List of genres

Genre is the term for any category of creative work, which includes literature and other forms of art or entertainment (e.g. music)—whether written or spoken, audio or visual—based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time as new genres are invented and the use of old ones are discontinued. Often, works fit into multiple genres by way of borrowing and recombining these conventions
== Literary genres ==
===Absurdist/Surreal/Whimsical===
Absurdist and surreal fiction challenges casual and rudimentary reasoning and even the most basic purposefulness found within life. There is often, though not always, a connection to comedy.
The whimsical genre has to do with a sense of eccentric or quirky humor. Related styles exaggerate real life in a whimsical, eccentric, quirky or fanciful way, sometimes.
The absurdist genre focuses on the experiences of characters in situations where they cannot find any inherent purpose in life, most often represented by ultimately meaningless actions and events that call into question the certainty of existential concepts such as truth or value.
The closely related/overlapping surreal genre is predicated on deliberate violations of causality, producing events and behaviours that are obviously illogical. Constructions of surreal humour tend to involve bizarre juxtapositions, non-sequiturs, irrational or absurd situations and expressions of nonsense. Whimsical and related styles are exemplified by films such as Underground, Amélie, Micmacs, and Dieta Mediterranea ('Mediterranean Food').
===Action===
An action story is similar to adventure, and the protagonist usually takes a risky turn, which leads to desperate situations (including explosions, fight scenes, daring escapes, etc.). Action and adventure are usually categorized together (sometimes even as "action-adventure") because they have much in common, and many stories fall under both genres simultaneously (for instance, the James Bond series can be classified as both).
* Military fiction: A story about a war or battle that can either be historical or fictional. It usually follows the events a certain warrior goes through during the battle's events.
* Spy fiction: A story about a secret agent (spy) or military personnel member who is sent on an espionage mission. Usually, they are equipped with special gadgets that prove useful during the mission, and they have special training in things such as unarmed combat or computer hacking. They may or may not work for a specific government.
===Adventure===
An adventure story is about a protagonist who journeys to epic or distant places to accomplish something. It can have many other genre elements included within it, because it is a very open genre. The protagonist has a mission and faces obstacles to get to their destination. Also, adventure stories usually include unknown settings and characters with prized properties or features.
* Superhero fiction: A story that examines the adventures of costumed crime fighters known as superheroes, who often possess superhuman powers and battle similarly powered criminals, known as "supervillains".
===Comedy===
Comedy is a story that tells about a series of funny, or comical events, intended to make the audience laugh. It is a very open genre, and thus crosses over with many other genres on a frequent basics.
* Comedy of manners: A work that satirizes the manners and affectations of a social class, often represented by stock characters. The plot of the comedy is often concerned with an illicit love affair or some other scandal, but is generally less important than its witty dialogue. This form of comedy has a long ancestry, dating back at least as far as Shakespeare's Much Ado about Nothing.
* Humorous: Fiction full of fun, fancy, and excitement. Meant to entertain.
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line follows the "boy-gets-girl", "boy-loses-girl", "boy gets girl back again" sequence. Naturally, there are innumerable variants to this plot (as well as new twists, such as reversing the gender roles in the story), and much of the generally lighthearted comedy lies in the social interactions and sexual tension between the characters, who very often either refuse to admit they are attracted to one another or must deal with others' meddling in their affairs.
* Comic fantasy: A subgenre of fantasy that is primarily humorous in intent and tone. Usually set in imaginary worlds, comic fantasy often includes puns on and parodies of other works of fantasy. It is sometimes known as low fantasy in contrast to high fantasy, which is primarily serious in intent and tone. The term "low fantasy" is also used to represent other types of fantasy, so while comic fantasies may also correctly be classified as low fantasy, many examples of low fantasy are not comic in nature.
* Black comedy (aka dark comedy): A parody or satirical story that is based on normally tragic or taboo subjects, including death, murder, suicide, illicit drugs, and war. So-called "dead baby comedy" sometimes falls under this genre.
* Comic science fiction: A comedy that uses science fiction elements or settings, often as a lighthearted (or occasionally vicious) parody of the latter genre.
* Satire: Often strictly defined as a literary genre or form, though in practice it is also found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony, or other methods, ideally with the intent to bring about improvement. Satire is usually meant to be funny, but its purpose is not primarily humour as an attack on something the author disapproves of, using wit. A common, almost defining feature of satire is its strong vein of irony or sarcasm, but parody, burlesque, exaggeration, juxtaposition, comparison, analogy, and double entendre all frequently appear in satirical speech and writing. The essential point, is that "in satire, irony is militant;" this "militant irony" (i.e., sarcasm) often professes to approve (or at least accept as natural) the very things the satirist actually wishes to attack.
