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Genres you would like to see more of

MaHaL

MaHaL

Conductor of the Choir of Death
Location
Canada
Simple premise. There are plenty of genres out there some monstrously more popular than others, for example Giant Robots/Mecha is huge in a decent chunk of the world. As if Modern Military stuff. This isn't about whether or not those are bad so we'll just entirely ignore them for the purposes of the thread.

This is about the smaller genres that you feel like there should be more of. For example I desperately want more things set in The Wild West, things like Red Dead Redemption and Fallout: New Vegas. I love their aesthetic and the style of storytelling that tend to come along with the setting.

Now what do you guys feel there should be more of?
 
Transhumanism. Fiction in which the fundamental modifications of the human conditions, AIs that are not just humans in funny boxes, uplifts, artificial lifeforms, uploading, psychosurgery etc. are seen in an optimistic, positive light, is underrepresented. Especially in AAA films and TV shows. Even Century City was unsure whether it wants to be optimistic or not.
 
I'm not sure if it's really a genre, but I'd like to see more stories that are long-runners by having a cycle of hurt for the protagonist while they make things better for everyone else, including a bunch of antagonists. Like, the protagonist starts out there life in utter shit, manage to tear there way to making an area a much better place, then gets tossed to/travels to another shithole and forced to do it again. Intersperse properly paced feels and make the "wind down" where they got the area out of shithole status long enough and you can do it without going into audience apathy.

Basically, being the protagonist is a high state of suffering, but the people they help stay helped. They don't get shoved back down into the shithole they started at, the protagonist just arrives in a different shithole to start it up again, with new antagonists, new problems to solve and more callbacks to have for feels. Possibly having wind-down parts involve going back to previously-helped areas to have old characters brought up again and possibly have a bit more helping by dealing with people trying to make the place a shithole again.

Every "cycle of hurt" I've seen that includes the protagonist in it involves all the people they help getting thoroughly screwed over at the same time. I want cycles of hurt where the protagonist ends up helping many shitholes, and the shitholes stay helped. Possibly because the protagonist heads back to make sure the helped stay helped.
 
Iyashikei stories where rather than normal conflict what we have is more of a general barrage of well-done good feels.

Stories where character's issues mental or psychological are resolved and dealt with rather than milked for drama in general.
 
Bureaucracy porn, why focus the story on a few protagonists when you can tell a grand narrative about institutions?
 
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Fasbran said:
Bureaucracy porn, why focus the story on a few protagonists when you can tell a grand narrative about institutions?
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I'd love to see an epic war story about empires fighting empires with dragons and magic, the world at the brink of destruction ..... from the perspective of the camp quartermaster who argues about muddy roads, shitty food and people not putting latrines far away enough from the camp.

I'd read the shit out of that.
 
Steampunk! It exists aplenty in books and comics but I don't see a lot of it in movies and television. And it doesn't necessarily have to be Victorian era although I'm aware there are a lot of people who seem to have it in their head that you can't have one without the other. Although I've never played it, I'd be happy with seeing an adaptation of Dishonored which actually seems pretty likely.

And horror. I know, I know. We have enough in this genre, right? I don't just want more horror. I want better horror. Not this slasher crap or these half-assed psychological thrillers we've been getting but something deep and profound along the lines of Dead Space or even the first Alien and I think it can be argued that it is as much horror as it is science fiction. I know both of those examples are pretty heavy on the sci-fi but they are the best examples I can come up with off the top of my head.
 
Campy said:
Steampunk! It exists aplenty in books and comics but I don't see a lot of it in movies and television. And it doesn't necessarily have to be Victorian era although I'm aware there are a lot of people who seem to have it in their head that you can't have one without the other. Although I've never played it, I'd be happy with seeing an adaptation of Dishonored which actually seems pretty likely.
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Steampunk is punk, therefore any good steampunk story should focus on Colonialism.

There's a reason why Tolkien hated industrialisation and why Middle Earth is stuck the way it is. To him, industrialisations translates to empires and the first world war. Steampunk should explore that, explore rich nations outpacing poor nations because of their superior technology. Explore the danger of child labor and slave labor. Steampunk heroes should consist of colonialised peoples of Africa and Asia fighting against empires and corrupt local elites.
 
