Week 6: Building Base Knowledge (Genres)

Assignment 1: I chose the Mystery site "Stop You're Killing Me" to follow.  The site is simply laid out and provides quick links to indexes of location, job, historical, diversity and genres.   There are quick links to NEW releases in hardback, paperback, audio and large print.  I like that you can quickly search for an author or character using the alphabet as well.  The read alikes information is sparse.  I knew of the "Agatha", "Dagger" and "Edgar" mystery awards but I now know that there are so many more awards lists honoring various sub-genres.

Assignment 2:  Wow, this is impressive!  This is a lot of information packed into a real cool flowchart! I wish that it was available to print out.

Assignment 3:   Three sub-genres that I am unfamiliar with are:

Cyberpunk Science Fiction.    Cyberpunk is been described as "all about dystopian, networked, future earth type societies with a focus on information technologies: networks, computers, being able to plug oneself directly into virtual environments by whatever means."  Cyberpunk novels will appeal to fans of the 'Tron' movies as well as the 'Matrix' series of movies.  Authors who write in this subgenre are William Gibson, Neal Stephenson and Bruce Sterling.

Hip Hop Urban Fiction:   I was not aware that this was a specific sub-genre of Urban fiction. Described as stories where the characters are driven by the desire to succeed in the music industry as a performer, producer or by playing the video vixen.  Titles include the Ritz Harper chronicles series "Is the Bitch Dead or What?" by Wendy Williams, "Love, Fame and Betrayal" by Stephanie Newell and Platinum by Aliya King.

High Seas Adventure: The Prezi chart describes this sub-genre as "nautical adventures usually set during the Napoleonic wars. Readers experience the rich detail of a sailor's life."  A popular author squarely in this sub-genre is Patrick O'Brien who wrote the 'Aubrey-Maturin' series which includes Master and Commander as well as C.S, Forester, author of the 12-book Horatio Hornblower series, depicting a Royal Naval officer during the Napoleonic wars.   Another title would be Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh.