What is a genre & subgenre?
A tradition with shared conventions and reader expectations, itself with a lineage of subgenres.
How to spot it: The shelf it belongs on and the promises that come with it: cyberpunk, gothic, cozy mystery.
Often confused with premise: A genre is a whole tradition; a premise is one story's specific hook within it.
15 genres & subgenres in the vocabulary
Cyberpunk
A subgenre of high-tech, low-life near futures dominated by corporations, cybernetics, hackers, and neon urban decay.
8 works
Space opera
A subgenre of grand, adventurous science fiction set across galaxies, featuring interstellar conflict and larger-than-life stakes.
13 works
Hard science fiction
A subgenre emphasizing scientific accuracy and rigorous, plausible extrapolation of known physics and technology.
13 works
Dystopia
A genre depicting an oppressive, dehumanizing society, often used to critique real political and social tendencies.
14 works
Utopia
A genre imagining an ideal or perfected society, often as a vehicle to critique the present by contrast.
2 works
Post-apocalyptic
A genre set after a civilization-ending catastrophe, concerned with survival, scarcity, and rebuilding.
12 works
First contact
A genre centered on humanity's initial encounter with alien life and the challenge of communication and understanding.
16 works
Time-travel fiction
A genre built around movement through time and its paradoxes, consequences, and altered histories.
3 works
Gothic
A genre blending horror and romance in atmospheres of decay, dread, the uncanny, and the transgression of limits.
2 works
Noir
A genre of moral ambiguity, crime, and fatalism, marked by shadowy atmosphere and cynical, compromised characters.
2 works
Satire
A genre using irony, exaggeration, and ridicule to expose and critique folly, vice, or social and political institutions.
15 works
Military science fiction
A subgenre centered on armed conflict in a science-fictional setting, focused on soldiers, tactics, and the machinery of war.
3 works
Alternate history
A genre that imagines how the world would differ had a key historical event turned out otherwise.
1 work
Cosmic horror
A genre evoking dread of vast, indifferent forces beyond human comprehension that dwarf and unsettle humanity.
4 works
Biopunk
A subgenre focused on biotechnology, genetic engineering, and their social consequences, often in a corporate or dystopian frame.
4 works