What's Your Favorite Literary Genre?

Sharpe

What's your favorite Literary Genre?

Here are a few examples of genres in fiction:

• Fantasy fiction with strange or other worldly settings or characters; fiction which invites suspension of reality;
• Historical Fiction story with fictional characters and events in a historical setting;
• Horror fiction in which events evoke a feeling of dread and sometimes fear in both the characters and the reader;
• Humor usually a fiction full of fun, fancy, and excitement, meant to entertain and sometimes cause intended laughter; but can be contained in all genres;
• Mystery fiction dealing with the solution of a crime or the unraveling of secrets;
• Poetry verse and rhythmic writing with imagery that creates emotional responses;
• Romance - fiction with a primary focus on the relationship and romantic love between two people;
• Science Fiction story based on impact of actual, imagined, or potential science, usually set in the future or on other planets.

There are also several subgenres. For example, fantasy includes High Fantasy, Dark Fantasy, Swords and Sorcery, and Science Fantasy, among others. Science Fiction has cyberpunk, time travel, alternate history, transhumanism, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic, space opera, space western and many more.

Feel free to comment with yours!

loopernow

Certain kinds of memoir--or memoir-esque styles of fiction. Stories that are set in modern, or close to modern times, but that can be surreal too. Don't have to actually be memoir, can just /feel/ somewhat realistic, maybe even just on an emotional level. Memoir comics/graphic novels, whether serious or lighthearted.

Also a fan of, what would you call it, gothic or post-gothic fiction? Like work by cartoonist Dame Darcy, or I'd argue the band Cocorosie also have this same feel.

Big fan of fairy tales.

Also just straight sci fi and occasional fantasy but these other genres are just as important to me.

mykael

Tends to be more by author than strict genre...

Modern day fairy tales - Charles de Lint, R.A.MacAvoy (Tea with a Black Dragon), James Blaylock, Nigel Gaimen (American Gods, Anastasi Boys)
Cthulhu Mythos
Space Opera - Louis McMasters Bujold
Steam Punk, Victoriana - Blaylock,
Fantasy - Nancy Springer, Damino's Lute, Moorecock,

loopernow

@mykael: Thought I was done with Neil Gaiman until I read American Gods. Awesome book. I'd read Sandman and loved it but then was totally disappointed with Good Omens, a collaboration with Terry Pratchett. So I just stopped reading Gaiman for years and years. I keep forgetting to pick up his new book, it sounds great. He was interviewed about it on NPR recently.

mykael

Yeah, Gaiman's stuffs either excellent or leaves you wondering why.  You might like Anastasi Boys - similar sort of theme to American Gods, but nothing like as epic.

loopernow

Sweet, I'll have to be on the lookout for that.

AntonMuerte

loopernow wrote:

@mykael: Thought I was done with Neil Gaiman until I read American Gods. Awesome book. I'd read Sandman and loved it but then was totally disappointed with Good Omens, a collaboration with Terry Pratchett. So I just stopped reading Gaiman for years and years. I keep forgetting to pick up his new book, it sounds great. He was interviewed about it on NPR recently.

I actually thought Good Omens was absolutely hilarious, but then again it was a collaboration with Pratchett so maybe that was why (his footnotes are excellent).  The one that got me into Neil Gaiman was Neverwhere which was based on the TV series (the novel came after the TV show), that he devised with Lenny Henry.  While that was fantasy, it's one of the rare exceptions for me (plus I've got a signed copy lol).

I'm into sc-fi as a genre, and although I got into Piers Anthony's Bio of a Space Tyrant (until it went naff after the third book), I'm more receptive to authors like the late Michael Crichton when the science part is at least plausible.  I also like Chris Brookmyre who writes some excellent crime fiction, occasionally mixed with other genres, which are extremely violent yet funny.

Healy

Comedy, I guess? I don't really read a lot of fiction these days anyway. Most of my reading time is taken up with non-fiction, funnybooks, and IF these days.

Dominia

I am a huge reader. I am always in the middle of a book, sometimes more than one. And my favorite books to read are of genre fiction bent (as opposed to literary).

My recent reads have been:

Epic Fantasy

Horror/Dark Fantasy

Young Adult Speculative Fiction

Paranormal

Sword and Sorcery

Cyberpunk

Dystopian

Space Opera

Steampunk