Hykal94 said:
Steampunk is punk, therefore any good steampunk story should focus on Colonialism.

There's a reason why Tolkien hated industrialisation and why Middle Earth is stuck the way it is. To him, industrialisations translates to empires and the first world war. Steampunk should explore that, explore rich nations outpacing poor nations because of their superior technology. Explore the danger of child labor and slave labor. Steampunk heroes should consist of colonialised peoples of Africa and Asia fighting against empires and corrupt local elites.
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Well I wouldn't presume to say what steampunk should focus on, setting or plot nor whether or not these things make it good or bad. I don't mind Victorian era steampunk, I just don't like this common idea that I've seen that it has to take place in that setting.

But I'd be up for some good colonial steampunk. Let me know when you're finished writing it. :wink:
 
Campy said:
Well I wouldn't presume to say what steampunk should focus on, setting or plot nor whether or not these things make it good or bad. I don't mind Victorian era steampunk, I just don't like this common idea that I've seen that it has to take place in that setting.

But I'd be up for some good colonial steampunk. Let me know when you're finished writing it. :wink:
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. . . What exactly do you think stream punk is then? A setting where machines are powered by steam and clockwork?
 
I'd say more Fantasy that draws upon Impressionism (i.e. how things can appear to people, instead of how they are), Symbolism, Expressionism and/or Surrealism, as opposed to way too much modern fantasy (and supernatural fiction in general) drawing upon the Realism, which can defeat the point and purpose of Fantasy. I view Realism in Fantasy as like milk in coffee, just a pinch can make it more palatable, way too much and you get a bland, tasteless mess.
 
Estro said:
. . . What exactly do you think stream punk is then? A setting where machines are powered by steam and clockwork?
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That's part of it, sure. And the origins of steampunk may very well have its roots in the Victorian era setting but that does not mean that it needs to be restricted to that. That's just short-sighted. No matter how much some people may resist it, genres can, do and, in my humble opinion, should change. If genres didn't change then wizards would forever be stuck in the Middle Ages alongside elves and orcs instead of kicking it Harry Dresden style in Chicago. In short, when genres change, we get offshoots and sub-genres which give us the potential for a greater variety of storytelling.
 
Campy said:
That's part of it, sure. And the origins of steampunk may very well have its roots in the Victorian era setting but that does not mean that it needs to be restricted to that. That's just short-sighted. No matter how much some people may resist it, genres can, do and, in my humble opinion, should change. If genres didn't change then wizards would forever be stuck in the Middle Ages alongside elves and orcs instead of kicking it Harry Dresden style in Chicago. In short, when genres change, we get offshoots and sub-genres which give us the potential for a greater variety of storytelling.
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If the aesthetics of steampunk are what is appealing to you about it then what you're actually after is gaslamp fantasy or flintlock fantasy. The issue with using steampunk for its aesthetics alone is that the steam is subordinate to the punk, as in it's counterculture first, sci-fi fantasy victorian bullshit second.
 
More works that deliberately blur the lines between science fiction and fantasy; particularly the mix of high fantasy and space opera that is embodied by stuff like Warhammer 40,000 and Star Wars.
 
FishInTheAirCon said:
If the aesthetics of steampunk are what is appealing to you about it then what you're actually after is gaslamp fantasy or flintlock fantasy. The issue with using steampunk for its aesthetics alone is that the steam is subordinate to the punk, as in it's counterculture first, sci-fi fantasy victorian bullshit second.
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I never said anything about the aesthetics of the genre. My comments were pretty clear. I was merely stating that I do not believe that steampunk needs to be tied to the Victorian era setting. That's it. I brought that up because it is a statement that I see made pretty commonly. Steampunk does not need to take place in a Victorian era setting in order to maintain the punk elements of counterculture. My comments on the subject are being made out to be far more complicated than they actually are. The setting is unimportant compared to the themes that make up steampunk.
 
If there is to be steam punk, I want it to be about a Chinese boxer, a Zulu prince, an Irish farmboy and an Indian engineer traveling the world in a futuristic submarine and fighting the evil World Empire whose mad and greedy Queen wants to throw the world's children into a workhouse.
 
