Speculative Fiction's Sub-sub-genres

[Frank Creed]

Y'all--
I’m compiling the most complete list of spec-fic sub-sub-genres for posting in a Web article. If anyone can think of one I don’t yet have, pretty-please wing it my way, kay?
Thanks!

Anatomy of Speculative Fiction

A.Spec Fic
1. fantasy
2. sci-fi
3. horror
4. crossover sub-genres
1. fantasy
Alternative History
Bangsian
Contemporary or Urban
Dark Fantasy
Fairytale
High
Historical fantasy: Celtic Fantasy, Wuxia, Historical high fantasy, Medieval fantasy
Light Fantasy
Low
magic realism
traditional Fantasy
supernatural fiction
superhero
sword and sorcery
western




2. sci-fi
AI
alien invasion
alternate history
apocalyptic
Apocalypse or Holocaust
astrobiology
Biopunk
biorobotics
Clockpunk
Communalness
Cybernetic revolt
Cyberspace
cyborg
Coming of Age
Cosy catastrophe
Cyberpunk
Cyberprep
Dieselpunk
Edisonade
Extraterrestrial life
First Contact
Genetic Enginering
Hard Science Fiction
Hollow Earth
Hyperspace
Light
Military
Multiverse
Mundane
New-wave
Parallel universe
Post-Apocalyptic
Post-cyberpunk
Post-Holocaust
Retro-futurism
robotic
Social
soft
Space Opera
steampunk
spy-fi
superhero
Time travel
Voyages Extraordinaires
Wetware computer

3. horror
Big monsters
creepy kid
classic monsters: Devil/ demons, ghost, lycanthropic, mummy, vampire, zombie
extreme (or gore or splatterpunk)
gothic
Haunting
Insanity
Lovecraftian
Noir
Quiet
psychological
Satanic or occult
slasher
Surreal
Suspense
Visceral
Witches or Warlocks

D. crossover (Sub-sub-genres: subgenres that can be used by more than one spec-fic subgenre.)
Alternate history
Comic
Dark
Dwarfpunk
Dystopian
Elfpunk
Erotic
Gothic
Heroic
High
Immortality
Japanese
Juvenile
Low
Lycanthropic
Mannerpunk
Mythic
Philosophical
Psychic or mind control
Religious
Romantic
Science-fantasy: sword & planet, dying Earth
Superhero
Supernatural
Utopian
Weird or Pulp



Faith,
Frank Creed--award winning novelist and founder of the Lost Genre Guild

lostgenreguild.com/
frankcreed.com/
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afrankreview.blogspot.com/

War of Attrition: Book Two of the Underground
Into the Underground: The Role Playing Game

[Jeff Gerke]

What about paranormal (and/or paranormal romance)?

What about Arthurian fantasy?

Interesting list.

[torainfor]

Where would Quinton Tarantino fall? I guess Kill Bill would fall under splatterpunk (new one to me), but I thought the movies were so over the top they were actually funny.

Or does that say more about me...?

[Frank Creed]

Thanks, Jeff. Sword Opera, Sword & Planet, and Paranormal added. Big Monster moved to crossover (Godzilla was sci-fi).
If you spend an entire Sunday making such a list, you may be a genre fan.

I cleaned the list up: here's the newest version:

Anatomy of Speculative Fiction

A.Spec Fic
1. fantasy
2. sci-fi
3. horror
4. crossover sub-genres
1. fantasy

Bangsian
Contemporary or Urban
Dark Fantasy
Fairytale
High
Historical fantasy: Celtic Fantasy, Wuxia, Historical high fantasy, Medieval fantasy
Light Fantasy
Low
magic realism
traditional Fantasy
sword and sorcery
Sword opera


