument for a 17th Century story in which the author, logically, harnessed his capsule to a flock of passing geese in order to reach the moon which I would place as the first science fiction story, for science fiction as we know it.

Isn't Cyrano de Bergerac (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrano_de_bergerac) normally credited for this?

[joyofcooking]

Call it "holiday lit."

[PeeDee]

Isn't Cyrano de Bergerac (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrano_de_bergerac) normally credited for this?

That's the author I was talking about, I just couldn't remember the name, and the book was too far (i.e., I would have had to get up)

[Shadow_Ferret]

To break it down even further an PeeDee did, LOTR defines HIGH fantasy. Conan defined heroic fantasy (or sword and sorcery). Tarzan defined something, maybe men's adventure fantasy? A Princess of Mars defined interplanetary fantasy. Dracula defined vampires. Dashiell Hammett defined the hardboiled detective genre with The Maltese Falcon. Sherlock Holmes defined the sleuth.

[Bergerac]

My two favorites: "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote for true crime...
... and "The Red Dragon" by Thomas Harris for crime thrillers.

[PeeDee]

To break it down even further an PeeDee did, LOTR defines HIGH fantasy. Conan defined heroic fantasy (or sword and sorcery). Tarzan defined something, maybe men's adventure fantasy? A Princess of Mars defined interplanetary fantasy. Dracula defined vampires. Dashiell Hammett defined the hardboiled detective genre with The Maltese Falcon. Sherlock Holmes defined the sleuth.

Extremely well put. And leaves me with an urge to read some Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert Howard, those Gods among men.

[PeeDee]

My two favorites: "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote for true crime...
... and "The Red Dragon" by Thomas Harris for crime thrillers.

I don't know enough about True Crime to say anything there (except that it was a pretty good book) but I'm quite sure that crime thrillers were around well before Red Dragon...

[JBI]

James Joyce for super-super-super-literary.

[lkp]

Georgette Heyer's novels (not the mysteries) created Regency romance as a genre (as opposed say, to Jane Austen just writing about what she knew).

LotR was certainly not the first novel we'd now characterize as fantasy by a longshot. But I would argue that it did create/define the fantasy genre as we now know it (followed, as others have said, by other books that defined various subgenres).

A genre is a marketing category. I interpreted the OP to be asking which books could we credit with creating/defining these subfields as marketing categories. This may not be what the OP was asking.

[GerriB]

Sherlock Holmes defined the sleuth.

Actually...

Edgar Allen Poe defined the detective story. Doyle was a fan of Poe and took the story type to the next level.

If you want a ground-breaking writer, Poe is one to consider for not just gothic horror, but detective fiction as well.

I'd say Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game helped redefine science fiction. Along with Tolkein, Terry Brooks is considered a defining author in epic fantasy.

Isaac Asimov defined robot science fiction. He's the one who brought the word "robot" to the rest of the world.

If I think of more, I'll add them.

Good luck!

[Shadow_Ferret]

Well, I did say sleuth, not detective story. I wasn't sure where the detective story actually came from. If you say Poe, I'll go with that. ;)

[JBI]

Gilgamesh has it all
~JBI

[wayndom]

There was the Boys Adventure Magazine in the late 19th Century which created the pulp sci-fi market with the electric robots and steam powered robots, and eventually lead to people like Jules Verne and H.G. Wells (bitter rivals,a fascinating story) having homes.

Bitter rivals? Verne was 38 when Wells was born, and Wells' first sci-fi novel was published in 1901, when Verne was 73 (and had been published for 38 years), with only four more years to live.

The big difference between the two was that Verne's work was based on what was scientifically plausible, while Wells made up anything at all in service to the moral/social lessons his story taught. War of the Worlds, for example, was an allegory of British colonialism. Verne, on the other hand, would never have written a story in which men went to the moon using an anti-gravity paint.

So I'm sure Verne had a low opinion of Wells' writing (because it wasn't "true" sci-fi like Verne's work), but they certainly weren't rivals in the sense that they competed for the same audience. Verne was a hugely successful bestselling author long before Wells was born.

[wayndom]

Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Call it "holiday lit."