===Crime and mystery===
A crime story is often about a crime that is being committed or was committed, but can also be an account of a criminal's life. A mystery story follows an investigator as they attempt to solve a puzzle (often a crime). The details and clues are presented as the story continues and the protagonist discovers them and by the end of the story the mystery is solved. For example, in the case of a crime mystery, the perpetrator and motive behind the crime are revealed and the perpetrator is brought to justice. Mystery novels are often written in series, which facilitates a more in-depth development of the primary investigator.
* Cozy mysteries
* Detective story: A story about a detective or person, either professional or amateur, who has to solve a crime that was committed. They must figure out who committed the crime and why. Sometimes, the detective must figure out 'how' the criminal committed the crime if it seems impossible.
** Whodunit: This is a complex, plot-driven variety of the detective story in which the audience is given the opportunity to engage in the same process of deduction as the protagonist throughout the investigation of a crime. The reader or viewer is provided with the clues from which the identity of the perpetrator may be deduced before the story provides the revelation itself at its climax. The investigation is usually conducted by an eccentric amateur or semi-professional detective.
* Gentleman thief: Centers around particularly well-behaving and apparently well-bred thieves. They rarely bother with anonymity or force, preferring to rely on their charisma, physical attractiveness, and clever misdirection to steal the most unobtainable objectssometimes for their own support, but mostly for the thrill of the act itself.
* Gong'an fiction: A subgenre of historical crime fiction that involves government magistrates who solve criminal cases.
*Legal thriller: This subgenre of thriller and crime fiction presents stories in which the major characters are lawyers, judges, and/or their employees. Examples include Primal Fear (1993) and Blood Defense (2016).
*Locked-room mysteries
* Murder mystery: A mystery story that focuses on homicides. Usually, the detective must figure out who killed one or several victims. They may or may not find themselves or loved ones in danger because of this investigation. The genre often includes elements of the suspense story genre, or of the action and adventure genres.
*Noir fiction
**Hardboiled: This is a literary genre sharing the setting with crime fiction (especially detective stories). Though deriving from the romantic tradition—which emphasized the emotions of apprehension, horror and terror, and awe—hardboiled fiction deviates from the tradition in the detective's cynical attitude towards those emotions. The attitude is conveyed through the detective's self-talk describing to the reader what he is doing and feeling.
===Fantasy===
A fantasy story is about magic or supernatural forces, as opposed to technology as seen in science fiction. Depending on the extent of these other elements, the story may or may not be considered to be a "hybrid genre" series; for instance, even though the Harry Potter series canon includes the requirement of a particular gene to be a wizard, it is referred to only as a fantasy series.
* Bangsian: A fantasy subgenre that concerns the use of famous literary or historical individuals and their interactions in the afterlife. It is named for John Kendrick Bangs, who often wrote in this genre.
* Contemporary fantasy (aka modern fantasy or indigenous fantasy): A subgenre of fantasy, set in the present day. These are used to describe stories set in the putative real world (often referred to as consensus reality) in contemporary times, in which magic and magical creatures exist, either living in the interstices of our world or leaking over from alternate worlds.
** Urban fantasy: A subgenre of fantasy defined by place; the fantastic narrative has an urban setting. Many urban fantasies are set in contemporary times and contain supernatural elements. However, the stories can take place in historical, modern, or futuristic periods, as well as fictional settings. The prerequisite is that they must be primarily set in a city.
* Dark fantasy: A subgenre of fantasy that can refer to literary, artistic, and filmic works that combine fantasy with elements of horror. The term can be used broadly to refer to fantastical works that have a dark, gloomy atmosphere or a sense of horror and dread and a dark, often brooding, tone.
* Fables: A type of narration demonstrating a useful truth. Animals speak as humans, legendary, supernatural tale.
* Fairy tales: A literary genre about various magical creatures, environments, et cetera. Many fairy tales are generally targeted for children.
* Hard fantasy: Fantasy where the world and its magical elements are constructed in a logical and rational manner.
* Epic/High fantasy: Mythical stories with highly developed characters and story lines. Examples include Malazan Book of the Fallen and The Lord of the Rings.
