Genre definitions

We have many of our fiction books at our library divided up into genres. We don't explain what these genre divisions refer to, we just expect everyone to magically understand. Because I have been on a kick of defining terms lately I decided I could put this skill to good use and explain for everyone precisely what these genre definitions refer to. You no longer need to struggle to assume you know. I will lay it out for you in simple terms.




Western:


Any book with lots of horses that doesn't take place in England or in a fantasy world. While this constitutes an entire genre unto itself, taking up significant shelf space, there are only five authors in total who write in this genre.



Romance:


A genre so abandoned and reviled, so desolate, dark, and remote from all respected human culture, and also so full of lone damsels, that it has become recently infested with Vampires and Werewolves.



Mystery:




Stories of men and women whose stunning talent for solving interesting murders is only exceeded by their even more uncanny talent for happening upon them.




Science Fiction:


Once considered the lowest and pulpiest of fiction, Science Fiction is no longer just about rocketships and space monsters, now it's just mostly about rocketships and space monsters.



Fantasy:


Lord of the Rings, the Terry Pratchett books, and filler.




Fiction:


All the books by all the writers who were really mad when Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize.

Devil's dictionary: Internet

It's already time for another session of Devil's Dictionary, with all due respect to Ambrose Bierce, and let's note how clever the phrase "With all due respect" is. Here, we'll do a Devil's Dictionary of it:


With all due respect:

Just the amount of respect someone deserves without saying just how much that is.




Today's Devil Dictionary terms are Internet ones. If anything needs an updated interpretation of terms it is surely those of the Internet!


Blog:

Exactly what you were looking for until you realize it hasn't been updated since 2008.



The Internet:

An overly complicated place to look at pictures of pets. 



Google:

A magical, always available, all-powerful librarian with the judgement and subtlety of a brick.



Comments section:

Where all voices cancel each other out.



Wikipedia:

An online compendium of knowledge everyone is supposed to approach skeptically, but no one does.



Facebook:

A crude webpage used by early humans and confused businesses.