2. sci-fi

AI
alien invasion
apocalyptic
Apocalypse or Holocaust
astrobiology
Biopunk
biorobotics
Clockpunk
Communalness
Cybernetic revolt
Cyberspace
cyborg
Coming of Age
Cosy catastrophe
Cyberpunk
Cyberprep
Dieselpunk
Edisonade
Extraterrestrial life
First Contact
Genetic Engineering
Hard Science Fiction
Hollow Earth
Hyperspace
Light
Military
Multiverse
Mundane
New-wave
Parallel universe
Post-Apocalyptic
Post-cyberpunk
Post-Holocaust
Retro-futurism
robotic
Social
soft
Space Opera
steampunk
spy-fi
sword & planet
Time travel
Voyages Extraordinaires
Wetware computer


3. horror

creepy kid
classic monsters: Devil/ demons, ghost, lycanthropic, mummy, vampire, zombie
extreme or gore or splatterpunk
gothic
Haunting
Insanity
Lovecraftian
Noir
Quiet
psychological
Satanic or occult
slasher
Surreal
Suspense
Visceral
Witches or Warlocks


D. crossover (Sub-sub-genres: subgenres that can be used by more than one spec-fic subgenre.)

Alternate history
Big monsters
Comic
Dark
Dwarfpunk
Dystopian
Elfpunk
Erotic
Gothic
Heroic
High
Immortality
Japanese
Juvenile
Low
Lycanthropic
Mannerpunk
Mythic
Paranormal
Philosophical
Psychic or mind control
Religious
Romance
Science-fantasy: sword & planet, dying Earth
Superhero
Supernatural
Utopian
Weird or Pulp
Western
Who-done-it

[Frank Creed]

I love the Quentin Tarantino style films with their dark too-silly action. My favorite is Robert Rodriguez Desperado.
I consider whatever you call that to be an action sub-genre, and Pulp Fiction is an understatement. What y'all think?

Faith,
f

frankcreed.com

[lexkx]

This is great! Let me know when you come up with an index, cross-referenced and data treed, so I can plug-and-play my library.

[Therin]

Excellent and exhaustive list... do you think you could throw in some definitions? Cuz some of those are definitely off the map Some examples would also be nice...
Also, throw in clockpunk next to or under steampunk, but do those really belong in the sci-fi section, not the fantasy one?

[Frank Creed]

I like clock & Steam punk together. Last night I thought of thought-crime.
In the Lost Genre Guild private newsgroup, Grace Bridges asked if I planned on including definitions within this list. All art is subjective, but when you mix religious, philisophic, social, and political aspects to literary art, there will be debate about genre definitions. There's debate at the Ray-Gun-Revival boards that I'm including themes as genres, but once there are a gaggle of books written, that's one way a genre begins.
In addition, some of the newer genres are still being defined. The best thing to do is string together your terms, for example 'Christian who-done-ti-fantasy', and see what Googles on any specific day.


I'd like to ask advice here. What do you think of this comment from Rimworlder at the RGR boards:
"Change your hierarchy to reflect the proper relationships:

A. Science Fiction
1. Sci Fi
2. Spec Fic
3. fantasy
4. horror

Unless you insist on believing that speculative fiction is NOT the literary equivalent of writing science fiction while not calling it that... "

This would have been true decades ago, but today, spec-fic is the market's umbrella term, no?
Thanks.

Faith,
f

[mongoose]

That's like calling "Fantasy," "Science Fiction" or vice versus. "Speculative Fiction," I thought, was a newer term, but clearly both science and fantasy are speculative. In fact, most fiction is probably speculative in some way or another. So umbrella or not, it's definitely broader than science fiction.

[Therin]

Sept 16, 2008 12:06:03 GMT -5 Frank Creed said:

I like clock & Steam punk together.

Yeah, me too. My own steampunk actually has a lot of clockpunk in it. But I remember looking at the genre list on wikipedia, and they were listed seperately (or one over the other... can't remember). I don't think it really matters though.

I have come across both Sci-fi and Fantasy people claiming that the other genre is just a sub-division of their own. Go figure...

