Up in the sky! It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s…well, it’s a Sky Shark, but we will ignore it for the time being and pretend it’s Superman to go along with today’s entry. Superhero fiction is somewhat unique among
Subgenre Study: Fairy Tale Fantasy
Once upon a time, there was a writer who wrote a writing/reading/scifi/fantasy blog, and she and her pet Landsquid and the Landsquid’s nemesis the Alpaca all decided to go to a coffee shop to get some peppermint mochas. All seemed
Subgenre Study: Military Science Fiction
A fairly major subgenre of science fiction is military science fiction. I bet you can name at least one book or movie in this subgenre off the top of your head. Starship Troopers. Ender’s Game. The Forever War. Military SF,
Subgenre Study: High and Low Fantasy
Today we will be looking at High and Low Fantasy and the confusion surrounding the terminology. It has nothing to do with how good the stories are (Eragon, for example, is high fantasy but most would argue not high quality)
Subgenre Study: Off-world Fantasy
Most fantasy can be divided into either real-world or off-world fantasy (sometimes called second world fantasy). The distinction is obvious: real-world fantasy takes place in the “real world” (so most urban and contemporary fantasy, as well as things like historical
Subgenre Study: Dystopia/Apocalyptic Fiction
This week on Subgenre Study, we will be looking at the seemingly-increasingly popular subgenre of Dystopia, or Apocalyptic Fiction. This is a subgenre of science fiction that takes place anywhere from the near to far future which portrays a bleak
Subgenre Study: Sword and Sorcery
GUYS I got to touch an ALPACA. Although it was fairly bad-tempered. I may let you see when I finish photoshopping twisty evil moustaches on the pictures. Anyway, on to the topic at hand. Sword and Sorcery is perhaps the
Subgenre Study: Fantasy Romance
This one’s a bit on the edge, Squiders. One could argue that this is a subgenre of romance rather than a subgenre of fantasy (and some argue that Romantic Fantasy is the proper name). You may be confused. A lot
Subgenre Study: Hard Science Fiction
Science fiction can be divided into two subsections: hard and soft science fiction. Hard scifi is focused on the actual “science” part of science fiction and is much more interested in maintaining scientific accuracy than other subgenres. Hard science fiction
Subgenre Study: Urban Fantasy
Urban fantasy is so pervasive these days that I mentally divide fantasy into urban fantasy and everything else. Like the other subgenres we’ve discussed, its definition is a bit fluid. Wikipedia says it doesn’t matter what time period the story is