* Heroic fantasy: Subgenre of fantasy that chronicles the tales of heroes in imaginary lands. Frequently, the protagonist is reluctant to be a champion, is of low or humble origin, and has royal ancestors or parents but does not know it. Though events are usually beyond their control, they are thrust into positions of great responsibility where their mettle is tested in a number of spiritual and physical challenges.
* Historical fantasy: A category of fantasy and genre of historical fiction that incorporates fantastic elements (such as magic) into the historical narrative.
* Legends: Stories, oftentimes of a national hero or other folk figure, which have a basis in fact, but also contain imaginative material.
* LitRPG or Isekai: A world that resembles a table-top or computer RPG, usually with ranks or levels in universe. Isekai, in particular, means the protagonist is sent or reincarnated in a game with knowledge and memories of the real world.
* Magical girl: Popular in Japan, this subgenre is of girls who use magic in either their training, idol stardom, or even to fight evil.
* Magic realism (aka magical realism): literary works where magical events form part of ordinary life. The reader is forced to accept that abnormal events such as levitation, telekinesis and talking with the dead take place in the real world. The writer does not invent a new world or describe in great detail new creatures, as is usual in Fantasy; on the contrary, the author abstains from explaining the fantastic events to avoid making them feel extraordinary. It is often regarded as a genre exclusive to Latin American literature, but some of its chief exponents include English authors. One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Márquez, who received the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature, is considered the genre's seminal work of style.
*Mythic fiction: Literature that is rooted in, inspired by, or that in some way draws from the tropes, themes and symbolism of myth, folklore, and fairy tales."A Mythic Fiction Reading List", The Journal of Mythic Arts The term is widely credited to Charles de Lint and Terri Windling. Mythic fiction overlaps with urban fantasy and the terms are sometimes used interchangeably, but mythic fiction also includes contemporary works in non-urban settings. Mythic fiction refers to works of contemporary literature that often cross the divide between literary and fantasy fiction.
* Science fantasy: A story with mystical elements that are scientifically explainable, or that combine science fiction elements with fantasy elements. (Note that science fiction was once referred to by this name, but that it no longer denotes that genre, and has somewhat fallen out of favor as a genre descriptor.)
** Sword and planet: A subgenre of science fantasy that features rousing adventure stories set on other planets, and usually featuring Earthmen as protagonists. There is a fair amount of overlap between "sword and planet" and the "planetary romance" subgenre of sci-fi, though some works are considered to belong to one and not the other. In general, the latter is considered to be more of a "space opera" subgenre, influenced by the likes of A Princess of Mars yet more modern and technologically savvy, while "sword and planet" more directly imitates the conventions established by Burroughs in the Barsoom series.
** Dying Earth: A subgenre of science fantasy that takes place either at the end of life on Earth or the end of time, when the laws of the universe themselves fail. More generally, the Dying Earth subgenre encompasses science fiction works set in the far distant future in a milieu of stasis or decline. Themes that tend to predominate this genre include those of world-weariness, innocence (wounded or otherwise), idealism, entropy, (permanent) exhaustion/depletion of many or all resources (such as soil nutrients), and the hope of renewal.
** Gaslamp fantasy: Fantasy's counterpart to steampunk, in which the settings are often Victorian or Edwardian socially or technologically, but with non-scientific elements or characters included. 
* Shenmo: A genre of fantasy that revolves around the gods and monsters of Chinese mythology.
* Sword and sorcery: A blend of heroic fantasy, adventure, and frequent elements of the horrific in which a mighty barbaric warrior hero is pitted against both human and supernatural adversaries. Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Cimmerian, Kull of Atlantis, the Pictish king Bran Mak Morn, et cetera, is generally acknowledged as the founder of the genre, chiefly through his writings for Weird Tales and other 1920s/30s pulp magazines.
===Historical===
A story about a real person or event. There are also some fiction works that purport to be the "memoirs" of fictional characters as well, done in a similar style, however, these are in a separate genre. Often, they are written in a text book format, which may or may not focus on solely that.
* Biography: The details of the life story of a real person, told by someone else.
** Autobiography: Essentially the same as a biography, with the exception that the story is written by the person who is the subject of the story.
** Memoir: Similar to autobiography, with the exception that it is told more "from memory", i.e. it is how the person personally remembers and feels about their life or a stage in their life, more than the exact, recorded details of that period. Though memoirs are often more subjective than autobiography works, memoirs are generally still considered to be nonfiction works.
