I’ll make two strong statements regarding how we label our favorite books:
1. Genres are made up marketing terms.
2. Genres are an integral element in how we navigate the the reading and literary landscape.
The nature of language where all things are made up, in the end, makes both these things true and addressable in one fell swoop. How utterly delightful for all of us.
Now the history of genres is complex and varies from genre to genre, and is worthy of a nuanced and overly academic deep dive.
This is not that.
This is about our relationship with genres, how they help is find out favorite reads, and how they, ultimately, shape our understanding of books, as a whole.
There is a subgroup of science fiction readers that take subgenre definitions within the broader umbrella of science fiction very seriously. They will fight you endlessly over what books actually “count” as hard sci-fi, for example, despite having reached consensus on a number of occasions what the intent of that term is supposed to convey. When such conversations arise, it’s common for someone to mention that Star Wars isn’t, by stricter definitions, science fiction. The pre-midi-chlorian explanations for the force, it’s lack of strong scientific principles, and its trend toward high adventure sword-fighting, it fills the shoes of space fantasy more readily. However, should you point that Dune does the same thing, that this seminal piece has many of the self-same qualities that Star Wars has in terms of subgenre categorization, you open up a Pandora’s box of frustrated argument.
Dune is science fiction, you see, and there’ll be no argument on the matter.
In the end, it really shouldn’t matter quite so deeply. We’re really looking at very little more than marketing categories and pattern recognition. Acknowledging that certain elements have a similarity and might go together well within a more specific genre should be an overall neutral decision.
But, you see, Dune is science fiction.
Now the fact that we hold certain genres in higher esteem than others is ultimately…boring. It’s the nature of the human condition go create trite hierarchies around even the smallest of things. This type of book is better than that type of book blah blah blah. It’s a dull rehashing of old complaints often rooted in misogyny and classism.
No, what actually makes the conversation around genres interesting is how bad we are at actually recognizing them. How much struggle there is understanding their parameters despite the number of years we’ve spent carving out the edges. Publishers and marketing teams can be inconsistent with what genres they market a book under or where they place it in the store. Authors themselves, even, often place themselves in the wrong category when releasing their book independently, querying, or marketing to their fanbase. Sometimes it’s a purposeful calculation to court a new, emerging genre that’s sparked interest in the public. Sometimes its simply error. Either way, it shakes the structure of a system that could otherwise work extraordinarily well. This is, of course, is complicated by the fact that readers are oftentimes worse in this regard.
Your average reader doesn’t really need to know the ins and out of all the little genres and subgenres. They can typically find what they like without it. When you’re sitting in your own little bubble picking up books by how cool the plot sounds, nothing beyond the broad genres might reach your attention. Except what happens when that bubble breaks or expands to include other people?
Book-related social media (the sort where people trade analysis and recommendations) is full of micro-influencers that, for whatever reason, have large gaps in their lexicon when it comes to how to describe books and their content. They might have a handle on tropes and certain structural lingo for a given genre, but the categories and other higher level concepts seem to seek evasion. In the case of explicit content, outsiders weaponize this lack of knowledge to make bleak and egregious claims against certain communities. Within the communities themselves, recommendations go awry. Someone seeking epic fantasy is given a series of suggestions that veer far from the mark. A reviewer doesn’t have the words to describe the kind of science fiction book they just read and ends up leaving an inaccurate impression of the book for their audience.
All this combined creates a level of distrust between publisher, author, reader, and influencer. It can generate a feeling of “are we speaking the same language?” As a denizen of BookTok, I have to trust that if I describe something as an “intrusion fantasy” that my audience will know what I’m talking about. They sometimes don’t. I can never be sure. This thing that should be a shared language among a group has enough gaps to leave us questioning and unsure.
More importantly, it confuses the outsider and leaves the newer reader reeling. An influencer presents a novel as a fantasy, just for a reader to find a romance novel in a fantasy setting. For the new reader, they’re left with an inaccurate understanding of what fantasy is. For a veteran, they start to wonder of the face of fantasy is changing. For the author attempting to “write to market,” they find themselves unsure what that “market” actually looks like at any given moment.
And it’s hard to say whether there’s a fix for this, and if that fix would mean anything long term. If that confusion wouldn’t always exist through different cycles of readership coming into the art and the hobby.
But in that environment, it’s certainly easy to see why one group would stick to their guns so steadfastly.
Pixels and Pins Studio 