Earlier this week I had a quite successful session at my local Queens library. Among other goodies, I nabbed Tananarive Due's latest novel, Blood Colony. It's so great when you happen upon a new book by an author whom you're pretty darned sure is incapable of disappointing. I've read most if not all of Tananarive Due's earlier novels and loved each one. She has a unique gift, in my opinion.
I don't want to get into a whole thing about the fraught topic of genre, at least not now with my lunch hour almost over, and I certainly don't have any firm principled opinion on the issue, but the sad fact is that I almost never find genre work interesting or original. However, Ms. Due's novels, drenched with supernatural horror as they are, are also full of provocative ideas, substantively engaged with the real world and its real-world horrors, and, above all, beautifully written works of literature. I don't know if that makes them the best of the horror genre or if it means they transcend genre. Either way, it is wonderful work and I can't wait to open up this new one.
