The Others

I like Science Fiction. It’s truly my favorite genre and I scratched the surface a bit as to why. Now I’m going to go through all the different genres (the main ones as defined here by wiki) one by one in no particular order. These apply to books and movies just so you know.

Historical-one word…Boring. Sorry but I just can’t read a textbook for fun. I’m a textbook audio visual learner. Give me the History channel and I can watch and learn about something all day long. I’ll even retain most of it too, especially if I watch it more than once. Give me a lecture on it and I’ll remember it like you won’t believe. Reading it however is a completely different story. It’s like pulling teeth. More like me pulling my own teeth. It’s just not something I’m inclined to do.

Comedy-Now while I will admit that most good books need a little bit of comedy of some sort, it not something I necessarily want to read , mostly because it’s really hard to pull off for an entire book. While I haven’t read a lot of comedy, the only person I think that has been able to pull it off is Douglas Adams. It’s like reading Monte Python. It’s quite good and many have tried to copy. Much that I’ve tried to read has fallen short. With movies there is that fine line between funny and stupid.

Western-Sorry, it just doesn’t interest me. Once you’ve read or watched one, you’ve pretty much read/watched all of them. It’s really hard to find something that’s original. My personal favorite is Unforgivin. Morgan Freeman, Clint Eastwood, and Gene Hackman….It makes for a mighty fine movie.

Horror/Thriller-I’ve never really gotten into the whole genre. I always thought it was a little ridiculous. I saw Friday the 13 and Nightmare on Elm St. when I was younger and I think those might be what ruined it for me. I mean how many times you have to kill the bad guy before he dies!?!?! Now I’ve tried to read Steven King on many different occasions, and just couldn’t get into it. I tied I really did. But that’s coming up in another post.

Romance-I shouldn’t even bother this one….but I just can’t read about a “throbbing member” without laughing.

Action/Adventure-I’ve read plenty of these in my day. I think I’ve read every Dirk Pitt novel that Clive Cussler has written. Dirk Pitt is my hero! They are a good read. There are my other’s that I’ve read that fit into this genre as well, but since there so many that Clive Cussler has written, and he is so consistent, he’s the only one I’m going to mention here. It’s a great way to relax. Same goes for a good action movie. I could watch Die Hard or one of the Lethal Weapon movies just about any day of the week if it was on. They are fun, quick and they don’t require a lot of thinking. But to watching or reading something in this genre is a little like eating fat free sugar free ice cream. Yeah it’s good because hey, you’re eating Ice cream right!?! You’re just not really that satisfied. What you really want is some Ben & Jerry’s.
Crime Fiction-This to me is a lot like the action/western. They can be fun but how many who donnit’s can you really have? It was Mr. Green with the candlestick in the library.

Thriller-This has got to be one of my favorites. A good Thriller can combine many different elements from different genres. A good Thriller can keep you guessing, and shock you at the end. Remember the first time you saw The Sixth Sense? How about the Usual Suspects? Those are to of my favorites. Lucky # Slevin is a great one with an amazing cast. Unfortunately this has been a bit of a bandwagon kind of thing, and there are a lot of bad ones out there.

Fantasy-I’m not a big fan of these. So far there are really only a few I’ve really enjoyed. I’d recommend anything by Neil Gaimen. My personal favorite being Neverwhere which contains the 2 best bad guys I think I’ve ever encountered in my life. I’ve tried other fantasies and most I just can’t get into them. I suppose it’s easier for me to get into a fantasy movie than a book. Prime example: The Lord of the Rings. Hated the books, loved the movies.


This is really just a generalization of my thoughts.. I can enjoy a book or movie of any genre if it has a few elements:

A good story - This includes plot, direction, timeline, ect) I don’t want to be reading and start think about how much milk I have in the fridge and if I’ll need to go to the store in the morning. A good

Good characters - People you love or love to hate. They have to grow in some way or experience some hardship in the story. That’s what makes it a good story.)

Written well- Yes this is important to me. It really bugs me when I’m reading a book and the author use the same adjective 8 times on one page. But that’s only part of it; they need to able to communicate the story well in a concise manner. I don’t want to have to reread a sentence 3 or 4 times to figure out what’s going on.

If anyone has any recommendations, let me know. I’ll most likely add it to my reading list.