Whois & Analysis for thefreebooksonline.com

Science fiction (often shortened to SF, sci-fi or scifi) is a genre of speculative fiction, typically dealing with imaginative concepts such as futuristic science and technology, space travel, time travel, faster than light travel, parallel universes, and extraterrestrial life.

Science fiction often explores the potential consequences of scientific and other innovations, and has been called a "literature of ideas." It usually avoids the supernatural, and unlike the related genre of fantasy, historically science fiction stories were intended to have a grounding in science-based fact or theory at the time the story was created, but this connection is now limited to hard science fiction.

Fantasy is a fiction genre set in an imaginary universe, often but not always without any locations, events, or people from the real world.

Most fantasy uses magic or other supernatural elements as a main plot element, theme, or setting.

Magic and magical creatures are common in many of these imaginary worlds.

Fantasy is generally distinguished from the genres of science fiction by the expectation that it steers clear of scientific and macabre themes, respectively, though there is a great deal of overlap among the three, all of which are subgenres of speculative fiction.

Horror is a genre of fiction which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten, scare, disgust, or startle their readers or viewers by inducing feelings of horror and terror.

Literary historian J.

A- Cuddon has defined the horror story as "a piece of fiction in prose of variable length...

which shocks or even frightens the reader, or perhaps induces a feeling of repulsion or loathing".

It creates an eerie and frightening atmosphere.

Horror is frequently supernatural, though it can be non-supernatural.

Often the central menace of a work of horror fiction can be interpreted as a metaphor for the larger fears of a society.

A vampire is a being from folklore who subsists by feeding on the life essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living.

In European folklore, vampires were undead beings that often visited loved ones and caused mischief or deaths in the neighbourhoods they inhabited when they were alive.

They wore shrouds and were often described as bloated and of ruddy or dark countenance, markedly different from today's gaunt, pale vampire which dates from the early 19th century.

Although vampiric entities have been recorded in most cultures, the term vampire was not popularised in the West until the early 18th century, after an influx of vampire superstition into Western Europe from areas where vampire legends were frequent, such as the Balkans and Eastern Europe, although local variants were also known by different names, such as shtriga in Albania, vrykolakas in Greece and strigoi in Romania.

This increased level of vampire superstition in Europe led to mass hysteria and in some cases resulted in corpses actually being staked and people being accused of vampirism.

The romance novel or romantic novel discussed in this article is the mass-market literary genre.

Novels of this type of genre fiction 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 subgenres of the romance novel including fantasy, historical romance, paranormal fiction, and science fiction.

Walter Scott defined the literary fiction form of romance as "a fictitious narrative in prose or verse; the interest of which turns upon marvellous and uncommon incidents".