Saturday, October 9, 2010

Favorite Genre of Fiction

My favorite genre of fiction to read is fantasy.  I do like some science fiction, horror, and some thrillers.  But I often return to fantasy because it seems to capture -- for me, at least -- everything that fiction "should" be.

Even then, however, I only really like a small subset of fantasy for reading purposes.  It's similar to my taste in science fiction as well.  I like the humorous fantasy story, a la Terry Pratchett's Discworld series.  Or it's science fiction equivalent of the Hitchhiker's Guide series by Douglas Adams.

When I write, though, it tends to be urban fantasy, which is odd because that's a genre I don't read much.  It just happens to be the genre that I get lots of ideas for.  And not much on the way of humor either in my stories, at least not the levels of satire present in Pratchett's work.

While I say that fantasy is my favorite genre, I have difficulty stomaching and reading most "serious" fantasy.  Sure, I can sit and read through Lord of the Rings any day of the week; it's the scads of imitators to that story that I can read.  The satirical and humorous fantasy works don't take themselves so mind-numbingly serious like so many other fantasy works do.

What about your favorite genre?  Why is it your favorite?

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