Genres for books have grown insurmountably over the years. Only a few centuries ago, there were very limited genres. Since then, it has grown into nonfiction subcategories, like memoirs, biographies, or travel guide. The fiction subcategories are even more vast, ranging from historical romance, to comedy, to fantasy. There are even subcategories with subcategories now. Take fantasy, for instance. There is now, saga fantasy, paranormal, and science fiction, to name a few.

So why are there so many more categories now? There have always been stories brought forth from the imagination, especially romance, comedy and tragedy. So have we all suddenly become so much more detail oriented and have started organizing everything into their own label? Perhaps.

Or perhaps with growing opportunities and growing technology, our brains haves started to expand more, giving more room for intriguing stories. I think for the nonfiction area, it is pretty self explanatory. After all, people are doing more traveling and it is much more convenient to do that with a travel guide, right?

As for fiction, our minds have been opened up the more possibilities over the years. It used to be that the setting to place on a ship bound for the Indies, or America. Nowadays, the setting could take place in an underground city, or on a spaceship on its way to the newest discovered galaxy. We have moved beyond the old saying, “The sky’s the limit” to “there is no limit”.

With all these interesting things to ponder, one might wonder how the future generations can be affected. With so many movies out that have hover crafts, are our kids going to grow up thinking that it is a real possibility and they just have to figure out the logistics to get them created? Will some child get sick of going to school and invent a way to plug knowledge directly into the brain so school can become superfluous? You never know. I grew up with the idea of cloning being a very real possibility, but my grandparents read about it and thought it complete fiction.

This leads into my next thought of, “Which came first?” Is it possible that the creative part of the brain was able to help science along in the first place, or was the academic part of the brain able to learn first what was and then lead into what could be. My personal opinion is that you simply cannot have one without the other. It is this author’s opinion that Albert Einstein had to be in touch with his creative side in order to elevate himself to his genius status.

So keep on dreaming everyone. Authors, keep using your imagination to publish new and interesting concepts for the world to absorb. Maybe in the future someone will find some way to create that magical pill that will stop aging as well as cure any and all diseases. (I have noticed that to be a popular one in many fictional novels.) But the point is, keep imagining, keep studying, and you might be surprised at the discoveries you’ll make.