Week 6: Assignment 3:

I found fan websites for each of my selected subgenres by googling the subject.  I used www.wilmara.com for the subgenre disaster. We are confronted by the media every day with how the human race is depleting and destroying the world's natural resources and making decisions that could place us at the brink of world war. These books are exciting to read but also cathartic because they provide a stark picture of how apocalyptic disaster would look and feel were it to really occur.

I used  a site entitled Paranormal Reading for Young Adults for the Paranormal subgenre. I can summarize the current buzz among fans over this subgenre with two words: Understanding and Control. Fans of this genre are struggling to understand and control the world beyond the physical realm.

Lastly, I used www.alibris.com and selected the Urban Warfare books category. Readers find borough warfare books exciting because of the violence, harsh language and devastating consequences faced by the protagonists.

Frame 232 by Wil Mara typifies the disaster subgenre with the standard appeal factors of fast pace, scientific detail, and believability - the scenario created is a realistic possibility.

Vicki Pettersson, the author of The Signs of the Zodiac is considered one of the finest writers of paranormal. This is a subgenre with historical roots in the stories, cults and religions of the past, fantastic or otherwordly elements, and plot details that make sense of popular phenomenon like flying saucers and aliens.

A good borough warfare novel is Street Life by Jihad. Hallmarks of this genre are gritty street life, gang warfare, turf disputes and a protagonist's page-turning struggle for survival.

Mashups of subgenres:

Dynasty by Dutch which has been described as as "urban soap opera," combines the genres of romance and  the borough warfare novel. It features a battle between two factions of a crime family - the Bells from the South and the Simmons from the North along with the steamy, womanizing escapades of  a cocaine drug lord.

Scars by Patience Prence is an action-packed thriller with political overtones that is both Christian fiction and a disaster novel rolled into one. The main character finds herself in the middle of a cataclysmic national disaster as the world comes to an end and must decide whether or not to follow God.