Think of a genre. Pick one, I don’t care. You can easily name five vanilla titles in that genre that are perfectly serviceable, whether it’s movies or books. You might struggle, though, to name more than one or two that are truly excellent.

“Science fiction” is too broad so let’s narrow it to space opera. Obviously the GOAT space novel is DUNE. You’ve also got ENDER’S GAME and STARSHIP TROOPERS. Those are superlative reads in the genre. For every one of those there are a hundred forgettable titles about dudes on spaceships fighting bad guys. DUNE stands out because it’s a philosophical work that asks questions and makes the reader answer them himself. ENDER’S GAME had a plot twist that blew everyone’s mind before plot twists became standard fare in books of its ilk. STARSHIP TROOPERS pretends to be about astronaut-Marines fighting bug aliens, but it’s really an examination of all the different ways humanity has tried to govern itself, and failed to do so.

They fit in with their genres, they stand out by being more than their genres.

Those books are hard to write because it’s difficult to be immensely profound more than once, especially on the same subject. So after the superlative genre works, there’s a layer right under it where really talented writers can play with the tropes, but then kick it up a notch with some homemade barbecue sauce and a secret family recipe on the side.

One such book is HARD MAGIC by Larry Correia, a book that combined about six different extremely cool things, like ninjas, wizards, X-Men-style powers, magic, and alternate history. Plus guns, because it’s Correia. He told an alternate-history 1930s fantasy that transcended the tropes of the genres even though it relied on many of them to tell its story.

There are other examples, I’m not going to drown you with them, you can think of more in the comments—the point is that staple stuff is just fine, pivotal works are hard to force (and a writer will be lucky to make one or two of them in a storied career), but there’s this third target right between them that I aim for when I write: stuff that feels familiar, but tries really hard to give you something you won’t get anywhere else.

With SLEEPLESS HOLLOW, it was a love for Washington Irving as well as the Headless Horseman with a minigun and a time-traveling ghost from the Revolution. With HOWLING WILDERNESS it was an epic fantasy race down the Appalachian Trail, with machines and monsters. In ANSWERABLE COURAGE it’s a fantasy about the First Thanksgiving that’s 90% historically accurate, and goes utterly bonkers with the other 10%.

I’m not trying to be Tim Powers. But I am trying to learn from him.

Anyway, I’m really close to finishing AC, I’ll definitely kill it dead this week, and then I can start working on my entry for Ark’s 2076 contest, which I am going to win, and will use the money to buy a project car with my kids. But first, the very cool writing.

Those are my thoughts for today. Go buy one of my books and read it and tell me what you think.