==== Historical fiction ====
The historical fiction genre includes stories that are about the past. It takes place in the real world, with real world people, but with several fictionalized or dramatized elements. To distinguish historical fiction from any fiction that is written about an era in the past, the criteria that the book must have been written about a time that occurred in a historical context in relation to the author of the book. The criteria that the story be set before the middle of the previous century is sometimes added. Historical fiction stories include historical details and includes characters that fit into the time period of the setting, whether or not they are real historical people. This may or may not crossover with other genres; for example, fantasy fiction or science fiction may play a part, as is the case for instance with the novel George Washington's Socks, which includes time travel elements.
* Alternate history: A more extreme variant of historical fiction that posits a "what if" scenario in which some historical event occurs differently (or not at all), thus altering the course of history; for instance, "What if Nazi Germany had won World War II?" is an alternate history concept that has had treatment in fiction, such as in The Man in the High Castle (1962). Alternate History is sometimes (though not universally) referred to as a subgenre of science fiction or speculative fiction, and like historical fiction, may include more fantastical elements (e.g., the Temeraire series uses the fantasy element of dragons to create an Alternate History plot set during the Napoleonic Era).
** Counterfactual history (aka virtual history): This is a recent form of historiography that attempts to answer counterfactual "what if" questions. It seeks to explore history and historical incidents by means of extrapolating a timeline in which certain key historical events did not happen or had a different outcome. This exercise ascertains the relative importance of the event, incident or person the counter-factual hypothesis negates.
* Period piece: This type features historical places, people, or events that may or not be crucial to the story. Because history is merely used as a backdrop, it may be fictionalized to various degrees, but the story itself may be regarded as "outside" history. Genres within this category are often regarded as significant categories in themselves.
** Jidaigeki: A story usually set in the Edo period of Japanese history, from 1603 to 1868.
===Horror===
A horror story is told to deliberately scare or frighten the audience, through suspense, violence or shock. H. P. Lovecraft distinguishes two primary varieties in the "Introduction" to Supernatural Horror in Literature: 1) Physical Fear or the "mundanely gruesome;" and 2) the true Supernatural Horror story or the "Weird Tale." The supernatural variety is occasionally called "dark fantasy," since the laws of nature must be violated in some way, thus qualifying the story as "fantastic."
* Ghost story: A story about the intrusion of the spirits of the dead into the realm of the living. There are subgenres: The Traditional Haunting, Poltergeists, The Haunted Place or Object (i.e. the hotel in Stephen King's The Shining), or the etching in "The Mezzotint" by M. R. James,"The Mezzotint" etc. Some would include stories of Revenants such as "The Monkey's Paw" by W. W. Jacobs."The Monkey's Paw."
* Monster: A story about a monster, creature, or mutant that terrorizes people. Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein is an example of a story with a monstrous "creature" (Frankenstein is often also considered the first science fiction story, in that it depicts biological science reanimating the dead). Other clear Monster stories are of the creatures of folklore and fable: the Ghoul, the Werewolf, and the Zombie.
**Vampire literature: A story about vampires, reanimated bodies that feed on the blood of the living, based on European folklore. Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897) created many of the genre's conventions.
* Jiangshi fiction: Stories about jiangshi, the hopping corpses under the control of Taoist priests derived from Chinese literature and folklore.
* Occult stories: Stories that touch upon the adversaries of Good, especially the "Enemies" of the forces of righteousness as expressed in any given religious philosophy. Hence, stories of devils, demons, demonic possession, dark witchcraft, evil sorcerers or warlocks, and figures like the Antichrist would qualify. The nature of such stories presupposes the existence of the side of Good and the existence of a deity to be opposed to the forces of Evil.
* Survival horror: A horror story about a protagonist in a risky and life-threatening situation that they must endure, often as a result of things such as zombies or other monsters, and the rest of the plot is how the main characters overcome this.
===Romance===
The term romance has multiple meanings; for example, historical romances like those of Walter Scott would use the term to mean "a fictitious narrative in prose or verse; the interest of which turns upon marvellous and uncommon incidents."Walter Scott, "Essay on Romance" (Prose Works, vol. VI), p. 129, as quoted in Scott, Walter. 1992. "Introduction." In Quentin Durward, edited by S. Maning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Most often, however, a romance is understood to be "love stories," emotion-driven stories that are primarily focused on the relationship between the main characters of the story. Beyond the focus on the relationship, the biggest defining characteristic of the romance genre is that a happy ending is always guaranteed, perhaps marriage and living "happily ever after," or simply that the reader sees hope for the future of the romantic relationship.
