# Sub genre's



## Princess Ivy (Sep 6, 2005)

so, we have science fiction and we have fantasy and we have science fantasy, but what of the sub genre's in these fields? and who do you feel fis into which (author wise).
BTW: I'm trying to explain the differences to my mother and i'm having trouble, so i thought i'd look for inspiration here


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## Ash (Sep 6, 2005)

Now there's a massive can of worms!  I'm not a huge fan of classification for boring and complicated reasons I won't go into. But I'll have a go at listing a few fairly sub-genres as I understand them. These are probably debatable and aren't supposed to be in anyway authorative of comprehensive!

For Fantasy:

*High Fantasy*: Is the traditional epic fantasy. I think important elements of it are lots or history and mythology in a well fleshed out world. Usually a fair bit of magic. Examples are Tolkien, Eddings, Jordan and their ilk.

*Sword and Scorcery*: Tends to be a bit less epic and faster paced, without all the detail and backstory. The Conan novels are the best example. Despite the fact that there are many stories and over time there is some cohesion to the setting, it's not as concrete. The magic, for example, is magic! But there is no need for a detailed system of magic or explanation of it. So Robert E Howard, Maybe Michael Moorecock.

I've seen stuff like Gemmell described as *Heroic Fantasy* recently. Kind of a cross between the two I guess. The detailed setting is there, but the stories are snapshots of heroic tales, swords and scorcery (and I think Heroic Fantasy has more of the swords) in a High Fantasy setting.

*Historical Fantasy* refers to stuff like TH White and maybe Marion Zimmer Bradley, bringing elements of the fantastic to historical (allegedly historical) real life settings. I guess that makes stuff like Clan of the Cave Bear (can't remember author) Pre-Historical Fantasy 

I know the term *Low Fantasy* get's thrown around a bit as well but to be honest I have no idea!

*Contemporary Fantasy* is stuff like Neil Gaiman and (hmmm can't think of any others right now... this space for rent). Sort of Fantasy in modern day settings. I think there's often a big cross-over between this and horror.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head. I think there's a lot of cross over with these. So the same book can be in several sub-genres. There's also stuff which I wouldn't have a clue where it belongs! Stephen King's Gunslinger series, China Mieville's stuff?

That's enough fantasy. On with the Sci-Fi 

Edit: Ooh, forgot *Comic Fantasy*.... Mr Pratchett and Friends.


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## Princess Ivy (Sep 7, 2005)

i think there is a great deal of difference between the satire of pratchett and the slapstick of say holt.
possibly two there then, comic, and satire?


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## kaneda (Sep 7, 2005)

I started a thread a bit like this a while ago about the fantasy sub genre: 

http://www.chronicles-network.net/forum/showthread.php?t=6094

I was a bit naieve about the whole thing. Theres a couple of nice links on there


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## Ash (Sep 7, 2005)

Science Fiction seems to have a lot more of little well-defined sub-genres. It also has some sweeping ones like Fantasy, but maybe more to choose from.

Also some people prefer use the term Speculative Fiction as a catchall rather than Science Fiction as there is a lot of stuff that kind of seems to be Science Fiction, but then it's debatable as to whether or not it is by definition.

*Space Opera:* The classic spaceships and rayguns. Quite often part of a big ongoing saga. Probably the SF equivilent of high fantasy. It doesn't mean that it lacks depth or anything. A lot of pretty serious stuff is still Space Opera. EE Doc Smith is often scene as the father of the Space Opera. More recent examples are Iain M Banks and Peter Hamilton.

*Cyberpunk: *Usually near future, earthbound examine the implications of computer technology and it's relation to identity. I think it's a sub-genre where the style of writing is fairly important as well. William Gibson, Bruce Sterling.

*Alternative History*: Debatable as to whether or not this is SciFi at times (when Speculative Fiction comes in handy). Looking at "what if" situations in our past. Harry Turtledove and Harry Harrison come to mind.

*New Wave*: A bit of a revolution in SF that happened in the 60s when people got a bit more experimental with Science Fiction. Ballard, Moorecock, Phillip K Dick.  

*Utopic:* Nice shiny futuristic cities/civilisations and the struggles faced by these societies. Iain M Banks is a good recent example. Star Trek in general is fairly Utopic (although both of these are Space Opera as well).

*Dystopic*: The opposite. Society in decline. Orwell, Huxley, HG Wells (depending on his mood  )

*Post-Apocalyptic*: Looking at society after some big apocalyptic event. John Wyndham, Phillip K Dick, Stephen King, Larry Niven.

*Techno-thriller*: Modern Day thrillers (often military) where the central premise revolves around fictional scientific advancements. Michael Chricton

*Hard SF*: Extrapolation of real science. An attempt to speculate on the future (orpresent) with scientific justification for advancements and technology. Gregory Benford, Greg Bear, Arthur C Clarke.

Again these are just my understanding of various sub-genres. There's a lot of cross over and prolific SF authors will probably have written something in most of these catagories at one time or another.

Is that the time?


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## Ash (Sep 7, 2005)

Princess Ivy said:
			
		

> i think there is a great deal of difference between the satire of pratchett and the slapstick of say holt.
> possibly two there then, comic, and satire?



Sure. Sub-genres can have sub-genres. There are probably other types of comedic fantasy as well. 

That might be getting towards why I'm not a huge fan of classification. You can take it as far as you like and it gets to the point where an author becomes a sub-genre all of their own! Classifications (in anything, not just literature) are invented terms, they are not things that exist independent of us deciding that they exist.... I better not start, it's something I'll go on about forever 

I prefer to think in terms of movements, or perhaps tradition is a better word. So Pratchett is part of the more strictly comedic tradition of fantasy, to be honest he's probably the most famous. Holt (who I haven't ready anything by) might tend towards the satirical tradition (which has a long and distinguished history, Jonathon Swift comes to mind).


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## Taltos (Sep 7, 2005)

Princess Ivy said:
			
		

> so, we have science fiction and we have fantasy and we have science fantasy, but what of the sub genre's in these fields? and who do you feel fis into which (author wise).



No why would you like to classify a writer somewhere!?  And are most of the writers classifiable at all? I can understand classifing a certain book into one of the categories given by Ash, but author ?? 



			
				Princess Ivy said:
			
		

> BTW: I'm trying to explain the differences to my mother and i'm having trouble, so i thought i'd look for inspiration here



Good luck, You'll need it


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## Princess Ivy (Sep 7, 2005)

thanks. she's driving me mad!


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## Brys (Sep 7, 2005)

Weird fantasy - as the name suggests. Examples are China Mieville, M John Harrison, Mervyn Peake, Clark Ashton Smith, Jeff Vandermeer etc.


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## Jay (Sep 7, 2005)

Cyberpunk, and New Wave aren't sub-genres, they are/were movements, although Cyberpunk was so vogue and it almost became popular enough to perhaps become a sub-genre, but that tiime has passed.  The New Wave was incredibly  influential and really spurned other movements (new Weird and according to Gibons and Sterling (the fatehrs of cyberpunk) cyberpunk was inspired by moorcockian thought (as noted a chief member of New Wave)

Other movements include Slipstream, New Weird, & steam punk.

Magic Realism, which is the tradition of Marquez, Calvino, Borges, and you see it in soem works by Salman Rushdie.

If we learn anything out this, let it be that J.G. Ballard is the single most underated author of the 20th century - you heard it here first.


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## cyborg_cinema (Sep 7, 2005)

Jay said:
			
		

> ...steam punk.


...speculative fiction >> science fiction >> cyberpunk >> steampunk >> fantasy steampunk.





> ...prototypical "steampunk" stories were essentially cyberpunk tales that were set in the past, using steam-era technology . . . the genre has expanded into medieval settings . . . and some steampunk includes significant fantasy elements.—Wiki


Speculative fiction's branches like to mingle—one big, happy family tree.


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## Jay (Sep 7, 2005)

> speculative fictiion


 
Which is really (if not a publisher or in the marketing department, or a book retailer) is the only term anyone needs to know Whenever I differentitae bewteen science fiction, fantasy, horror, or any of the various sub-genre's (or movements) its only for the benefit of communication - it's all just speculative fiction to me.

BTW one not mentioned yet Urban fantasy (well represented by Charles de Lint)


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## Ash (Sep 7, 2005)

Jay said:
			
		

> Cyberpunk, and New Wave aren't sub-genres, they are/were movements, although Cyberpunk was so vogue and it almost became popular enough to perhaps become a sub-genre, but that tiime has passed.



At some point it all boils down to semantics and convinience though. If a movement has been and gone and we look back at the works that were an important part of that movement it's easier to look at those works collectively as part of a sub-genre. 



> Which is really (if not a publisher or in the marketing department, or a book retailer) is the only term anyone needs to know Whenever I differentitae bewteen science fiction, fantasy, horror, or any of the various sub-genre's (or movements) its only for the benefit of communication - it's all just speculative fiction to me.



Hear Hear! I completely agree with this. Restrictive labels can be useful when recommending or discussing stuff, but beyond that I don't really see much point.


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## cyborg_cinema (Sep 7, 2005)

...genre/sub-genre/sub-genre tags are literary breadcrumbs—imagination wanders often. And we need a literary filing system for the reader, as well as the writer. Genre labels are more informative than restrictive.


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## chrispenycate (Oct 4, 2005)

But, trying to do it by author- you can't trust an author to write all its books in one genre, let alone one sub genre- thre are even a couple of books that switch, or use so many elements of each that they're practically inclassifiable (examples Piers Anthony "Split infinity" series or Wen Spencers "alien taste")
Military Sci-Fi often seems to team up with heroic fantasy, but not always, while nostalgic(now mainly green, but earlier "wasn't life better when I was a kid and we didn't have flush toilets or antibiotics") with a more elves and idealised village life, and a Jack Chalker can write the same book in Sci-Fi or fantasy. Some authors cross over into mainstream, while others write Sci-Fi in thriller style, or write fantasy that they call Sci-Fi, or…
But why should we expect the entire opus of a writer to fall into one neat classification? Individual books, sure- but authors?


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## mikeo (Oct 4, 2005)

cyborg_cinema said:
			
		

> And we need a literary filing system for the reader, as well as the writer. Genre labels are more informative than restrictive.



Do we need a literary filing system for the writer? Heck, do we even need one for readers? Beyond the label "science fiction," I quite happily spent a number of years unaware of most of these labels - I just read things that looked interesting from the covers and a few pages read in the library or a bookstore. To be honest, when I did start to become aware of them, I decided I liked cyberpunk, and if anything my reading dropped because I was searching for cyberpunk novels and authors when I could have been reading plenty of other books.

As far as the authors go, I've heard authors say that once you get "known" as being part of a given label or movement, it can be a real pain to write something outside what your publisher knows as your market, so I'm not sure it helps authors either.

So just offhand, I'd say some broad brushstrokes can be useful for classification, but people shouldn't really rely on them or worry about them too much.


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## polymorphikos (Oct 5, 2005)

Body Horror 
Dark Fantasy 
Supernatural horror


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