Things I’ve Noticed: Your favourite sub-sub-genre can tell a lot about you

Let’s begin with some quick definitions.

Genre – a particular style of fiction (i.e. Horror, Romance, Science Fiction, and Crime)

Sub-Genre – a more specialized type of genre fiction (i.e. Zombie Horror, Historical Romance, Time Travel Science Fiction, and Hard Boiled Crime)

Sub-Sub-Genre – The nitty-gritty of sub-genre, where only the fans who really reallylove (obsess over) the genre go (i.e. Zombie Apocalypse, Historical Fiction that doesn't get too steamy, Time Travel Fiction ending up in a return to a changed future, and

Swedish Hardboiled Crime (Hello Steig Larson fans).

Most people have favourite genres, and I think it’s fair to say that a lot of people have favourite sub-genres, but I think the number drops significantly when you go to the fans of a sub-sub-genre.

Like me for instance – I’m personally a big fan of Horror/SF or Horror/Fantasy set in a post-apocalyptic setting. After all, why just end the world and follow the few survivors unless you’re going to throw in prophetic dreams, robots, aliens or hoards of the undead?

Probably you could simply say that I like stories which follow the Man vs. Environment theme which also touch on our consumerist nature and echo my own personal notion that in some ways the world might do better with a few years off of the grid.

At the same time my BFF Mike is a huge Star Trek fan (which you all know as you’ve made sure to check out his Star Trek episode review blog that I’ve linked to right here, right?) and I suppose that could be considered a sub-sub-genre of fiction – genre (Science Fiction), sub-genre (Space Travel), sub-sub-genre (Star Trek). And his love of Star Trek tells you is that he’ll likely be in Calgary next month and perhaps he watched Enterprise a little longer than was good for him (I gave up in season three when they explained that in the past Florida was cut in half by a giant space laser – I mean COME ON!! This was supposed to be a prequel and NOWHERE DID KIRK, SPOCK, PICARD, SISKO or JANEWAY EVER TALK ABOUT THE TIME WHEN FLORIDA WAS CUT IN HALF BY A RACE CALLED THE XINDI!!!!)

But I digress.

What I mean to say is that your personal favourite sub-sub-genre can be an excellent way for you to examine your likes and dislikes, and hopefully find other things you could check out and enjoy just as much.

Sorry about before, I promise not to talk about season three of Enterprise ever again.