Science Fiction's Newest Sub-Genre

Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash is just the latest book in a long line of books that describe a world in which the contents are not as great as the world that we currently live in. Snow Crash is considered to be an excellent example of the science fiction sub-genre of dystopian fiction, which of late has become increasingly more popular with science fiction writers. The question is however, what makes something a sub-genre? What factors distinguish a work as part of a sub-genre rather than the overall genre? (Keep in mind science fiction is itself a sub-genre of fiction.) A genre is defined as a category of literary fiction determined by literary technique, tone, content, or even length. Sub-genres are designed to more deeply describe the literary technique, tone, content, and length of these genres into more specific parts. Looking at this definition we can examine the relationship between science fiction and dystopian fiction. First, the literary technique, or literary devices, used in science fiction works needs to be more specified. In dystopian fiction flashbacks are occasionally implemented in order for the reader to understand what the world was like previous to the present time or perhaps an important event that led to a major social or economic shift that caused the world to be the way it is. Secondly, the tone of dystopian fiction tends to be centered around the hope of the main character whose ultimate goal is to change whatever terrible things are going on a make everything go back to normal. While dystopian fiction works are not cheery stories there is always an underlying tone of hopefulness that one day all will be righted. Thirdly, the content of dystopian fiction works is what most clearly sets them apart from any other sub-genre of science fiction. While the majority of science fiction focuses on cool, advanced technology and the adventures people have with it dystopian fiction focuses on how that new technology was harnessed by the wrong person, for the wrong reasons. This is dystopian fiction’s strongest evidence in its consideration as a sub-genre. Lastly, the length of these particular works is not really of any importance to how the story develops. What the story is written about is more important than how long it is. Considering these four elements of genre one can make the case that dystopian fiction can be considered its own sub-genre of science fiction.