Assignment 1: I chose Street Fiction because the website has subheadings for Street Fiction, Urban Nonfiction, Urban Christian Fiction and Urban Teen Fiction. I was not able to sign up for an email newsletter. Some of the books on the lists provided seemed older, like Push, and I did not see where new books were listed. There is a nice section on Librarian Resources which has links to articles about urban fiction.
I signed up for the email newsletter from Urban Reviews, another urban fiction website. Urban Reviews provides reviews of new books on the homepage, making it easy to see what is new and to select which reviews you want to read. I find it easy to use the book covers to get an idea about the book, and to be able to recognize a book when it's on the shelf.
Assignment 2: The Prezi graphic was very useful in the way it presented the different genres and subgenres. I would like to have been able to print it out so I could study it more easily. I was familiar with a lot of the authors, even when I have not read them. The books chosen to represent the genres were generally good choices and from authors that are generally available.
Assignment 3: I used a Google search to find these websites, and it was difficult to locate sites that way which had the information that I wanted. I used several different search terms before I settled on the sites I chose. Goodreads and the booksellers Barnes and Noble and Amazon have good lists of books in these subgenres.
Psychological Horror: The Monster Librarian website(http://www.monsterlibrarian.com/slashers.htm) has a list of book reviews of fiction with what it calls human monsters and psychological horror. It considers these books to be terrifying because the monster is a person, causing the readers to question their sanity and that of other people. Stephen King's books are probably the best known in this genre. Dennis Lehane, author of Shutter Island, and Peter Straub (Koko) are also popular authors in this subgenre.
Western, Native American: The Native American subgenre of westerns was harder to find on a fan website. Western Fiction Review, (http://westernfictionreview.blogspot.com/) covers traditional westerns, including some about Native Americans. Other Native American book review sites usually covered books for children or nonfiction about Native Americans. The best lists I found were in Goodreads, under Popular Native American Books (http://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/native-american) , and Native American Authors (http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/8036.Native_American_Authors) . Sherman Alexie tops all of these lists. Louis Erdrich is also prominently featured, with other authors like Barbara Kingsolver (Bean Trees) and Margaret Craven (I Heard the Owl Call my Name). These books look at the life of Native Americans from their own viewpoint, taking into account their culture as it coexists with the dominant white culture.
Thriller, Medical: ScienceThrillers.com: where thriller fans put there geek on (http://www.sciencethrillers.com/) has reviews of all kinds of science or sci-fi thrillers, including medical thrillers. This site was the most useful subgenre site that I looked at. These books are fast-paced thrillers with the protagonist trying to save the world from some medical/health threat before he/she or the world is destroyed. A classic is Michael Crichton's Andromeda Strain. Robin Cook ( Vector, about bioterrorism) and James Rollins (Judas Strain, about a plague) also write medical thrillers.
Mashups: A steampunk or sci-fi and western mashup is Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson. The book is a prequel to the Mistborn series, and takes place in a western style frontier and a metropolis featuring trains, guns and paranormal powers. A mystery by Sarah Zettel, A Taste of the Nightlife: a vampire chef novel, is a culinary caper, except the clientele of the restaurant are vampires, adding a fantasy element to the mystery.
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