By Diana Tixier Herald

I’m grouchy about the rebranding of genres and subgenres. Names are powerful things. In fantasy, knowing something or someone’s true name often gives the knower power over the one named. This is even true in science fiction and horror, as the character Melody in Simon R. Green’s new Ghostfinders series describes at one point how she uses the word “quantum” to stop inquiries into exactly how some of her technology works. Rebranding genres and subgenres with new names can be useful. Genres evolve and change, but usually it is only a subgenre that changes, and when the subgenre designation is applied to the entire genre, it changes the meaning.

Paranormal grew out of horror, and kept those who love vampires, werewolves, and other denizens of the dark happy, while horror rode out a crash in popularity. But the two are really more like siblings than parent and child. While they share some common tropes, the visceral impact is very different. Paranormal stories don’t inspire the feelings of fear and dread that horror does, but do feature many of the same beings, only depicted in a kinder, gentler, and maybe even sexier way.

Unfortunately, now when a true horror novel that is really scary is published, it is branded as paranormal if it has a vampire in it. It is regrettable when a really good scary, horrifying book like American Vampire by Jennifer Armintrout is published as paranormal rather than horror. The horror fans who are dying for blood-soaked stories of amoral vampires and murderous monsters will probably not find it, and readers who lust for paranormal stories featuring a heroic vampire with a heart of gold won’t like it.

Urban Fantasy and Dystopian Fiction are two of the hot “new” genres, but all too often (for me, anyway) the names are being used to market good paranormal or science fiction stories to people who think they don’t like those genres. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for putting the books people want to read into their hands, onto their screens, or into their ears, but I worry that those who find a “Dystopian” novel they like will never equate it with science fiction, and therefore miss out on many wonderful stories.

I was recently chatting with several different authors of dystopian science fiction novels, and discovered that some of them had been told their books were being marketed as dystopian because science fiction doesn’t sell. Yes, there is lots of science fiction that falls into the subgenre of dystopian, but throwing out the science fiction designation while hanging onto dystopian is like throwing out the bathtub while trying to hang onto a few gallons of the bathwater.

I also have problems with “Urban Fantasy” being used to denote any story that has paranormal elements like vampires and werewolves. I first ran into this subgenre designation when reading books such as Will Shetterly’s ElseWhere, NeverNever, and other titles set in the shared universe of Bordertown, where short stories and novels featured the intersection of 20th technology using century city dwellers and a world of fantasy with elves and magic colliding. Mercedes Lackey’s Serrated Edge series also fit that bill as well as, more recently, Tanya Huff’s The Enchantment Emporium that is set in downtown Calgary, not the biggest city, but a city nonetheless. Now the designation turns up on novels set in small rural towns if they feature a vampire. I can see Urban Fantasy being attached to Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden Files, because a wizard solving crimes in Chicago does combine urban and fantasy, but a small town waitress from Bon Temps, Louisiana hooking up with weres and vamps, doesn’t strike me as urban, and I’ve always seen most weres and vampires as living more in the world of paranormal or horror than in fantasy.

Okay, that’s enough grumpiness for now. Anyone want to recommend a good book for me?

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