[Frank Creed]

Here's the explanation:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skiffy

I cannot believe I've been a sci-fi fan my whole life and have never heard of this debate before now. I admit that I was thinkin' this rimworlder fellow must have been reading George MacDonald's works when they were new releases.

When my daughter was about seven years old and began enjoying hockey, I told her it used to be televised when I was a kid, and I loved it too. When the NHL stopped airing games, they lost me as a fan. My daughter replied "Oh, get over it Dad!"

This is my sentiment on the skiffy debate. Even B-rate films have decent special effects these days!

Faith,
f
_________________
To God be the glory,
Frank Creed--novelist and founder of the Lost Genre Guild

www.frankcreed.com
www.lostgenreguild.com

[pixydust]

Clocks?

This is an exhaustive list alright. I'm exhausted just looking at it.

I put my spec books in three catagories:

1. Amazing!
2. Over-the-top weird and confusing
3. Good but not worth reading again.



My brain is too small to fit anything more...lol.

[mongoose]

Someone said that in military briefings, there's three kinds of information:
1. Need to know.
2. Want to know.
3. Who cares? (usually with some kind of strong language included)

I never even heard of these multiple kinds of "punk" or of any one of them until I came here. I guess my list would be similar to the one used in the Generas topic, though I'd combine a couple of them. But then, you did set out to write an exhaustive list of the sub-sub generas. Was it fun? ;-)

[lexkx]

In my wild youth, I was a student of library science. One of my favorite exercises asked of us during the study course was to organize anything you like into a cross-referenceable data tree. It was required to be detailed because we were supposed to prepare for all eventualities, and all entries had a set of labels beside them (these indicated whether they were parent or child categories, if they had siblings, and if they could be put in another category but were here for convenience sake). Shoes were a popular example to use, because most of the class was female and what woman doesn’t understand the importance of footwear? So, there were broad categories like “sports” and “dressy” and these eventually lead to more specific branches like “Nike hightops” or “six-inch spiked heels with ankle straps.” The latter even had to be subdivided into color categories (not always necessary), because such shoes only come in three colors—black, red, and jungle print. A general classification like “scary black shoes” is easy to understand, but hard to define. Are the heels stacked or low? Buckles or stitching? Define the shape of the toe? The point was to have an individual, specific word for each article and classification, and furthermore to only use it once. Anticipating the user’s definitions and thought process was built into the exercise.

I love this list. For many of the same reasons as the above example. Speculative fiction is such a fluid genre of fiction. Partly, I think, because it is bound only by the imagination, and imagination can wander into wildly different directions and still be “speculative.” I disagree with the argument that sci-fi should be categorized by priority, because I think that increases the confusion rather than simplifies it. And yet because speculative fiction is so subjective, universal truths and concrete definitions are so hard to pin down.

[torainfor]

That's my job right now--taking a catalogue of cabinets from a manufacturer's line and organizing them into a heirarchical (sorry about the spelling; I'm using Explorer at work, not my Firefox at home) file and folder arrangement. Should the open base cabinet be classified as just a regular cabinet without doors? Or as a bookshelf? Should the 12" wall cabinets be specially labeled because of their unique usage over a refrigerator. Or should they be grouped with the other wall cabs?

Trying to set up a system wherein your boss can easily and quickly find the 36" base cab with the lazy susan is one thing. Labeling art is another. Sometimes I think it's really dangerous to give something a name. Realize a friend is "prickly" and how do you get that out of your head the next time you see her? On the other hand, the first job God gave Adam was to name the animals.

Still, to some degree, it's just for convenience sake. I'm reading a novel based on an Arthur C. Clarke short story. In it is a descendent of genetically engineered, six-legged, highly philosophical racoons. That's Sci-Fi--the genetic engineering makes it so. Zip on over to Donita's books and read about Sir Dar. He's fantasy, because he was created by the world's God.