“I think [the two genres] are both deeply connected to America’s ideas about itself, embodied in this figure of a lone American male as adventurer, staking out unknown territory, seeking justice.” Megan Abbott concludes. “There’s an intense romanticism to it (and a conservatism). Yet both genres are also very capable of rejecting the limitations of the past and updating themselves for more contemporary iterations (in other words, the hero need no longer be white, male or alone). Both genres can be eternally relevant in the hands of gifted writers.”