Fiction Categories Quotes

Science fiction without the science just becomes, you know, sword and sorcery, basically stories about heroism and not much more.

I certainly have been writing stories that are hard science fiction, that are very reminiscent of 'Golden Age tales' from the '40s and '50s. I've also written stories that are very high fantasy that are the direct opposite of that style.

There are so many stories to tell in the worlds of science fiction, the worlds of fantasy and horror that to confine yourself to even doing historical revisionist fiction, whatever you want to call it - mash-ups, gimmick lit, absurdist fiction - I don't know if I want to do that anymore.

Science fiction is really a rather tiny business compared with its giant cousin, which is fantasy.

Genre fiction was looked at as a ghetto, but I wonder now if realist fiction, sealing itself off in the glum suburbs of a dysfunctional society, denying the use of imagination, was the ghetto.

It's funny, we started writing chick-lit when it was just becoming a crowded marketplace, and now the same thing is happening with YA. It really used to just be one shelf at the library - Nancy Drew and Judy Blume.

Science fiction is the ugly stepchild of mainstream literature, and fantasy is the ugly stepchild of science fiction, and tie-in novels are the ugly stepchild of fantasy... and on and on and on.

What's great about teen fiction is that it's all mixed up - there's highbrow and lowbrow!

Why is it okay to write a work of literary fiction where horrible, explicit things happen, where you can't write a book of humor where silly, explicit things are happening?

The difference between science fiction and fantasy … is simply this: science fiction has rivets and fantasy has trees.

Fantastic fiction covers fantasy, horror and science fiction - and it doesn't get the attention it deserves from the literati.

The 'science' in 'science fiction' isn't just physics and engineering. It can also be linguistics, anthropology, and psychology.

I like westerns, fantasy, sci-fi, graphic novels, thrillers, and I try to avoid the word 'genre' altogether. A good book is a good book.

There are very real differences between science fiction and realistic fiction, between horror and fantasy, between romance and mystery. Differences in writing them, in reading them, in criticizing them. Vive les différences! They're what gives each genre its singular flavor and savor, its particular interest for the reader - and the writer.

I never, as a reader, have been particularly interested in dystopian literature or science fiction or, in fact, fantasy.

I realize that, to many readers, Hard Fantasy may seem to be a contradiction in terms. Fantasy, according to most generally recognized definitions, differs from both 'real world' fiction and 'science fiction' in that magic or magical creatures are active elements.

I think there's a false division people sometimes make in describing literary novels, where there are people who write systems novels, or novels of ideas, and there are people who write about emotional things in which the movement is character driven. But no good novels are divisible in that way.

Much blood has also been spilled on the carpet in attempts to distinguish between science fiction and fantasy. I have suggested an operational definition: science fiction is something that COULD happen - but usually you wouldn't want it to. Fantasy is something that COULDN'T happen - though often you only wish that it could.

I don't mean that literary fiction is better than genre fiction, On the contrary; novels can perform two functions and most perform only one.