Which Genre?

[Hillsy]

Hey, don't worry - I'm not after a critique!!!!!

I've always pitched my query as just "Sci-Fi", but a few recent comments have made me think that I might be missing a trick with regards to re-categorising or adding a subgenre.....So without further ado, I'd appretiate it if you could quickly scan my query and tell me if you think it's:

• A - Straight Sci-fi
  B - Dystopian SF
  C - Military SF
  D - Future Noir
  E - Other (please Expand)

Thanks for your help! And now, the query

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The world is a wasteland. Civilisation has fractured into a loose network of isolated city-states. A number have gone rogue, withdrawing from the network and treating the passive Cities as just another resource. These Gangs and the Cities are locked in a war of petty skirmishes, neither side able to break the stalemate.

Layne barely survived the latest Gang attack, a bold assault on the City’s military facility, the Garrison. With a reputation for
insolence, and still months away from completing his training, Layne is surprised when his superiors accept his intention to investigate the attack personally. The spectre of treachery looms around the Garrison High Command, and someone has already arranged for Layne to fill the role of traitor himself.

Framed and without proof of his innocence, Layne has to flee the City. But there’s only one place he can run to – and the Gangs might just hold the evidence he needs.

Inside and in danger, Layne starts working the door at a high-class brothel to cover his identity. With growing understanding and respect for the brothel’s Madame, Lady Jenivere, comes the realisation many of his prejudices are just Garrison propaganda, designed to make the war more palatable. Worse still, the actions necessary to clear his name are feeling more like torture and murder than ‘interrogation’ and ‘execution’.

Faced with an enemy increasingly difficult to label evil, and evidence that Garrison leaders are complicit in Gang plans to escalate hostilities, Layne’s own altruism might prevent him from stopping them. Because if the Gangs break the stalemate it could cause a cataclysmic, and permanent, end to the fighting…….and sometimes forging peace is more deadly than waging war.
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Cheers again

[MattLarkin]

Based on that it sounds Dystopian to me.

[Watcher55]

At first I wanted to say near future sci-fi, but I think it crosses the line into distopian.

[polymath]

Fantastical social circumstances is the hallmark convention of soft science fiction, of which dystopia is a subset. A mainstay convention of dystopia is when a conflict resolution outcome brings a protagonist to an accommodation with the dystopian society or escapes it altogether. Large dystopian social forces are all but impossible without might makes right force majeur to reform. So soft science fiction for sure. Maybe or maybe not dystopia.

[dios4vida]

I'd say dystopian, too.

[TomLysander]

I think your best bet would be to label it "dystopian sci-fi," simply because the world is literally a "bad" (dys-) "place" (topos). One sci-fi book that this query reminds me of vaguely is "Parable of the Sower" by Octavia Butler -- it also reminds me of Mad Max,

The other (unlisted) possibility might be post-apocalyptic sci-fi. (e.g. the world is a wasteland) But in terms of saleability, the stock of "dystopian" sci-fi is high right now, so I'd go with that marker, even if post-apocalyptic is in some ways more accurate.

Kudos, Tom

[Hillsy]

Interesting - I never thought about it sounding Dystopian until it got mentioned once in an offhand way. I'd have gone post-apocalyptic save the fact it's about 2000 years after the second apocalypse, which is about 3 thousand years after the first. So I never really felt comfortable calling it that.

Tom: Yeah, I deffo went for a Mad Max feel. More like civilised mad max though. Kinda half mad max, half star trek......half X-Men........half James Bond..........Yeah it's a bit of a mess really.....hehe

[skyledavis]

I would actually caution against dystopian. It could technically be dystopian, but doesn't need to be so. It doesn't centralize around bringing down a government with a fatal flaw. Instead, it's about a person in an admittedly dystopian society. There is a difference.

Now, if this was a year and a half ago, I'd say jump in with both feet and call it dystopian. It was HOT, HOT, HOT back then. However, dystopian is now being seen as negative by agents. The market is flooded with dystopian novels right now because of the success of YA dystopias such as The Hunger Games. Agents are looking for something different. However, there are stirrings of traditional sci fi doing better, and novels like Across the Universe are hitting the bestseller lists. So, I'd frame it within sci fi, personally.