I’ve been reading Margo Lanagan’s Red Spikes, and one of the things I’ve been thinking about is uniqueness. Blurbs on books often say things like, “the next Harry Potter.” Or, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Twilight.” Yet when I read Margo Lanagan, I never think “this is the next” or “this is Something meets Something.” I think, how did she come up with this?

Not everyone enjoys such a reading experience. I’ve suggested Lanagan’s work to others who’ve later told me, “Different. Weird. I didn’t get it.” Sometimes this is a matter of taste. But sometimes I have to wonder if we’re all a little too obsessed with “the next” whatever and famous formula “meets” famous formula. Do original ideas come from formula meets formula?

What makes something original? Lanagan’s tales don’t take place in vaguely medieval worlds. Often their settings seem to be some kind of far away that dwells strictly in Lanagan’s head. Other times the worlds are like ours, but odd souls inhabit them, like guardian angel birds. Death, heaven, purgatory, and hell make regular appearances in this collection, though not the kind a reader would find in any scriptural text. The characters in “Under Hell, Over Heaven” seem enslaved in a bureaucratic nightmare, transporting souls to a glorious Heaven and Hell they feel intensely and momentarily when they near it. The rest of the time they trudge in gray forgetfulness. “Winkie” is a great and chilling twist on the nursery rhyme “Wee Willie Winkie.” I’ll never think of the rhyme the same way again. Lanagan’s stories aren’t strange for strange’s sake, though. In “Under Hell, Over Heaven” we see the go-between’s trap: always close to greatness, but rarely feeling it herself. “Wee Willie Winkie” shows a child a little neglected by busy parents, as well as the dangers that haunt the night.

What makes a story original? Perhaps simply its author’s determination not to write a tale the way it’s been written many times before.