GUMSHOES, FANGS, ROCKETS, & SPIES

A work of literary criticism takes readers through a history of genre literature.

Literary history—like all history—is composed of long-term trends punctured by explosive moments. An example of the latter was a dreary holiday that a group of writers spent near Lake Geneva in 1816. The weather was poor due to a massive volcanic eruption in 1815—1816 was known as the year without a summer—and it inspired the writers to hold a scary story contest. The work that came out of it included the first instances of apocalyptic fiction, vampire fiction, horror fiction, and SF, all of which would go on to shape and occasionally dominate popular culture in subsequent centuries. With this book, Pelham traces this and other moments of inspiration, out of which such archetypes as the brilliant detective, the boy wizard, the femme fatale, and the invaders from outer space all developed. Often viewed as the less serious siblings of literary fiction, these genres are shown by the author to be far more complex and popular than their pulpy reputation implies. He links them together in a web of influence that seems at times to touch all of art. Along the way, he reintroduces readers to visionaries like Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, James M. Cain, and Patricia Highsmith. Pelham’s prose is breathless and detailed, like a lecture by an enthusiastic tour guide who has more information than the expert has time to cover: “Tolkien, a fan of Verne, Wells, Burroughs, and tales of the American wilderness (I’m guessing The Last of the Mohicans in particular), was a scholar of linguistics and the 20th century master of world building. Middle Earth’s languages, cultures, and histories ring true.” Pelham can’t examine everyone, and there are a few notable absences. The hurried quality causes some of his digressions into pandemics or the Fermi paradox to feel slightly superfluous. But there are fun factoids throughout (including etymologies for words like robot and phantom), and readers are sure to learn a lot. As a broad survey of genre fiction, and particularly as an investigation into the origins of classic genres, the book more than delivers.

A sprawling and engrossing map of genre fiction.