Historical science fiction

Vampires, zombies, and dystopia are different genres--unless you are referring to paranormal/urban fantasy, which is considered a genre of its own.

To the best of my (reading) knowledge, Time Travel can exist as historical fiction and as science fiction, depending on how the author and/or publisher markets the book. For example, Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series is classified as historical fiction, whereas Connie Willis' series of time travel novels are classified as science fiction. So it's really up to you to decide how you want to market your novels.

Which is more central to your book? The history or the SF?

I haven't read Gabaldon's books; but with Willis's books, the point is how the Historians deal with the past. Thus her stuff is SF. If the point was the past with some modern people in it, I could see it marketed as Historical.

You might do better in SF as the SF audience is conditioned to deal with Historical stuff better than, IMO, the Historical audience is conditioned to deal with SF. But much of that will be dependent on your writing.

SF is not fixated on Zombies and Vampires--though that is an unfortunate percentage of the YA Fantasy market right now. There are great authors writing lots of other things. Look at the Hugo and Nebula nominations for the past two years. Great stuff. No zombies.

I especially recommend Among Others by Jo Walton, which is poised to sweep the awards this year. It's a fantasy set in the past (1980s). Very interesting read. Really Good. Walton's writings are always strange and fascinating.

I think it depends on how your publisher markets it. You should know your genre and have comparison books for querying purposes. But at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter so much. (And I wouldn't say historical writers are enamored of romance. There are plenty of other subgenres that are popular right now.) I immediately thought of Octavia Butler's Kindred, which I just completely love. My library shelves it as "fantasy" for no reason I can tell.

Once the MSS is complete and ready to shill, I'd say for the purposes of querying and pitching, what you have is science fiction. It's highly possible to make the point in query letters and other approaches that you've steeped your work in a given period, but the fact is science fiction can take place anywhere; historical fiction is generally more bound by our notions of history, so the sci fi elements might well compromise that definition for a lot of potential readers.

While histfic doesn't have to hew like a textbook to known events and documented characters, the willing suspension of disbelief tends to stay in the realm of "could have been" - whereas the belief that time travel could have happened (or could yet) is not particularly widespread. Make the point that your treatment of your period(s?) is rich and fully realized, but don't open yourself to confusion and questions by actually calling time travel histfic. Unless the time travel is a mere frame to spend at least 95% entirely dedicated to the period, it's probably not suitable to most readers' expectation of what historical fiction is.

I would say it depends on the feel of your book. If you focus on the historical accuracy of your story and bringing what life was like in Ancient Egypt to the reader, then I would say Historical. If you focus on the technical details of time travel and the plot is about the journey rather than the destination, then I would say Sci-Fi.

I can only agree with what's been said, and stress that you need to widen your reading if that's your view of the SF community. Vampire/werewolf/zombie fiction may be very high profile, but has only tenuous links to "serious" SF. You might want to look at the SFWA website and see the kinds of books and stories that are winning awards, rather than what's selling by the bucketload on Amazon

http://www.sfwa.org/

Also worth a look is The Kitschies, the humorously-named but entirely serious SFF awards that are making waves here in the UK:

http://thekitschies.com/

Even in SF, novels that are more literary and thoughtful can be commercially viable - last year's winner, A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness, is a serious book about cancer as well as a scary story about a monster!

P.S. Welcome to AW!

A story with both substantial historic and scientific (or "SF") content can be mainstream, such as Timeline by Michael Crichton. But then, he WAS Michael Crichton, and just about anything he wrote and published would automatically be considered mainstream.

But then I don't really know that Timeline made much of a splash (other than being "the new Crichton book" at the time), especially compared to "Jurassic Park." Apparently monsters, even prehistoric ones, are Teh Thing.

FWIW, historical mysteries, and there are a couple of detective series set in ancient Egypt, are usually shelved in the Mystery section. By analogy, historical science fiction would be in the Science Fiction section.

W.J. Cherf said:

Dear Colleagues:

Question to you all: does a series premised on historical science fiction belong to historical fiction or science fiction?

What I have discovered is that the science fiction consumer community is fixated on the latest vampire, zombie and dystopia heroine.

On the other hand, the historical fiction crowd seems to be "enamored" with historical romances.

So, where does a serious time travel to ancient Egypt series with heavy cultural content go?

Any and all suggestions and opinions would be most gratefully accepted.

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Historical Fantasy is a popular sub-genre, lots of books with similar content do well there.

Historical science fiction is generally term Alternative History (within SF circles anyway). It can (and most often does) have science fiction elements, but some do not. Even so, it's still classed as SF, at least when it is written by an SF writer.

For instance, 1632 is an alternative history by Eric Flint where a section of modern West Virginia is transported to Germany in the year 1632.

However, 1812: The Rivers War (also my Eric Flint) is an alternative history of the War of 1812 which has no SF elements at all. All he does is change one key incident early on and shows how history might have been changed as a result.

You'll find both in the Science Fiction section.

Roger J Carlson said:

Historical science fiction is generally term Alternative History (within SF circles anyway).

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Only if the timeline changes significantly. A time-travel novel set mostly in the past, in which history does not change, would be SF but not alt history.

I think Connie Willis' work mostly falls into this category, but I've not read any (tried one, and couldn't get into it).