A brief word about spoilers: they are inevitable. It’s not possible to write a literary commentary without giving some of the plot up, although if you’re reading this the chances are you’re already a fan of both authors.

More importantly, this collection has been written with a GM in mind. This means we’ll discuss some of the decisions the GM has to make regarding the world — as I said earlier, this is not a complete setting but a starting point for a debate on how the two genres can mix together.

On the other hand, part of the fun in consuming cross-genre fiction is second-guessing the author. In this case, the questions the GM must answer are the same ones the players will ask themselves during play. If you take that view, the questions become a method of aligning the players with the GM before play. One of the necessary elements of this genre mash-up is uncertainty surrounding the “big questions” of life. And that’s what we’re going to discuss next.

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