Sci-Fi, fantasy and speculative Indie Authors Review discussion

Hi, all, Nica of Los Angeles, the first novel in my new series FRAMES, comes out on 9/4/2014. I believe this to be a fantasy adventure with detective and dystopian elements. However, I've been away from the sci-fi/speculative world for a looonnng time, so would appreciate your feedback: do you agree with my genre description?

You can read short and longer summaries of Nica at Nica's Smashwords page. For that matter, you can download the first 30% of the novel there.

P.S. I also want reviews! Message me on GR and I will be happy send you a free review copy of Nica. Thanks for reading!

Sounds interesting (when I've got time, I'll read that first 30%). From the summaries, I'd simply call it science fiction, but I bet there are others here who'd disagree! There's a discussion of this sort of thing on the 'Speculative v Science Fiction' thread which is well worth a look.

Richard wrote: "Sounds interesting (when I've got time, I'll read that first 30%). From the summaries, I'd simply call it science fiction, but I bet there are others here who'd disagree! There's a discussion of th..."

The plot thickens! Thanks, Richard, I would not have imagined that Sci Fi was an option for this...

I admit my attitude to this is pretty free and easy (or just plain lazy more like), but I tend to class anything with elves in it as Fantasy and everything else as Science Fiction!

Richard wrote: "I admit my attitude to this is pretty free and easy (or just plain lazy more like), but I tend to class anything with elves in it as Fantasy and everything else as Science Fiction!"

Lazy, no, flexible, more like. I appreciate the value of genre tags but they can get in the way. But I hope your categorization doesn't mean that you dislike elves and their ilk (just concerned on principle; none appear in my book).

What is Nica's world based on - the way things in it happen I mean, the way reality itself actually works - magic or logic?

Not magic. It is an orderly universe of which our world is one small part.

Then I would class it as some form of Science Fiction. For me, magic - where something can 'just happen' with nothing structured preceding it, no unbreakable 'laws of nature' if you like - is more the hallmark of Fantasy.

This is interesting (might have to get that Speculative v SF thread going again!).

even magic has some logic behind it (i tend to write magic realisim, heh). but mainly, if science prevails and 'magic' - that is, the term for something so unexplainable that can't be proven with science plays a small part, then it's fantasy. I checked out your smashwords preview and it's def sci-fi for the most part.

Interesting! This is the first time I've written a novel and been unclear about its genre. Good thing I set up a pre-order period, that buys me some time to sort this out.