Talk:The Tomb (novel)

Genre of This Novel

Repairman Jack novels, including "The Tomb" are not easily pigeon-holed into genres like Horror, as it is currently denoted. They include elements of horror, supernatural, mystery, thriller, and even sci-fi, and probably more. The bookstores I've visited simply keep F. Paul Wilson's Repairman Jack novels in the "Fiction" section. I would like to suggest removing the Horror genre specification. Thoughts?

Dejo.eh 04:28, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Genre is not exclusionary, thus does not "pigeon-hole" a novel. A novel may be at one and the same time historical fiction, romance, and (as you say) "horror, supernatural, mystery, thriller, and even sci-fi, and probably more." (E.g. The Stress of Her Regard, by Tim Powers, might qualify.) Isaac Asimov wrote sci-fi mysteries (The Caves of Steel, etc.), Randall Garrett wrote fantasy mysteries involving Lord Darcy (Too Many Magicians, etc.), and those works are prized for crossing genres, yet are generally shelved in just the first-mentioned ones... and no-one suggests that the solution is to remove their "sci-fi" or "fantasy" genre specification! If possible, cataloguers and shelvers have to decide somehow where to put a novel, lest all novels wind up in the undifferentiated "Fiction" section so that readers have a much longer job of slogging through everything; shelving under a main genre category has been found the most convenient arrangement, for readers as well as shelvers. – _•Raven  ^.talk 01:43, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

Rerelease changes

A summary of the changes made in the rereleased version would be helpful. 212.159.69.4 (talk) 21:20, 19 June 2011 (UTC)