The Happy Place 5: Genre Hybrids
The Happy Place 5 is a monthly series where a few friends and I post 5 of our favorites books for a certain topic or theme. The name is from a Discord group that I am a part of. We created the space to have a positive environment for a handful of close friends. All of us are bookworms, and many of us are bookstagrammers and bloggers. So we decided to start a blog post series together! I’ll link my friends blogs and posts for this month’s topic at the end of this post.
We all know that my two favorite genres are science fiction and fantasy, so what’s even better than that? A MASHUP OF THE TWO!!! I’m sure this surprises no one at all that this is the genre hybrid I chose to talk about today haha. I’m sure some of these you’ve heard me talk about before, but I can’t resist the chance to push them on you again!!
Gideon the Ninth
- Author: Tamsyn Muir
- Target audience: adult
- Series info: first in a trilogy (incomplete)
Fantasy murder mystery in space?? Sword lesbians?? NECROMANCY????? Sign me the hell up. Honestly do I need to say more? Ok fine. I’ll say more. There are mysterious locked doors, abandoned laboratories with weird experiments, and ghosts or maybe skeletons?? The book is confusing and funny and badass, and I completely love it. On my first read, I really liked it, but my second read was where I really fell in love. The little details!! The foreshadowing!! It was absolutely incredible. Also there are some hilarious niche pop culture references if that’s your thing.
Saga vol. 1
- Author: Brian K. Vaughan
- Target audience: adult
- Series info: first volume in a comic series (ongoing)
I’m not normally a huge star-crossed lovers fan, but damn. Saga does it right. Probably because there is so much more going on than just the love story. The cast of characters is amazing, and I love seeing how each one develops over the course of the story. Often times with a lot of characters and storylines the overall book can feel jumpy and disjointed, but I never felt that way while reading. The author has create a cohesive story from all the pieces.
Also, can we shoutout the artist?? Fiona Staples is AMAZING, and her artwork is incredible. Seriously, I would get so many prints of her artwork if I could. Anyway, if you like graphic novels I highly recommend this one. If you aren’t into graphic novels, I feel like this is a good one to start with! It was my first actually.
Note: this series is definitely intended for adult audiences!
Killing Gravity
- Author: Corey J. White
- Target audience: adult
- Series info: first (novella) in a trilogy (complete)
The main character of this series, Mariam (Mars) Xi is a psychic supersoldier and has absolutely WILD powers. She can crush you (and spaceships!!) with her mind. Also she has this super cool companion animal that is kind of like a cat, kind of like a squirrel, but also has wings. I need one hehe. There is so much action and a great revenge plot. The author also did an amazing job with fitting what feels like a full story into the novella length, which can sometimes be difficult. I love the whole series, and think it’s super underrated. I need more people to read it!
A Spark of White Fire
- Author: Sangu Mandanna
- Target audience: young adult
- Series info: first in a trilogy (complete)
Surprise surprise, it’s a retelling!!! Hahahaa. It wouldn’t be if I didn’t include one, right? This book (and subsequent two books) is a retelling of the ancient Indian epic poem, the Mahabarata. I have not read the original, but man, from what I can tell it has everything. Family drama, curses, big battles, gods, and more. There is also a sentient warship, made to be undefeatable in battle. She’s so amazing!!! One of my favorite characters for sure haha. Another thing I love is that the gods and goddesses are a big part of the story, and actually interact with the characters. They obviously have their own agendas and moral compasses, so it makes the story more interesting. I’ve only read the first book, but I can’t wait to finish the trilogy. You can find my review for the first book here!
A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe
- Author: Alex White
- Target audience: adult
- Series info: first in a trilogy (complete)
Look. I just need you all to read this okay? It’s so damn good. To prove my point, here is an exerpt from my full review: “If you’re looking for great scifi, this is IT. There is MAGIC. There are SPACESHIPS. … creepy terrifying villains. There’s a great ragtag crew of people. There is DIVERSITY. And let me just make this point again – there’s MAGIC in SPACE. It’s like my two favorite things basically.” Wanna know what else there is? Well even if you don’t, I’m going to tell you. Treasure hunts, space battles, wonderful characters, FOUND FAMILY, and so much more. EEEEEP. I just l love it. LOVE IT. I’m gonna leave you with that, and lead you to my full review for this book!
Do you have a favorite type of genre hybrid? If you like space fantasy, do you have any good recs for me?
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