Hykal94 said:
I'd love to see an epic war story about empires fighting empires with dragons and magic, the world at the brink of destruction ..... from the perspective of the camp quartermaster who argues about muddy roads, shitty food and people not putting latrines far away enough from the camp.

I'd read the shit out of that.
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Fantasy M*A*S*H?
 
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Axiomatic said:
If there is to be steam punk, I want it to be about a Chinese boxer, a Zulu prince, an Irish farmboy and an Indian engineer traveling the world in a futuristic submarine and fighting the evil World Empire whose mad and greedy Queen wants to throw the world's children into a workhouse.
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This feels too on the nose.

And yet. I would still read the shit out of this. o_o;;
 
Read Nisi Shawl's absolutely amazing novel Everfair for real steampunk. Gorgeous alternate history novel.
Hykal94 said:
I'd love to see an epic war story about empires fighting empires with dragons and magic, the world at the brink of destruction ..... from the perspective of the camp quartermaster who argues about muddy roads, shitty food and people not putting latrines far away enough from the camp.

I'd read the shit out of that.
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I had this exact discussion with @Gargulec and @100thlurker a while ago actually. Military sci-fi at its best is a lovely genre (my favorite example being Phule's Company by Robert Asprin, one of the authors whose work influenced me most as a kid) but one thing you are comparatively little of is what essentially amounts to... let's call it mil fantasy. Like the middle few novels of the Codex Alera series, by Jim Butcher. Which is a shame because you can do so much in there. I absolutely want more of it.
 
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Rook said:
I had this exact discussion with @Gargulec and @100thlurker a while ago actually. Military sci-fi at its best is a lovely genre (my favorite example being Phule's Company by Robert Asprin, one of the authors whose work influenced me most as a kid) but one thing you are comparatively little of is what essentially amounts to... let's call it mil fantasy. Like the middle few novels of the Codex Alera series, by Jim Butcher. Which is a shame because you can do so much in there. I absolutely want more of it.
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The most popular example of military fantasy would probably be the Black Company, a novel series oft quoted to be inspiration but most people have not read it. I have. It's a peculiar series, but it lacks a lot when it comes to the actual military stuff, as fitting for someone who can't be bothered to write everything down as the Annalist of the Company.

Sadly, despite having a few novels that fit the bill, military fantasy is not a very well established genre.
 
Hykal94 said:
The most popular example of military fantasy would probably be the Black Company, a novel series oft quoted to be inspiration but most people have not read it. I have. It's a peculiar series, but it lacks a lot when it comes to the actual military stuff, as fitting for someone who can't be bothered to write everything down as the Annalist of the Company.

Sadly, despite having a few novels that fit the bill, military fantasy is not a very well established genre.
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Ooh, good one. Hm. Another I really want has been already referred to, the blending of science fiction and fantasy. Which, really, when you get down to it, is two huge umbrellas. There's so many strains in there.

There's more conventional fantasy stories that just so happen to take place in worlds that are ostensibly working more or less like fantasy worlds, but with sufficiently advanced technology (think Star Wars, and Warhammer 40,000) which we might call science fantasy, and then there's wildly fantastic things that engage science in some form or another (Sandman: Overture or one of my personal favorite novels of ever, A Wrinkle In Time), or even things which push the distinction even further, like all of Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun. And other things that don't really fit into the mold in a convenient way like Hyper Light Drifter which is this gorgeous post-apoc science fantasy game, very clearly inspired by Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Also, anything and everything that gets close to Michael Swanwick's The Iron Dragon's Daughter makes me very happy.

I'd like more of those.

I'd also like, hm, more things that are very forward about their anachronism. Bad examples of this are Naruto but good ones, like Saga, like The Flintstones, and so on, are just very powerful. I'd like to see lots more of that sort of bending of setting. What else...

Often times I like my fantasy to be drenched in a time, of some quality. It's either of a time and a place, or heavily based off of one. Merge the fantastic with a time period and go all the way in on it. Princess Mononoke is Muromachi-era Japan, for example. One of my favorite fanfic writers here, @EarthScorpion, likes this a lot too, and I believe he turned the setting of Familiar of Zero into more or less 1600s Belgium? He could talk more about that if he feels like it.

That's about all I can think of.

(Wow, this is a bit off-topic. But w/e.)
 
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