Genres and Subgenres and Memes, Oh My!

Varkat over at her blog does an excellent job of breaking down the different types fiction genres and subgenres

Every convention I've been to in the past year has had at least one panel dedicated to the defining and blending of various genres and subgenres. Where are the lines drawn between urban fantasy and paranormal romance? Is it possible to have urban fantasy in a rural setting? When does suspense become romantic suspense? Can I get fries with that? (The answer is yes, but this is somewhat trickier if you're writing historicals.)

My belief is that all fiction is more or less on a continuum…more than one really. One graph might extend from love stories to novels completely lacking in romance, though it's hard (but not impossible), to find books in any genre completely without romance. When determining what goes on the spine, what matters is the focus of the story. Another continuum might be magic versus non-magic with magical realism falling somewhere in the middle. Or maybe that same continuum extends into the science fiction field so that magic is on one end facing off with technology on the other. In that case urban fantasy might be the median. Anyway, without a bunch of charts and graphs, let me see if I can shed some light on various genres and subgenres and how they're defined.

Read on here http://varkat.livejournal.com/62631.html
(she also includes recommended authors in each area - fascinating and lots of work)