While I like to read – and I most certainly do – I would not describe myself as prolific. After all I do tend to read a lot in a very narrow range of books. I read those that I find interesting and ignore those that do not appeal. I used to feel compelled to finish every book I started. Of course that was back when the length of book was some 80 pages, as opposed to the 300+ pages of many books I read now. With age comes intolerance. Now, I will stop reading a book if I don’t like or I become bored which is most often the case. I cannot count the number of times I have started a book with in this last year only to give up 1/2 to 3/4 through because the plot or characters proved too tedious for my attention span. It is tempting for me to blame the author for poor writing, however, really it is my fault for selecting some very trashy books that I know at the time will not hold up to any literary criticism.

Anyway, I diverge from my original thought. I was perusing Good Reads not so many weeks ago and noticed they have a page dedicated to the best books of the year. Interested, I thought I would see what topped the Fantasy list – my typical genre for reading material. I was flabbergasted to discover that Fantasy is no longer a single category. It has been split into fantasy and paranormal fantasy. Seriously, this is a category?

Not that I wasn’t familiar with the names of some subgenres of fantasy; things like: steampunk, urban, high, etc. But these were little subcategories. They were not entire new genres. Also, what is paranormal fantasy? Really?

Dividing books into genres seems obvious on the surface – at least in some regards. Murder mysteries involve both murder and a detective trying to solve it (hence the mystery). Fantasy involves magic while science fiction uses advanced technology and frequently a post-apocalyptic society. Romances are small, often poorly written stories of people finding their soul-mate in usually bland ways. Historical Romance or Fiction takes place in the past, where the past where the past is defined by anything older than the 1980’s (at least by someone out there). Fiction is a catch all for everything else.

But then you get into grey areas. JD Robb writes futuristic cop dramas – should these be found under the mystery or science fiction category? Sometimes, it is the blending of two ideas that leads to the development of a new sub-classification. Steampunk is a melding of old-world steam technology and a Victorian world setting (fantasy and historical). Though why steampunk also has to include an element of the paranormal/fantastical in the form of vampires, werewolves or zombies I still don’t understand.

Derrek defines cyberpunk as the “near-future science fiction that examines how technology (the cyber half of the name) influences the lives of the lower class and destitute (the punk half), while the upper class reaps the rewards.” Does this make it a class by itself or just a subclass of the science fiction category?

Returning to the category of fantasy where I am more comfortable. What is the difference between paranormal and urban fantasy? Urban fantasy seems to include anything that is fantasy occurring in a modern setting: cars, cities, modern swearing and cellphones. Paranormal is usually associated with psychic powers: telepathy and telekinesis. But I find that the great triad of vampires, werewolves and zombies still crop up regularly in this style of book. So, where do you draw the lines?

Iris Johansen has an increasing amount of the supernatural cropping up in her mystery/adventure books that are categorized as fiction. Should they be relabelled as paranormal fantasy? They don’t have the triad of creatures, but psychic powers feature prominently in some of her later works. And where exactly do ghost fall in these divisions?

For any book there is likely more than one label you could use to describe the book. After all fantasy books may have an element of mystery or romance. Neither mystery nor romance can occur without existing in some other setting: modern, historical or fantastical. Yet we are constantly separating books into different categories so there must be some general consensus.

The next question ask what is the value of distinguish books by category.