Let’s be honest, when you think of Canada you probably think of the country in stereotypes: beer, Mounties, Second City comedians, the way Canadians pronounce “sorry” and “about,” or how the country becomes a tempting place to flee when the direction of America goes askew of your preferences.
Now, because of our famous politeness (yes, I’m Canadian), we’d probably be inclined to forgive you for not knowing more. Still, I’d suggest — politely, of course — that it might be neighborly (or “neighbourly,” as we write it up here) of you to think of what we have to offer beyond clichés. For instance, here’s something you may not know about the country: Our authors do genre fiction — fantasy, science-fiction, romance, and crime — really, really well, and we’re mighty proud of them.
What distinguishes Canadian genre authors? Well, while genre can sometimes be burdened by clichés (like, ahem, some people’s perceptions of other countries), our genre literature often avoids familiar routes. Sometimes genres are mashed up to liven things up. Sometimes moral complexity is used to bring depth to otherwise black-and-white binaries. Sometimes an unexpected hopeful tone is introduced to bleak subject matter. But above all else, what unites Canadian fantasy, sci-fi, crime, etc., is a willingness to approach stories from a different, often surprising angle (think of how Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale ain’t your typical dystopian novel). In other words, Canadian genre not only offers you a chance to see how another country tells these stories, but a chance to experience something totally new in familiar frameworks.
Here is a sampling of Canadian books that reflect the array of scary, goopy, romantic, thrilling, mysterious, and futuristic genre lit we have to offer.
In a genre that tends toward trilogies, Guy Gavriel Kay’s Tigana is welcome for being a fantasy one-off (even if that one-off represents more than 24 hours of listening). The novel is set in a land dominated by a victorious invader who, after losing his son in battle, vengefully used magic to make his conquered citizens forget the name and history of their country. Needless to say, there are rebels looking to reclaim their land and take him down. But what makes Tigana great is that it’s not nearly as black and white as that sounds. It’s full of a welcome moral complexity that puts you in the rare position to sometimes be disgusted by the heroes and sympathetic to the villain. That’s great writing.
If Canada has a King of Thrillers, then it’s Linwood Barclay. A master of plotting, he’s written numerous thrillers crafted with the intricacy of a watch. His knack for it has even earned him the admiration of Stephen King, as Barclay is one of only 64 people that King follows on Twitter. Too Close to Home is a good entry point for newbies, thanks to its intriguing premise: After the Cutter family’s neighbors are brutally gunned down, the Cutters start to suspect the wrong house was targeted. To say more is to ruin the pleasure of experiencing Linwood Barclay.
The first novel by the insanely prolific Kelly Armstrong, Bitten marked the beginning of a larger supernatural world called “Women of the Otherworld,” which helped make Armstrong a genre big shot. Her debut offers a unique take on werewolves and is full of love triangles, bad boys, a murder mystery, and movie-like action. Here’s the story: Elena is the only known female werewolf who has abandoned her pack to live a human life in Toronto with her boyfriend before she is pulled back in to help track down a rogue werewolf killing humans. In the process, she becomes entangled with her ex-boyfriend (and sire), as well as a plot that accelerates with exciting stakes.
Once every year, Scoutmaster Tim Riggs leads a troop of boys into the Canadian wilderness for a weekend camping trip....
Post-apocalyptic novels, understandably, tend to be bleak affairs bereft of much hope. Chalk it up to Canadian politeness and optimism, but that makes Station Eleven’s surprising hopefulness something of a rarity in apocalyptic fiction. Don’t be mistaken: The novel does still have things like a world-ending pandemic, a dangerous pseudo-religious Prophet trying to rule the post-apocalypse, and a good deal of death and grief. But what the novel is ultimately about is the restorative power of how our lives intersect with others, and the possibility that what is lost can maybe (slowly) be regained. Narrator Kirsten Potter especially does a magical job of bringing out the novel’s hope and humanism.
Canadians are romance-lovers like anyone else, and one of the big best sellers in recent years has been Goodnight From London by Jennifer Robson. The story finds American journalist Ruby Sulton traveling to London to report on World War II, and in the process encounters sexism, loneliness, the harrowing effects of war, and — of course — the kind of love that will make listeners swoon.
The Demonologist is generous proof that Andrew Pyper may be the closest thing Canada has to its own Stephen King. In the novel, David Ullman, a non-religious teacher of demonic literature, witnesses a potential possession before his own daughter is taken by (possibly) a demon. He then goes on a cross-country chase to try and get her back, all the while having to confront that what he teaches may not be fiction. The result is a nifty hybrid of a supernatural novel and a character-driven chase thriller. In other words, it’s a perfect horror novel for non-horror fans. Bonus: The great character actor John Bedford Lloyd’s deep, rumbling voice pours a whole lot of eeriness into the novel’s more unsettling passages.
A lot of modern science fiction can be traced back to American-Canadian William Gibson’s cyberpunk classic from 1984. (Some Canadian authors don’t just approach genres inventively; some have defined them.) In Neuromancer, we’re placed in a dystopian world in which a computer hacker has been cut off from his beloved virtual reality space called “The Matrix” (yes, it influenced the movies). Then our “hero” is asked to pull off a hacking job for a mysterious ex-military figure and things get, well, complicated from there. If you love science-fiction, you owe it to yourself to check this out.
Crime authors love creating detectives they can write novel after novel about. One of Canada’s major crime writers, Louise Penny, has her own detective, Quebec-dwelling Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, who has appeared in over a dozen novels. Bury Your Dead has an especially delicious conceit: A brutal killing in the Quebec Literary and Historical Society Library that may be tied to a 400-year-old mystery, which Gamache begins to investigate while also realizing the case he solved in the previous novel in the series may not be over. (Bury Your Dead ties back to another novel called The Brutal Telling, so consider this a double recommendation.) All of that sound like too much? Not at all, thanks to Penny’s excellent command of plot and character that’s made her a Canadian crime master.
