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Originally Posted by Dazrin
If you are going to have such a broad group as "science fiction and fantasy" then yes, I would lump all those together. That doesn't mean they don't fit other groups though or that I wouldn't classify them as something else first.
I think the sub-genres are more interesting and relevant. SFF is just a catch-all for anything that has magic or advanced technology or otherworldliness. It's a very broad but shallow description. (Covers a lot of things but doesn't have much meaning.) It's the sub-genres in SFF or the other genres that could cover the book that begin to have depth/meaning.
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Yes, this is my point! I don’t see categorizing books as being exclusive and without shades of gray. Books like The Mystery of Edwin Drood and Dracula are clearly recognized classics. I would look for them in a bookstore or library under classics. That doesn’t mean they aren’t mysteries or fantasies too.
All I’m saying is we read a lot of books that are either mysteries or otherworldly in some SF/fantasy way. It doesn’t matter whether you think those terms are the main genre or the subgenre.
Many people out there like me mostly want to read books about humans on Earth without these other elements. Not that I don’t read books in science fiction or fantasy. They are just a smaller subset of my total reading and so I can group them broadly like that. By the same token, many people only want to read science fiction or fantasies and might just group the rest of stuff as general fiction whereas I break out many detailed categories.