Due to the wide definition of romance, romance stories cover a wide variety of subjects and often fall into other genre categories in addition to romance. For instance, subgenres include romantic suspense and medical romance, as found in novels by Lucilla Andrews.
===Satire===
In satire, human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony, or other methods, ideally with the intent to bring about improvement.
Satire is usually meant to be funny, but its purpose is not primarily humour as an attack on something the author disapproves of, using wit. A common, almost defining feature of satire is its strong vein of irony or sarcasm, but parody, burlesque, exaggeration, juxtaposition, comparison, analogy, and double entendre all frequently appear in satirical speech and writing. The essential point, is that "in satire, irony is militant." This "militant irony" (or sarcasm) often professes to approve (or at least accept as natural) the very things the satirist actually wishes to attack.
Often strictly defined as a literary genre or form, though in practice it is also found in the graphic and performing arts.
===Science fiction===
Science fiction is similar to fantasy, except stories in this genre use scientific understanding to explain the universe that it takes place in. It generally includes or is centered on the presumed effects or ramifications of computers or machines; travel through space, time or alternate universes; alien life-forms; genetic engineering; or other such things. The science or technology used may or may not be very thoroughly elaborated on.
* Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction: concerned with the end of civilization, either through nuclear war, plague, or some other general disaster. Post-apocalyptic fiction is set in a world or civilization after such a disaster. The time frame may be immediately after the catastrophe, focusing on the travails or psychology of survivors, or considerably later, often including the theme that the existence of pre-catastrophe civilization has been forgotten (or mythologized). Post-apocalyptic stories often take place in an agrarian, non-technological future world, or a world where only scattered elements of technology remain. There is a considerable degree of blurring between this form of science fiction and fiction that deals with false utopias or dystopic societies.
* Hard science fiction: stories whose scientific elements are reasonably detailed, well-researched and considered to be relatively plausible given current knowledge and technology. Examples include Jurassic Park (1990) and Prey (2002).
* Soft science fiction: stories in which the science involved is not detailed, typically dealing more with cultural, social, and political interactions.
** Comic science fiction: exploits the genre's conventions for comic effect.
** Military science fiction: in essence, the addition of science fiction elements into a military fiction story. These stories are told from the point of view of the military, or a main character who is a soldier in the military. It usually includes technology far superior to that of current day, but not necessarily implausible. (Note that some military science fiction stories fit at least somewhat into the "hard science fiction" subgenre as well.)
** Feminist science fiction: tends to deal with women's roles in society. It poses questions about social issues such as how society constructs gender roles, the role reproduction plays in defining gender and the unequal political, economic and personal power of men and women. Some of the most notable feminist science fiction works have illustrated these themes using utopias to explore a society in which gender differences or gender power imbalances do not exist, or dystopias to explore worlds in which gender inequalities are intensified, thus asserting a need for feminist work to continue.
** Libertarian science fiction: focuses on the politics and social order implied by libertarian philosophies with an emphasis on individualism and a limited stateand in some cases, no state whatsoever. As a genre, it can be seen as growing out of the 1930s and 1940s, when the science-fiction pulp magazines were reaching their peak at the same time as fascism and communism. While this environment gave rise to dystopian novels such as George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, in the pulps, this influence more often give rise to speculations about societies (or sub-groups) arising in direct opposition to totalitarianism.
** Social science fiction: concerned less with the scientific background and more with sociological speculation about human society. In other words, it "absorbs and discusses anthropology," and speculates about human behavior and interactions. Exploration of fictional societies is one of the most interesting aspects of science fiction, allowing it to perform predictive and precautionary functions, to criticize the contemporary world and to present solutions, to portray alternative societies and to examine the implications of ethical principles.
* Space opera: a story characterized by the extent of space travel and distinguished by the amount of time that protagonists spend in an active, space-faring lifestyle.
** Science fiction Western: stories in which elements of science fiction are introduced in a Western setting. It is the complement of the 'space Western', which transposes Western elements into the setting of outer space. One example of a sci-fi Western would be the Cowboys & Aliens comics.
**It is different from a Space Western, which is a frontier story indicative of American Westerns, except transposed to a backdrop of space exploration and settlement.
