by Eleni Konstantine
We state on our website that the DarkSiders are writers mostly from Australia and New Zealand who write speculative fiction with romantic elements. Be it fantasy, paranormal, dark urban fantasy, futuristic and everything in between.
Let's break this down.
What is speculative fiction?
According to Wikipedia, "Speculative fiction is an umbrella genre encompassing narrative fiction with supernatural or futuristic elements. This includes the genres science fiction, fantasy, superhero fiction, science fantasy, horror and supernatural fiction, as well as their combinations."
That's a pretty good and broad definition.
You can see the attraction of the genre when it includes everything from myth and magic, space travel, discovery of new planets/worlds, ghosts, monsters, zombies, dragons, wizards/witches, scientific discoveries, 'Evil', survival, disasters, and even different societal structures, some to the extreme.
What is romance?
Again, according to Wikipedia "The romance novel or romantic novel...place their primary focus on the relationship and romantic love between two people, and must have an "emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending." There are many sub-genres of the romance novel including fantasy, historical romance, paranormal fiction, and science fiction."
You can see the attraction of being able to have a satisfyingly happy ending to a journey filled with conflict for two characters who are deeply in love.
The DarkSiders
Since we are a group affiliated with the Romance Writers of Australia, most of us also have romance or romantic elements in our work which usually contains speculative fiction.
The combination of speculative fiction and romance is a strong one and can attract a variety of readers.
You can see our members categorised by genre on our website. Of course some of these overlap, which is part of the joy of writing genre fiction, but also it made it difficult for publishers and book sellers to know exactly where to place these stories. With the rise of e-books and digital publishing, multiple 'shelving' with categories and keywords has allowed these cross genres to find a home easier.
Let's check out all the sub-genres in the speculative fiction umbrella we DarkSiders write...
That definitely is a broad range as is our non-speculative fiction areas.
Non Speculative Fiction
While we concentrate on the speculative fiction side on the DSDU, we want to also celebrate the non-spec fic that our authors also write, so hence why you see us talking about this as well.
If you enjoy reading any of the above genres, you've come to the right place!
~Eleni
We state on our website that the DarkSiders are writers mostly from Australia and New Zealand who write speculative fiction with romantic elements. Be it fantasy, paranormal, dark urban fantasy, futuristic and everything in between.
Let's break this down.
What is speculative fiction?
That's a pretty good and broad definition.
You can see the attraction of the genre when it includes everything from myth and magic, space travel, discovery of new planets/worlds, ghosts, monsters, zombies, dragons, wizards/witches, scientific discoveries, 'Evil', survival, disasters, and even different societal structures, some to the extreme.
What is romance?
Again, according to Wikipedia "The romance novel or romantic novel...place their primary focus on the relationship and romantic love between two people, and must have an "emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending." There are many sub-genres of the romance novel including fantasy, historical romance, paranormal fiction, and science fiction."
You can see the attraction of being able to have a satisfyingly happy ending to a journey filled with conflict for two characters who are deeply in love.
The DarkSiders
Since we are a group affiliated with the Romance Writers of Australia, most of us also have romance or romantic elements in our work which usually contains speculative fiction.The combination of speculative fiction and romance is a strong one and can attract a variety of readers.
You can see our members categorised by genre on our website. Of course some of these overlap, which is part of the joy of writing genre fiction, but also it made it difficult for publishers and book sellers to know exactly where to place these stories. With the rise of e-books and digital publishing, multiple 'shelving' with categories and keywords has allowed these cross genres to find a home easier.
Let's check out all the sub-genres in the speculative fiction umbrella we DarkSiders write...
- Dark Fantasy
- Dark Urban Fantasy
- Dystopian Erotica
- Epic Fantasy
- Erotic Paranormal Romance
- Fantasy
- Fantasy Romance
- Flash Fiction
- Futuristic
- Futuristic Romance
- Gay Fiction
- Historical with Spec Fiction Elements
- Horror
- Humour
- Male/Male Romance
- Middle Grade
- Mythological Romance
- NA - New Adult
- Paranormal
- Paranormal Adventure
- Paranormal Romance
- Post Apocalyptic
- Romantic Erotica
- Romantic Fantasy
- Sci Fi
- SFR - Sci Fi Romance
- Short Stories
- Space Opera
- Speculative Fiction
- Speculative Fiction Romance
- Steampunk
- Supernatural
- Sword and Sorcery
- Time Travel
- Urban Fantasy
- YA - Young Adult
That definitely is a broad range as is our non-speculative fiction areas.
- Children's Stories
- Contemporary Erotica
- Contemporary Romance
- Contemporary Romantic Suspense
- Contemporary Suspense
- Erotic Romance
- Inspirational
- Junior Fiction
- Mystery
- NA - New Adult
- Poetry
- Romance
- Romantic Suspense
- Rural Romance
- Non-fiction
While we concentrate on the speculative fiction side on the DSDU, we want to also celebrate the non-spec fic that our authors also write, so hence why you see us talking about this as well.
If you enjoy reading any of the above genres, you've come to the right place!
~Eleni
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