Today’s topic comes from QSFer Freddy MacKay:
Steampunk AKA The Red Headed step child of SF and why a fantasy world with steam is not steampunk. AKA what caused it to get shoved into fantasy.
It’s a fascinating question. We have all these sub genres, but some seem to be more dominant:
Science Fiction
Fantasy
Paranormal
Horror
While some seem relegated to secondary status and have to be shoved into one of the “master” genres:
Steampunk
Superheroes
Shifters
Post Apocalyptic
So who decides these things? And with genre boundaries blurring ever more, is it time to reshuffle how we think about them?