** Planetary romance: the bulk of the action consists of adventures on one or more exotic alien planets, characterized by distinctive physical and cultural backgrounds. Some planetary romances take place against the background of a future culture where travel between worlds by spaceship is commonplace; others, particularly the earliest examples of the genre, do not, and invoke flying carpets, astral projection, or other methods of getting between planets. In either case, the planetside adventures are the focus of the story, not the mode of travel.
** Space Western: transposes themes of the American-Western genre to a backdrop of futuristic space frontiers. It is the complement of the 'science fiction Western', which transposes science fiction themes onto an American Western setting.
==== Cyberpunk and derivatives ====
Cyberpunk is a speculative subgenre of scifi that involves stories with a futuristic storyline dealing with people who have been physically or mentally enhanced with cybernetic components, often featuring cyborgs or the singularity as a major theme, and generally somewhat cynical or dystopian (hence the "punk" portion of the name). This is often confused or placed with techno-thriller, which is actually a separate and less specialized genre.
* Postcyberpunk: a sub-subgenre that some critics suggest has evolved from cyberpunk. Like its predecessor, postcyberpunk focuses on technological developments in near-future societies, typically examining the social effects of a ubiquitous datasphere of computerized information, genetic engineering, modification of the human body, and the continued impact of perpetual technological change. Unlike "pure" cyberpunk, the works in this category feature characters who act to improve social conditions or at least protect the status quo from further decay.
A category of several different subgenres have been derived from cyberpunk, normally characterized by distinct technologies and sciences. The themes tend to be cynical or dystopian, and typically involve a person, or group of people, fighting the corruption of the government.
* Retropunk: As a wider variety of writers began to work with cyberpunk concepts, new subgenres of science fiction emerged, playing off the cyberpunk label, and focusing on technology and its social effects in different ways. Many derivatives of cyberpunk are retro-futuristic, based either on the futuristic visions of past eras, or more recent extrapolations or exaggerations of the actual technology of those eras.
** Atompunk: relates to the pre-digital, cultural period of 1945–65, which includes: mid-century Modernism; the 'Atomic' and 'Space' Ages; post-war Communism and paranoia in the US along with Soviet styling; underground cinema; Googie architecture; the Space Race, Sputnik, and the moon landing; the golden-age of superhero comics; the rise of the American military–industrial complex; and radioactivity and the fall-out of Chernobyl. Communist analog atompunk is an ultimate lost world. The Fallout series of computer games is an example of atompunk.
** Dieselpunk: Initially proposed as a genre by the creators of the role-playing game Children of the Sun, dieselpunk refers to fiction inspired by mid-century pulp stories, based on the aesthetics of the interbellum period through World War II (c. 1920–45). Seemingly similar to steampunk in its themes of alternate history, dieselpunk is specifically characterized by the rise of petroleum power and technocratic perception, incorporating neo-noir elements and sharing themes more clearly with cyberpunk than steampunk. Some literature considered to be dieselpunk include The Man in the High Castle (1962), Fatherland (1992), The Plot Against America (2004), and Harry Turtledove's The War That Came Early series.
** Steampunk: A story that takes place around the time steam power was first coming into use. The industrial revolution is a common time setting for steam punk stories, and the steam technology is often actually more advanced than the real technology of the time (for instance, the manga Steam Detectives features steam-powered robots). The most immediate form of steampunk subculture is the community of fans surrounding the genre. Others move beyond this, attempting to adopt a "steampunk" aesthetic through fashion, home decor and even music.
** Clockpunk: This term has occasionally referred to a subgenre of speculative fiction that is similar to steampunk, but deviates in its technology. As with steampunk, it portrays advanced technology based on pre-modern designs, but rather than the steam power of the Industrial Age, the technology used is based on springs, clockwork and similar. Clockpunk is based very intensively on the works of Leonardo da Vinci and as such, it is typically set during the Renaissance. It is regarded as being a type of steampunk.
* Biopunk: A story that is about genetics and biological research (often falling under the horror category). It often focuses on some harmful effects characters have created when they change an animal's code to (unintentionally) create a violent monster. Biopunk emerged during the 1990s and depicts the underground of the biotechnological revolution that was expected to start having a profound impact on humanity in the first half of the 21st century. Biopunk fiction typically describes the struggles of individuals or groups, often the product of human experimentation, against a backdrop of totalitarian governments or megacorporations that misuse biotechnologies for social control or profiteering. Unlike cyberpunk, it builds not on information technology but on synthetic biology.
