Trace Elements: Conversations on the Project of Science Fiction and Fantasy by Jo Walton, Ada Palmer Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, ebook
Genres: books about books, books and reading, fantasy, literary criticism, science fiction
Pages: 368
Published by Tor Books on March 24, 2026
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Better World Books
Goodreads
From two of the most acclaimed writers in the field today, a groundbreaking look at how SF and fantasy writing—and reading!
Jo Walton and Ada Palmer are two of the most innovative and insightful writers to emerge in the SF and fantasy genres in this century. As writers of fiction they’ve each won multiple awards. As commenters on SF and fantasy in print and in visual media, they’ve both sparked new conversations that expanded our imaginations and understanding of how SF and fantasy work, and what more it could be doing.
Now, in Trace Elements, Walton and Palmer have come together to write a book-length and supremely entertaining look at modern science fiction and fantasy, at how our genre is written and how it is read, that will join nonfiction works like Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Language of the Night, Samuel R. Delany’s The Jewel-Hinged Jaw, and Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud on the short shelf of titles essential to all readers of our genre.
Subjects covered include the nature of genre itself, the history of SF publishing, the implicit contract between author and reader, the ways SF and fantasy disguise themselves as one another, what SF&F can learn from outside influences ranging from Shakespeare to Diderot to anime, the role of complicity in reading, the need to expand our “sphere of empathy”, and finally the need for optimism, the importance of rejecting “purity” culture, and the fact that the human story for centuries to come will be composed of hard work.
My Review:
I picked this up because I loved two of Jo Walton’s previous books that looked into both the business of and the writing of science fiction and fantasy, What Makes This Book So Great and An Informal History of the Hugos, and was hoping for more of the same – except with different books.
What I got wasn’t like either of those first two, but it IS in dialogue with both of them, as well as the business of writing genre fiction in general AND an actual dialog between Walton and her co-author Ada Palmer.
I read it for two reasons, the first being a Library Journal assignment that I pretty much begged for. I mean that I seriously wanted to read this. I just didn’t expect it to lend itself to the kinds of in-depth reviews I usually write.
But I can’t stop thinking about it, and what it has to say about not just Fantasy and Science Fiction, but about genre fiction for adults in general. I’ve discovered it to be, not so much “What Makes This Book Great” because Walton has already written that book and it was awesome. Instead, I found this to be “What Makes This Book Great FOR YOU”, or NOT.
Not by talking about specific books – although yes, sometimes they do – but by addressing the blenderizing of genre – which is something I run into – and get run over by – a lot in the reading and reviewing that I do.
The part of Trace Elements that is sticking in my head are the discussions about genres that are settings vs. genres that are formulas vs. genres that are emotion driven. Which is all a ball of thoughts that I’ve been working through on my own.
What does that mean? What does it relate to specifically?
It gets into books like last year’s Orbital and The Ministry of Time, which were hugely popular with general readers but didn’t resonate nearly as much with SF readers even though EVERY single review labelled them as SF. Basically, it turned into a discussion of why “literary sf” doesn’t hit the right beats when it’s marketed to actual SF readers. Because it uses the furniture of SF but doesn’t follow the actual conventions of the literature itself. It’s not in conversation with what came before in SF because it’s not intended to be.
As more and more genres mix and mingle – those issues are becoming increasingly prevalent. It’s the issue that’s at the heart of any and all discussions of ‘romantasy’, but also the increasing amount of both science fiction and fantasy mysteries, about what tropes near-future and dystopian fiction are intended to follow, and about what audiences those books that ride a dividing line between two or more genres are intended to appeal to.
The above is not the only “trace element” of the discussion that’s still swirling around in my head, but it is the part that’s swirling the hardest.
Reality Rating B: This wasn’t a book to be read for pleasure, at least not exactly. I certainly did enjoy parts of it, and Walton in particular is someone I always enjoy listening to in person at Worldcon. She calls it like she sees it, or like she saw it when it happened, and it’s a perspective that works for me.
I haven’t read much of her co-author’s work, although it’s been recommended and I have quite a bit. I can see it wiggling up the virtually towering TBR pile out of the corner of my eye but it hasn’t made its way to the top yet. I’m particularly interested in her Inventing the Renaissance nonfiction book, which I bought and is also worming its way up that TBR pile as it’s likely to be on this year’s Hugo ballot in the “Best Related Work” category.
Like any collection of anything, not everything will work for every reader. I found the discussions on the business of genre, its history and the reasons for its appeal to be the most interesting from a personal perspective. And I always love good writing about how the sausage gets made – especially when it’s sausage that I enjoy.
But as a whole work, it didn’t draw me in and keep me glued to the page the way that Walton’s solo works on the genre did. This one just doesn’t gel into a whole the way that both What Makes This Book So Great and An Informal History of the Hugos managed to do. OTOH, parts of this one really made me think, even though others didn’t quite grab me. Your reading mileage will probably vary on which are which.
Anyone who reads genre broadly and is interested in what makes it work and not work and for whom and why will find the discussion fascinating. Many readers will be particularly taken with Walton’s comments about the author’s (unwritten) contract with the reader and how that works from each side.
Trace Elements is a difficult book to encapsulate, and I recognize that I’m struggling with that a bit here. However, I’m still thinking about a lot of what I read in this book, and will continue to do so. If you enjoy discussions about literature even half as much as you do reading the literature itself, Trace Elements is definitely worth a bit of your reading time.
It certainly informed my read of Walton’s forthcoming book, Everybody’s Perfect and made the experience that much richer. I kept looking for where she kept that contract between the author and the reader, and where she subverted the expectations and kept it anyway, and was just delighted all the way around.