Interestingly, Dickens may have shaped the way we celebrate Xmas today. I watched a documentary on Xmas, and they mentioned that until Victorian times, gift-giving was restricted to a few small presents for children, but adults did not exchange gifts. If you think back, in A Christmas Carol, there's no mention of gift-giving as part of the holiday until the very end, when Scrooge buys a goose for the Cratchit family.

Ever since, I've wondered if A Christmas Carol started the whole gift-giving ball rolling...

[wayndom]

Actually...
Isaac Asimov defined robot science fiction. He's the one who brought the word "robot" to the rest of the world.


Come out with your hands up! It's the Accuracy Police, here to make a bust!

Karel Capek (pronounced, "Chop-ack") introduced the word, "robot," in a play entitled, "R.U.R" ("Rossum's Universal Robots").

And let me take this opportunity to say, if you haven't read Capek's War With the Newts, you're missing one helluva great read! One of my all-time favorite novels, it's sci-fi with razor-sharp social commentary and satire, and every bit as even more relevant today than when it was published, given the failure of nations to address Global Climate Change. The parallels are so accurate, it'll give you chills, and yet the book is also hilarious.

[joyofcooking]

And let me take this opportunity to say, if you haven't read Capek's War With the Newts, you're missing one helluva great read! One of my all-time favorite novels, it's sci-fi with razor-sharp social commentary and satire, and every bit as even more relevant today than when it was published, given the failure of nations to address Global Climate Change. The parallels are so accurate, it'll give you chills, and yet the book is also hilarious.[/quote]

*****

Wow, I CAN'T WAIT to read War with the Newts!!! Why haven't I heard of it before (hmmm, too busy reading Pushkin, Ahkmatova, Mandelstom and Thomas Mann)

I am so glad I joined Absolute Write Water Cooler - or might never have heard of this book! Thanks for the tip! I looked Capek up on Amazon.com - even mentions the Carpathian mountains - that's where my grandparents are from! Way cool and SO useful! **Prosim!** (Czech/Polish/Russian for hmmm... thank you, excuse me, all around polite thing to say)

[GerriB]

Come out with your hands up! It's the Accuracy Police, here to make a bust!

Karl Capek (pronounced, "Chop-ack") introduced the word, "robot," in a play entitled, "R.U.R" ("Rossum's Universal Robots").

That would be why I said Asimov brought the word to the rest of the world instead of saying he was the first one to use the word in fiction. Capek's work was obscure, but when Asimov used "robot", the word became a part of the English language.

And for those who need to be pendantic...

Asimov wasn't even the first science fiction writer to use the word "robot". In fact, when he went to publish his book I, Robot, a big concern of his was that there was another book out by another author by the same name. The editor told Asimov not to worry about it. The rest, as they say, is history.

Good luck!

[gp101]

I remember loving Poe--haven't read him in a while. He was great for horror and thrillers (thrillers for his own time, that is). Don't quite remember him writing detective novels. Now I'll have to dust off my Poe collection to refresh my memory.

Doyle certainly popularized detective novels, but the hard-boiled detectives, the gritty, true-life detectives a lot of us read now were probably defined best (if not first) by Hammet and Chandler. If someone here knows of another
author that beat them to the punch, then please share your info. I'd love another good read from back then.

[triceretops]

Help me out here. Who is credited with starting the paranormal romance genre, or at least taking it to the heights it's reached today. It was about 12 years or so ago? I can't think of the gals name.

[Prawn]

Help me out here. Who is credited with starting the paranormal romance genre, or at least taking it to the heights it's reached today. It was about 12 years or so ago? I can't think of the gals name.

Perhaps the movie Ghost?

[Shadow_Ferret]

I remember loving Poe--haven't read him in a while. He was great for horror and thrillers (thrillers for his own time, that is). Don't quite remember him writing detective novels. Now I'll have to dust off my Poe collection to refresh my memory.

Doyle certainly popularized detective novels, but the hard-boiled detectives, the gritty, true-life detectives a lot of us read now were probably defined best (if not first) by Hammet and Chandler. If someone here knows of another
author that beat them to the punch, then please share your info. I'd love another good read from back then.
I don't claim to be an expert on Poe outside of the horror genre, but I think the "Purloined Letter" might be one of his detective stories.

