Genres 101: The Recap

We’ve had many great discussions in our virtual classroom here over the past little while, so I thought it was time to recap all of our topics before the final exam….okay, just kidding, there’s no test! But, in case you missed any, here’s what we’ve talked about to date:

FantasyHorrorPunkDystopian and Apocalyptic FictionScience FictionOccupational FictionHistorical FictionErotic FictionHumourWomen’s FictionReligious FictionWeird Names for GenresWestern FictionMysteryPhilosophical FictionLiterary FictionAdventure Novels

Wow! We really have covered lots of ground. Of course, within each link, there are sub-genres too. With so many more books being published, in whatever form (hard copy or ebook), there are many more crossovers happening to. Is this a complete list of genres? Considering the crossover idea, probably not. What I ask today is: have we missed anything really big, …

Genres 101: Today’s Lesson – The Adventure Novel

I turned on the TV one day and found the film The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus was playing. Unfortunately, it was more than halfway through already but as I was discussing The Night Circus with Mel at He Followed Me Home, I was mentioning that the premise of the book reminded me of the movie. When I started looking in Adventure literature, the subgenre of Imaginary Voyage, set today’s post in motion.

While adventure novels could be included in SciFi or Paranormal or many other genres with their content, they have a certain aspect that defines them in this category: action. For me, when I think adventure, I think pirates and the high seas. But this is only one type of adventure novel among a few variations. Let’s take a look:The Epic adventure …

Romance and Me: Military Romance

Today I’m here to tell you a secret. Last week I was in a crazy frenzy. You know the kind when all you can think about is how fantastic a story was and you keep thinking about it long after it finished.

Want to know what started it? I read a novel which opened my eyes and made me discover a whole new world of romance stories: the military romance subgenre!

And after my crazy enthusiasm for said novel I went on a Goodreads rampage and searched for hours and hours becoming more and more enthralled by all the wonderful novels and series I found in the genre! Who knew military romance existed? And that it was so mindblowingly great?

If you think the military romance subgenre can be swept under the “romantic suspense” category you are mistaken. This is so much more than that! Let me tell you why…

I have always loved novels and movies …

Genres 101: Today’s Lesson ‘Literary Fiction"

The question of what exactly is literary fiction has been circling around me a few times recently, and while I attempted to come up with a reasonable answer (it’s for smart people), I had to admit, I had no clue what the main difference is.

More frequently, I’ve been hearing about the loss of literary fiction reviewers/bloggers. More and more we are seeing genre fiction (also aptly named “popular fiction”) on blogging sites. I recently found this article that talks about literary authors turning to genre to sell books. So I ask: what is it about literary fiction that is making this happen?Let’s go back to my silly definition, “it’s for smart people” as a starting point. Genre fiction can sometimes also be referred to …

Genres 101: Today’s Lesson – Philosophical Fiction

It is getting increasingly harder to find genres we haven’t talked about yet, so for today, I had originally planned to take a look at the origins of books/literature, going back to Ancient Greece as a starting point. But in starting to look into it, I found another topic we haven’t covered yet that was, in some ways, related to novel beginnings. I decided, instead, to take a look at Philosophical Fiction and its cohorts.

Starting from that time in Ancient Greece, when dramas were performed, modern ideas of politics and philosophy were ingrained in the performances. They usually were created for the Dionysus Festivals and were a pretty big deal back then. The fact that a place was set in the theatre as an alter or seating area left specifically for Dionysus, one of the Greek Gods, shows how important the theological aspects were …

Genres 101: "It was a dark and stormy night…" (Today’s Lesson: Mystery)

As far back as I can remember, I have been a huge fan of mysteries. I mean, I always wanted to learn the rest of that story Snoopy wrote with the first line, “It was a dark and stormy night…” You just knew things were going to get good from there, right? From comics to novels, I quickly moved on in reading material but each year I still buy at least one book (ok, I’m grossly under estimating) that would be considered “Mystery”.

It’s easy to limit the category to that one title but mystery has many facets and seems to be growing in content as our world is changing. Examples of this type of novel appear in the early 1800’s but it is the master himself, the most familiar name, worldwide, that helped to …

Genres 101: Westward, Ho! (Today’s lesson – Western Fiction)

In the last lesson, we hit on some strangely named genres. One in particular, Cowpunk, got me thinking about a type of novel that I know very little about: Westerns. Westerns have been a  big draw when it comes to movie making or television series’ but is the same thing true about their bookish counterparts? It hasn’t been for me, that’s for sure, though  maybe I’m just being a little too prejudice (I also wildly dislike country music!). It’s time I open up my world (and yours!) and see what’s out there; what may in fact be great literature but I’ve (we’ve?) just been too stubborn to read.The Western novel is a relatively new form of book, considering it deals with the “New …

Genres 101: Today’s Lesson – Say WHAT?

We’ve covered a lot of the popular genres in these posts, so I thought it was time to take a look at something a little different: weird genres or, more correctly weird genre names. As  I browse the net looking for source material and inspiration, I often come across literary “styles” that I’ve never heard of and, quite frankly, question the actual existence of. Here are some the genres that have made me ask, “Say what?!” (I’m going to link the source page at each unusual name)

Creepy Kids – “Creepy kids horror is defined by its name. Horror mavens have said that children are mysterious strangers coming into the world–and this subgenre takes that unspoken worry and runs with it. Stephen King’s short story and film Children of the Corn are straightforward examples. Many others, such as Richard Donner’s film The Omen, involve a child who …

Genres 101: Today’s Lesson Religious Fiction

I’m not a religious person, to say the least, but this has never stopped me from reading any type of book, regardless of its designation. In fact, it often surprises me as I’m reading a new author to find a religious element within the story. The thing within my own mind, though, is the stereotype I often associate with this type of literature: the preachiness of it all. Thankfully, this is very rarely the case when we’re talking about fiction. The ‘lessons’ seem to come in a more subtle form, with the ‘human condition’ as the whole point of a story, and the associated moralities displayed through the action and characters.

So, off I went to my first stop for research (and by now, I should really know better): Wiki. This time, I found  Wiki’s …

Genres 101: Today’s Lesson – Women’s Fiction

I received an interesting e-mail the other day, asking if I’d like to review a book that was classified as “flit-lit”. It has been at the tip of my fingers for the last several Genres 101 posts to write about, well, let’s start off by referring to it by my main title of “women’s fiction”, but I kept hesitating, thinking there really couldn’t be all that much to talk about. Of course, the e-mail I mention just proves me wrong; offering another subgenre to what is probably a pretty huge list of them. But how different can, say, Chick-lit (the term we’re probably all most familiar with) be from Hen lit? Well, let’s delve in and see…

First to mention is the Romance Novel. This novel has some illustrious roots, with Jane Austen, then Georgette Heyer …