We’ve been going through genre conventions at my storycraft meetings, Squiders. We were supposed to do all three speculative fiction genres at a single meeting–horror, science fiction, and fantasy–but we started with horror and two hours later were still happily
Is it Worth it to Know About Sub-genres?
If you’ve been around here for awhile, Squiders, you remember we spent about a year going through different science fiction and fantasy subgenres. As might be expected from going through such an activity, I sometimes find myself being really particular
The Differences Between Urban and Contemporary Fantasy
As we touched on just barely during the Subgenre Study, while many people consider urban and contemporary fantasy to be synonymous, they’re not actually. Examples! Story 1 takes place in modern times in a major city. The story is both
Where Has All the Hard Science Fiction Gone?
So, I recently finished reading Inherit the Stars by James P. Hogan, a hard science fiction novel from 1985. We talked about some of the things that were a little bit jarring a few weeks ago in the Old Science
Trek vs. Wars and Why It Is Silly
Among nerd circles, you run into rivalries between various fandoms or ships or theories. One of the most persistent is the Star Trek versus Star Wars one. (In the interest of full disclosure, I hung out in a Trek-related community
Subgenre Study: Mythic Fantasy
Ah, mythic fantasy, where Gods walk the Earth (or…not-Earth), where heroes are born, and where magic imbues the world around us. A simplistic definition is that mythic fantasy is fantasy that weaves mythology into the world. Usually each story focuses
Subgenre Study: Comedic Fantasy
Like we talked about a few weeks ago, comedic fantasy is a subgenre that can be combined with other subgenres. It defines the tone, not the setting, location, etc. You can have comedic epic fantasy, comedic urban fantasy, or even
Subgenre Study: Quest Fantasy
I would argue that this is not a subgenre, but apparently in some circles it is considered one, so here we are. I would say that the Quest is a plot point, not a subgenre, but I suppose it is
Subgenre Study: Historical Fantasy
Hello? Hello? Hey, is this thing on? If you have managed to stumble here on this, the most commercial of days, I hope that if you ventured outside into the consumerism that you met nice, friendly people full of holiday
Sungenre Study: Arthurian Fantasy
Arthurian Fantasy can be considered a subgenre of the subgenre of Mythic Fantasy (how’s that for getting somewhat meta?). Mythic Fantasy (which we have yet to get to), involves weaving mythological elements into a story’s world or plot. Arthurian Fantasy