I wonder where Mickey Spillane fits into the detective canon.

I like this thread. We can all disagree without getting snarky. ;)

[SeisKink]

As you all know, Harry Potter is easily identified with (YA/Children) Fantasy.

[Bergerac]

I don't know enough about True Crime to say anything there (except that it was a pretty good book) but I'm quite sure that crime thrillers were around well before Red Dragon...

Yes, indeed, but the modern crime thriller (as in the last 25 years) began with the Red Dragon... before that there was mystery and police procedurals and various other sub-genres like the cozy. There is really no understating the importance that book had on this (relatively new) genre.

[Bergerac]

[quote=gp101;1703546]I remember loving Poe--haven't read him in a while. He was great for horror and thrillers (thrillers for his own time, that is). Don't quite remember him writing detective novels. Now I'll have to dust off my Poe collection to refresh my memory.

quote]

Poe wasn't a novelist but a short story writer and essayist. The birth of the detective story began with C. Auguste Dupin and "The Murders In The Rue Morgue".

The other two stories with Dupin were "The Mystery of Marie Roget" and, as someone else mentioned, "The Purloined Letter".

Surprisingly, Poe wrote very few horror stories, or detective stories for that matter, in comparison with other things he wrote -- humorous stuff, social commentary and mostly literary criticism.

[merper]

When did Urban fantasy appear? Is it relatively new? Psychics and vampires and other paranormal creatures have a long history, but using them as viewpoint characters instead of elements of horror - that has to be newer than that right?

[GerriB]

Oh, another groundbreaker. Tamara Silar Jones recently started the forensic fantasy subgenre. It's good stuff, highly recommended by lots of people.

Enjoy!

[ChaosTitan]

When did Urban fantasy appear? Is it relatively new? Psychics and vampires and other paranormal creatures have a long history, but using them as viewpoint characters instead of elements of horror - that has to be newer than that right?

Laurell K. Hamilton?

[Shadow_Ferret]

As you all know, Harry Potter is easily identified with (YA/Children) Fantasy.

Well, she revitalized the genre of YA fantasy, but that's been around since the Wizard of Oz and Sword in the Stone.

Laurell K. Hamilton?
I think there was a discussion in SF/F forum on this. I forget who people there attributed to being one of the first. But I'd say LKH turned it into a bestselling genre.

[PastMidnight]

I really don't have anything to add, but I wanted to say that I'm finding this thread fascinating!

[Prawn]

It's facinating because of the number of people in it that I haven't read. It might be because the person who starts a genre isn't always (eventually) the best author in in a genre.

[merper]

It seems like a lot of these are just a mixture of 2 genres.

If we have main groups of: Romance, Horror, Fantasy, Mystery, Adventure(For lack of a better name), Literary(probably doesn't need its own)

And we have time periods: Past, Present, Future

Can we mix and match to we get many of these genres? For example, Past Romance = Historical Romance, Present Mystery Adventure = Modern day thriller = Present Horror Adventure, Future + anything is a Sci fi, Present Fantasy= urban fantasy, Past Fantasy = regular old-school fantasy.

This obviously doesn't cover everything, especially if you go to something as specific as cyberpunk, but I think it's really interesting to see how literature builds off itself and how truly new ideas come about. Obviously the book has to be good, but I wonder if William Gibson knew he was onto something different when he wrote Neuromancer. Do you think new genres are conceived by the author or does the publishing industry just refine its terminology when a book becomes really popular? I was thinking it'd be the latter, but I haven't seen a Religious Conspiracy section since Da Vinci code.

[GerriB]

but I wonder if William Gibson knew he was onto something different when he wrote Neuromancer.

He didn't. The last I heard, he was still shocked to be called the Father of Cyberpunk.

[triceretops]

Laurell K. Hamilton?

Yes, yes. That's the gal I was thining of--took paranormal to a new level.

Tri:D

[J. R. Tomlin]

I'd say the breakthrough for urban fantasy was Little, Big by John Crowle.