Sub-genres

How fantasy subgenres have changed in the last decade

/ Nicola | Thoughts on Fantasy / 20 Comments
Bookshop display of romantasy and romance books with a sign that reads "our booksellers recommend"
Romantasy and romance books on display at Avid Reader bookshop in Brisbane, 2026 (Photo: Nicola Alter)

Over ten years ago I wrote a post that ended up being one of my most read of all time. I had just come out of tutoring a course on genre fiction, and I was frustrated by the fact that when I looked up fantasy subgenres online I would get one of three things: a detailed look at a few specific subgenres that ignored all the others, a breakdown of someone’s own very personalised way of categorising things, or an epic three-digit list of every fantasy sub-genre under the sun, many of which I’d never heard of.

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Book Stats for 2016

/ Nicola | Thoughts on Fantasy / 15 Comments

I love bookish statistics, and what they reveal about people’s reading habits. I enjoy it when I come across them on other blogs (for example on Magic of Books), so even though I didn’t read a huge number of books in 2016 compared to other people I know, I thought it might still be fun to see what the stats on the humble selection I did read look like… and to satisfy my nerdy appreciation for graphs and charts. Continue reading →

Genre is Not a Dirty Word

/ Nicola | Thoughts on Fantasy / 5 Comments

Photo by Ian Collins (CC BY-ND 2.0)

I’ve encountered quite a few fantasy and science fiction authors – famous and popular ones at that – who, when asked about their decision to write in the genre, say something along the lines of “oh, well, I just write what I write and someone slots it into a genre later, I don’t think about what genre I want to write in”. There’s often this additional implication that ‘genre’ is a dirty word – that is the oppressive tool of publishers and bookshops. Books get hemmed in and categorised by this evil notion of genre, and their authors get pigeon-holed as ‘fantasy writers’ or ‘crime writers’.

Frankly, I never understand this. I love the word genre.  Continue reading →