Is Firefly SF?
*cracks knuckles* Sit your whole self down, because it's time for a class on GENRE! You ready? Get your pencil and paper, you need to take notes. Nonfiction - has no fiction, this covers everything from cook books to biographies Fiction - is a mad up story, mostly truth, but lots of lies. Good fun. Covers everything from the astrology report on a website to WAR AND PEACE. Now, Fiction is broken up into all sorts of little sub-genres so everyone can find their favorite flavor of fiction. There are six big umbrella labels that cover all of fiction: Kid's Books Horror Romance Science Fiction Fantasy Literary Kid's Books are for kids... simple story lines, sometimes pictures, low stakes, generally happy-ish endings. The defining trait is the simple language. Horror... takes everything familiar and makes it scary. The defining trait is the fear factor. Romance... takes everything scary and makes it happy. The defining trait is that the story must end with Happily Ever After or Happily For Now (anything else is Something Else With a Romantic Subplot - don't @ me, you are wrong) Science Fiction... take any plot, make it futuristic. The defining characteristic is that it uses tech instead of magic and that the tech is central to the plot. Fantasy... take any plot, add magic. Toss in a bard if you feel gay. It's okay. The defining characteristic of fantasy is that it has magic and that the magic is central to the plot. Literary... the catch all term for everything else that doesn't play with fear, love, tech, or magic. It can include any of these elements, but the plot would remain the same if those elements were removed. Keeping with me so far? Good! Now it's time to get technical! SUBGENRES! Within any given genre you can mix, match, and rework elements to give you a broad range of subgenres. This is where the confusion of the GENRE: SCIENCE FICTION label gets confused because SF is also a subgenre of SF. <insert WaitWhat.gif>
How is sci-fi a subgenre of itself?
Easy!
There are multiple layers of SF. You have space opera, military-SF, SFR, science fantasy (Star Wars and Mageworlds), you have political thriller SF, spy SF, and on and on and on. It's all fun and games.It's all good. But, as you descend the ladder of subgenres you also find a tier labeled SF: science fiction... emphasis on the SCIENCE. This is a subset of SF that focuses the plot exclusively on the science. Think: THE MARTIAN or RED MARS. These are hardcore, science heavy books and some people think they are the only true SF. Obviously, those people are wrong, but it's easy for a casual observer of genres to get confused. IS FIREFLY SCIENCE FICTION: Yes. IS IT SF: Science fiction: No. Firefly has tech as the major plot point (the Pax and the Serenity), but it is a book about colonialism, politics, and identity before science so it falls into the political thriller/space opera arena of SF. Any questions? (ETA) P.S. Things like Alternate Histories and Magical Realism get shelved under SF/F but are technically micro-genres and their own species of genre. But that’s an advanced class for post-graduate work on genre. Brought to you by #Concellation2020 and my need to explain Genre to as many people as possible because I am going to beat you to death with an unabridged dictionary the next time someone rolls up and says Nicholas Sparks writes Romance.
