I need a genre word

[ritaxis]

So, slipstream is fiction that appears to follow the conventions of mainstream fiction but it has strangeness in it (and this is different from magical realism in some way I can probably see but can't articulate) -- correct?

Speculative fiction is when you want to belong to the genre but not too fiercely, and you want to distance yourself from conventions of fantasy or science fiction that you don't want to invoke in your writing, right?

Now, when you have a matrix of either sceince fiction or fantasy in a story but there are elements of the other, and it's not sloppiness but what you intended, what do you call it?

Comments

[carbonel]

Crossover? Interfictive? Intersectional?

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

oh dear.

Crossover sounds like Hulk and Batman.

Interfictive and intersectional sound . . . academic.

[grimmsical.livejournal.com]

maybe crossed genre like the 'zine (http://crossedgenres.com/)

[julesjones]

I personally call it speculative fiction -- and to me speculative fiction is everything in the broad grouping of sf, fantasy and to some extent horror, which makes it a useful term for something that partakes of more than one of those.

There's also the term "science fantasy" which is often used for things like Doctor Who.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

I guess speculative fiction is going to have to do it. But even that seems too dignified. Science fantasy would be better if it wasn't already claimed for things like Doctor Who.

Or I could make something up. But everything I think of is misleading: magical science, fantasy realism, botanical fairy stories.

Leafy stories. That's what they are. Leafy stories.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

One piece of that territory is "fantasy with rivets" -- where the fantastic element is treated with science fictional sensibilities.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

What I write has fantasy, or maybe magical realism, sensibilities with science fictional elements.

Maybe.