Genre Novels: Favourite Type?

[Lucius]

Genre fiction! Hemmed in by conventions and expectations, looked down upon by the academia and the Nobel Committee, yet so beloved.

Which genre in particular draws us in, and why? The boundaries between the types presented in the poll can be fluid, and Porn is fittingly next to Romance -- I'm prepared to hear an argument for those two genres being one and the same.

For me, it's historical fiction first and foremost. Doing it right, reaching verisimilitude and maintaining it throughout the work -- that's terrific! Flaubert's Salammbo, Feuchtwanger's many novels and, closer to us in time, Mantel's Tudor England works are very good. Then mystery -- it's Sjöwall and Wahlöö for me, without whom no girl with the dragon tattoo. Stephen King single-handedly puts horror in the third place -- I owe my love of reading in part to him.

[Shocker]

I would have needed at least one additional field, so here my shoutout to action adventure, those gad been a staple part of my youth, and most of them still holding up, though they tended to crossover a lot into the thriller territory. Voted for Thriller , Science fiction and if late more Fantasy.

[Vela Nanashi]

For me it is easy I like what I write myself, fantasy, scifi, porn (though some may call that erotica, I would not really call what I write romance even if it might feature some of that too), other stuff I can enjoy too but I tend to want to escape our world in my fiction

[Blue]

Fantasy (not to be confused with science fiction), historical fiction, and thriller. All three genres can include scenes ranging from romance to brutal rape.

[SoftGameHunter]

I think the industry term for novels is erotica, not porn, but it's easy enough to substitute. I went with that plus sci-fi and horror. I considered fantasy rather than porn because the latter is not exactly a genre as a content choice. Kind of like how YA (which stands for young adult, BTW, for those who don't know) is an age range rather than a genre. There's YA fantasy, YA romance, etc, and porn with a plot generally has a plot within a genre.

I still went with it. None of these are hard and fast rules. Just looking at my Amazon Kindle Unlimited choices in the past few years, I've clicked on more stuff to read about horny people than I have to read about dragons, so it got my vote here too.

[Lucius]

I think the industry term for novels is erotica, not porn, but it's easy enough to substitute. I went with that plus sci-fi and horror. I considered fantasy rather than porn because the latter is not exactly a genre as a content choice.

My definitions are consciously very loose, in any case one can argue that there's erotica that isn't porn and I myself am convinced that, say, Victorian dirty novels and non-fiction porn -- A Letter from My Father, anyone? -- can't really be labelled as erotica.

[HistBuff]

I picked "Others" since my favourite is Classics (ancient languages) and Classic Literature (modern languages). I began reading classics at a very young age. When I got into puberty, I found out how sexual some classics really are and began to read between the lines. Knightly tales are filled with implicit sex, some of which is forced. Whenever a kingdom or a castle falls, you can assume a great many rapes occur. One thing I love in the classics is the lack of censorship. Sometimes I read historical novels or sci-fi. But my roots are the Classics, especially Latin.