** Nanopunk: similar to bio-punk, but depicts a world where the use of biotechnologies are limited or prohibited, so only nanotechnologies in wide use (while in biopunk bio- and nanotechnologies often coexist). Currently the genre is more concerned with the artistic and physiological impact of nanotechnology, than of aspects of the technology itself, which is still in its infancy. Unlike the cyberpunk, a low-life yet technologically advanced character, the personification of a nanopunk can be set 'hard' or 'soft', depending on your views of the impact nanotechnology will have on our future.
* Solarpunk: A genre that envisions how the future might look if humanity succeeded in solving major contemporary challenges with an emphasis on sustainability problems such as climate change and pollution. Although solarpunk is highly concerned with technology, it also embraces low-tech ways of living sustainably such as gardening, positive psychology, and DIY culture.
===Speculative===
Speculative fiction speculates about worlds that are unlike the real world in various important ways. In these contexts, it generally overlaps one or more of the following: science fiction, fantasy fiction, horror fiction, supernatural fiction, superhero fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, and alternate history.
* Slipstream: Fantastic or non-realistic fiction that crosses conventional genre boundaries between science fiction/fantasy and mainstream literary fiction. The term slipstream was coined by cyberpunk author Bruce Sterling in an article originally published in SF Eye #5, July 1989. He wrote: "...this is a kind of writing which simply makes you feel very strange; the way that living in the 20th century makes you feel, if you are a person of a certain sensibility." Slipstream fiction has consequently been referred to as "the fiction of strangeness," which is as clear a definition as any others in wide use.
* Supernatural fiction: exploits or requires as plot devices or themes some contradictions of the commonplace natural world and materialist assumptions about it. It includes the traditional ghost story. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James is an example of a work of literary fiction that is also largely concerned with supernatural fiction elements, making play of the possibility that they are psychological at root, but requiring the option that they are not for effect. The newer speculative fiction genres of horror fiction and fantasy fiction, growing out of some of the basic propositions and generic conventions, to a certain extent replaced it.
* Superhero fiction: deals with superheroes, supervillains, super-powered humans, aliens, or mutants, and their adventures. Distinct from (but often derived from) comic books, animated films, and graphic novels, these are prose stories and full-length novels. Superhero fiction is a type of speculative fiction. The largest and longest running of the corporate series are those associated with the DC Universe and the Marvel Universe.
* Utopian and dystopian fiction: The utopia and its offshoot, the dystopia, are genres of literature that explore social and political structures. Utopian fiction is the creation of an ideal world, or utopia, as the setting for a novel. Dystopian fiction is the opposite: creation of a nightmare world, or dystopia. Many novels combine both, often as a metaphor for the different directions humanity can take in its choices, ending up with one of two possible futures. Both utopias and dystopias are commonly found in science fiction and other speculative fiction genres, and arguably are by definition a type of speculative fiction. More than 400 utopian works were published prior to the year 1900 in the English language alone, with more than a thousand others during the 20th century.
* Weird fiction: Speculative literature written in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Weird fiction is distinguished from horror and fantasy in that it predates the niche marketing of genre fiction. Because genre or stylistic conventions had not been established, weird tales often blend the supernatural, mythical, and even scientific. British "weird" authors, for example, published their work in mainstream literary magazines even after American pulp magazines became popular. "Weird fiction" is chiefly a historical description for works through the 1930s, but the term has also been used since the 1980s, sometimes to refer to slipstream fiction that blends horror, fantasy, and science fiction.
Suppositional fiction is a subcategory in which stories and characters are constrained within an internally consistent world, but this category is not necessarily associated with any particular genre.Izenberg, Orin. Being Numerous: Poetry and the Ground of Social Life. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011; p. 210Leitch, Thomas M. What Stories Are: Narrative Theory and Interpretation University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1986; p. 127Domańska, Ewa. Encounters: Philosophy of History After Postmodernism Charlottesville, Virginia: University Press of Virginia, 1998; p. 10 A work of suppositional fiction might be science fiction, alternate history, mystery, horror, or even suppositional fantasy, depending on the intent and focus of the author.
===Thriller===
A thriller is a story that is usually a mix of fear and excitement. It has traits from the suspense genre and often from the action, adventure or mystery genres, but the level of terror makes it borderline horror fiction at times as well. It generally has a dark or serious theme, which also makes it similar to drama.
* Disaster-thriller: A story about mass peril, where the protagonist's job is to both survive, and to save many other people from a grim fate, often a natural disaster such as a storm or volcanic eruption, but may also be a terrorist attack or epidemic of some sort.
* Psychological thriller: emphasizes the psychological condition of the hero that presents obstacles to his objective, rather than the action. Some psychological thrillers are also about complicated stories that try to deliberately confuse the audience, often by showing them only the same confusing or seemingly nonsensical information that the hero gains.
* Crime thriller: A story that revolves around the life of detectives, mobs, or other groups associated with criminal events in the story.
* Techno-thriller: A story whose theme is usually technology, or the danger behind the technology people use, including the threat of cyber terrorism such as State of Fear.
===Western===
Stories in the Western genre are set in the American West, between the time of the Civil war and the early 20th century. The setting of a wilderness or uncivilized area is especially important to the genre, and the setting is often described richly and in-depth. They focus on the adventure of the main character(s) and the contrast between civilization or society and the untamed wilderness, often featuring the characters working to bring civilization to the wilderness.
This genre periodically overlaps with historical fiction, and while a more traditional definition of westerns is that of stories about lone men facing the frontier, more modern definitions and writings are often expanded to include any person or persons in this time period that feature a strong tone of the contrast between civilization and wilderness and emphasize the independence of the main character(s).
=== Other ===
* Paranoid fiction: works of literature that explore the subjective nature of reality and how it can be manipulated by forces in power. These forces can be external, such as a totalitarian government, or they can be internal, such as a character's mental illness or refusal to accept the harshness of the world they live in.
* Philosophical fiction: stories in which a significant proportion of the work is devoted to a discussion of the sort of questions normally addressed in discursive philosophy. These might include the function and role of society, the purpose of life, ethics or morals, the role of art in human lives, and the role of experience or reason in the development of knowledge. Philosophical fiction works would include the so-called novel of ideas, including a significant proportion of science fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction, and Bildungsroman. The modus operandi seems to be to use a normal story to simply explain difficult and dark parts of human life.
** Bildungsroman: A coming-of-age novel presenting the psychological, moral and social shaping of the personality of a character, usually the protagonist. The genre arose during the German Enlightenment.
* Political fiction is a subgenre of fiction that deals with political affairs. Political fiction has often used narrative to provide commentary on political events, systems and theories. Works of political fiction often "directly criticize an existing society or... present an alternative, sometimes fantastic, reality." Prominent pieces of political fiction have included the totalitarian dystopias of the early 20th century such as Jack London's The Iron Heel and Sinclair Lewis's It Can't Happen Here. Equally influential, if not more so, have been earlier pieces of political fiction such as Gulliver's Travels (1726), Candide (1759), and Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852). Political fiction frequently employs the literary modes of satire, often in the genres of utopian, dystopian, and social-science fiction.
** Utopian fiction: The creation of an ideal world, or utopia, as the setting for a novel
** Dystopian fiction: The creation of a nightmare world, or dystopia, as the setting for a novel
** Social science fiction
** Survivalism: The creation of world where traditional society has collapsed usually due to some post apocalyptic or doomsday scenario, as a setting for a novel
* Sagas (from Icelandic saga, plural sögur): stories written in the Old Norse language, mainly in Iceland, that are about ancient Scandinavian and Germanic history, about early Viking voyages, about migration to Iceland, and of feuds between Icelandic families. The texts are epic tales in prose, often with stanzas or whole poems in alliterative verse embedded in the text, of heroic deeds of days long gone, tales of worthy men, who were often Vikings, sometimes Pagan, sometimes Christian. The tales are usually realistic, except legendary sagas, sagas of saints, sagas of bishops and translated or recomposed romances. They are sometimes romanticised and fantastic, but always dealing with human beings one can understand.
** Family saga: The family saga chronicles the lives and doings of a family or a number of related or interconnected families over a period of time. In novels (or sometimes sequences of novels) with a serious intent, this is often a thematic device used to portray particular historical events, changes of social circumstances, or the ebb and flow of fortunes from a multiple of perspectives.
* Urban fiction (aka street lit): a literary genre set, as the name implies, in a city landscape, as well as being defined by the race and culture of its characters. The tone for urban fiction is usually dark, focusing on the underside. Profanity (all of George Carlin's seven dirty words and urban variations thereof), sex and violence are usually explicit, with the writer not shying away from or watering-down the material. In this respect, urban fiction shares some common threads with dystopian or survivalist fiction. In the second wave of urban fiction, some variations of this model have been seen.