Every City Its Own Genre!

The most excellent supernatural/noir novelist Charlie Huston tells the Austin American-Statesman that LA is a more SFnal city than NYC, which is one reason why his most recent book, Sleepless, is SF. He moved to LA, it seems, and the SFness of the place overcame him.

This got me thinking. Which is America’s most science-fictional city?

After trying out a number of candidates, I realized I couldn’t decide because there were so many cities that seemed SFnal in different way. From this realization I formulated a theory that goes something like this: All American cities are in some way science-fictional, but that each city in America has a kinship with a particular subgenre of SF.

So here’s an experiment. Below is a list of the thirteen largest urban agglomerations in the United States, per the Census Bureau. Next to it is a list of thirteen SF subgenres. Match ‘em up!

New York LA Chicago DC/Baltimore Boston Bay Area Dallas Philadelphia Houston Atlanta Detroit Seattle Minneapolis

Space opera New Wave Cyberpunk Apocalyptic Post-apocalyptic Utopian Dystopian Steampunk Retro-futurist Transhumanist Alternate history Dying Earth Edisonade

(Another way to play this would be to look around you and create your own genre for the city where you live. But that’s another post, and probably one you should write…)