Post-Apocalyptic Fiction Genre Question

The Road is litfic, if you ask me, and post-apocalyptic isn't sci-fi unless it's sci-fi.

Technically, if you're writing about the future or an alternate timeline, and it's not magic, it has SF elements, but that's not always the way it's marketed. Look for comp titles and see what genre they're sold as, and pitch accordingly. (The term "speculative fiction" can include things like this, too.)

There's a spectrum, from light to hard, in SF, incidentally; it's not just hard SF or mainstream.

The majority of novels written by people here are not going to be pitched as fantasy or science fiction. They'd be pitched as sub-genres of those. In your case, that's post-apocalyptic. It's completely fine to use a sub-genre when that's the best way to describe a book. You're only going to get looks if you start making up genres or using really obscure genre names used only by two people.

D.L. Shepherd said:

Thank you. Yes, I can see it being literary fiction over mainstream. But not sci-fi, right? That's what I was thinking when I read it.

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Usually, SF focuses on a speculative scientific or social element or context. It doesn't have to be far future or inherently unrealistic, but it generally contains something that isn't present in our current society, or extrapolates something that is present into a future where it has developed in a certain way. A Clockwork Orange, for instance, is often considered SF, because the story hinged on a treatment for sociopathy that doesn't exist now but possibly could. The Road is more of a realistic look at what a post apocalyptic future might be, without any projection of technological, scientific, or sociological elements that don't currently exist in our world.

The writing style in The Road is definitely on the literary end of the spectrum, but that's not why it's not generally thought of as SF. It's possible for science fiction to also be literary. The Handmaid's Tale, for instance, is often classified as literary SF, because it speculates about the evolution of sociological elements and explores what a society might be like in a future where those elements have a free rein.

Thank you. Each of my Google searches were saying that all post-apocalyptic is considered sci-fi, which when I think of a book like "The Road," it just didn't seem like sci-fi at all to me.

I'll keep looking for other similar titles too. Thanks again!

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Post Apocalyptic or Dystopian fiction could be SF, if it is exploring a speculative technological or sociological element that is (arguably, at least) realistic or explicable in terms of our consensus reality at some level. It can also be more in the realm of fantasy, if the explanation or premise for whatever destroyed society is less plausible or more magical or supernatural. A plague of demons that destroy society might be more of a fantasy type postapocalyptic, unless the emphasis is on inspiring fear and horror. Then it could be horror.

Some things sort of straddle the line, like psychic abilities or viruses that turn people into zombies. Stephen King's The Stand is sort of a blend. The super bug escaping from government labs is a SF kind of premise, but the whole battle between God and the Devil (who were unambiguously real and present in the narrative, not simply presented as beings that the characters believed in) for the future of humanity was more fantasy like, and there were touches of horror and suspense too.

I think that's why Post Apocalyptic is sometimes assigned its own category.

Brightdreamer said:

Technically, if you're writing about the future or an alternate timeline, and it's not magic, it has SF elements, but that's not always the way it's marketed. Look for comp titles and see what genre they're sold as, and pitch accordingly. (The term "speculative fiction" can include things like this, too.)

There's a spectrum, from light to hard, in SF, incidentally; it's not just hard SF or mainstream.

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Wait. if it's just about the future, but without fictional science, how is it scifi?

cornflake said:

Wait. if it's just about the future, but without fictional science, how is it scifi?

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If it's speculating on the future, without magic or other impossibilities, that in and of itself is a kernel of sci-fi, at least by my definition. We cannot definitively know what is to come, and must imagine the tragectory of current tech and trends.

This is exactly why people came up with the phrase 'speculative fiction'. Which of course has its own problems.

If I may be cynical, the difference between literary-fiction-with-scifi/fantasy-elements, and sci-fi/fantasy, is the author's popularity or critical regard. Beloved is not shelved under horror, 1Q84 and The Road will not be found in the science fiction section. Whereas Stephen King is considered a consummate genre author and shelved accordingly.

I believe most hard-speculation fiction, like something post-apocalyptic, would be considered sci-fi by a lot of people, unless it dealt with magic or ghosts, or you were a literary darling.

You could debate all day what does or does not qualify as SF/F. But i think if you told a bookstore owner that a novel is post-apocalyptic they would immediately want to file it under SF. They might put it else where if it's cross genre and you emphasize the other side of it; 'it's a whodunit that is just set after the apocolypse' then they might, might put it in the mystery section, but don't hold your breath.

I believe Gordon Dickson's "Wolf and Iron", which is a post-apocalyptic story with low-tech was found in the SF/F section. While the book is many years old, it might be worth investigating.

I'm sorry, but stuff like The Road is DEFINITELY science fiction. Yes, it is literary fiction, but that doesn't make it any less of a science fiction story. That's like telling me that dystopian novels like The Handmaid's Tale and 1984 aren't also sci-fi.

Here's the thing: if the post-apocalyptic scenario is scientific in origin, it's sci-fi. That includes social sciences, as well.

deafblindmute said:

I'm sorry, but stuff like The Road is DEFINITELY science fiction. Yes, it is literary fiction, but that doesn't make it any less of a science fiction story. That's like telling me that dystopian novels like The Handmaid's Tale and 1984 aren't also sci-fi.

Here's the thing: if the post-apocalyptic scenario is scientific in origin, it's sci-fi. That includes social sciences, as well.

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Maybe there's a distinction to be made between a sci-fi story that gets narrated as Sci-fi (or whatever the current requirements are for the genre such as characters who have mental problems dealing with their past activities and bad accidents) and a Sci-Fi story that gets narrated/treated as something else (possibly less of a standard genre -- a family saga for example -- those seem to have faded a bit -- but then what Sci-fi needs to be Sci -fi has shifted some since say H. G. Wells).

Maxx said:

Maybe there's a distinction to be made between a sci-fi story that gets narrated as Sci-fi (or whatever the current requirements are for the genre such as characters who have mental problems dealing with their past activities and bad accidents) and a Sci-Fi story that gets narrated/treated as something else (possibly less of a standard genre -- a family saga for example -- those seem to have faded a bit -- but then what Sci-fi needs to be Sci -fi has shifted some since say H. G. Wells).

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This is precisely my problem. The kind of SF I write is not based on science at all, but social sciences. It's mostly an adventure story with a SF background. It explores the question of gender in various aspects. If you have a nation where sexual freedom is written in the constitution and this nation thrives among very conservative planet-states, how does it work? I'm still exploring Amazon to figure out where to put it: my main concern is to not mislead readers, and not to close doors either.

"It explores the question of gender in various aspects. If you have a nation where sexual freedom is written in the constitution and this nation thrives among very conservative planet-states, how does it work? "

Sounds like something Ursula Le Guin would have written so that's an avenue worth exploring. Also perhaps look at 'Memoirs of a Spacewoman" by Naomi Mitchison or Doris Lessing's SF.

TheFabulist said:

"It explores the question of gender in various aspects. If you have a nation where sexual freedom is written in the constitution and this nation thrives among very conservative planet-states, how does it work? "

Sounds like something Ursula Le Guin would have written so that's an avenue worth exploring. Also perhaps look at 'Memoirs of a Spacewoman" by Naomi Mitchison or Doris Lessing's SF.

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Yes, I am looking into how Ursula Le Guin's novels are defined. Thank you for the tips about Naomi Mitchison and Doris Lessing. I'll explore this

I like Brightdreamer's idea of finding similar books and seeing what genres they are shelved in, so that is my plan as I get closer to querying. If anyone knows of any similar themed titles to The Road that I can start reading now, I'd appreciate it.

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D.L. Shepherd - I realize this is many months after your last post, and you may be beyond comparative reading, but two books came to mind after reading your post. The Dog Stars by Peter Heller, and The End of the World Running Club by Adrian Walker. Mostly because it isn't the apocalypse that is foregrounded, it's the characters movements through it. There is very little exposition about the apocalypse in either story.