We Need New Genres: an alignment chart for literature

This semester I took a class called "Physics of Science Fiction." The professor is a science fiction writer...sort of. She tends to refer to science fiction, fantasy, and horror writing together in one breath. This got me thinking: how much difference is there between science fiction and fantasy?

The answer: not all that much. Don't believe me? Look at Eragon. Set aside the fact that it sucks and take a good long look at that winding derivative plot. What's it derivative of? What's it a direct copy of, besides having dragons instead of robots and spaceships, and magic instead of energy weapons? That's right.

I always knew Eragon was a ripoff of Star Wars, but suddenly that's a good thing. It proves that a story can be shifted from a science-fiction setting to a fantasy setting (and vice versa!) with nothing more than a redefinition of terms. If (to use a higher-quality example) the One Ring were a microcircuit cloaking device that leaked radioactivity, and Gollum paddled his little boat out between star systems, the Quest can end with both of them falling into a black hole just as easily as a pit of lava. I make no apologies to fans of Lord of the Rings. I consider myself one of you, and that makes the correspondence no less valid.

So we've established that science fiction and fantasy are allomorphs (allonarrative?), if not the same thing. This led me to the conclusion that genres as we define them today are at once fuzzy and nondescriptive, and too narrow. Here's what I want to do about it.

Three major genres of story exist: Nonfiction, Realistic Fiction, and Science Fantasy. Of course, I ran into a problem right here: where does alternate history go? After a long and edifying conversation with an interested friend (I'll call him HCE for the sake of the argument), I decided that depends on what causes the divergence from actual history. If it's something plausible, it's Realistic; if it's caused by time travel or aliens (Harry Turtledove, take note), it's Science Fantasy.

Of course, plausibility is more of a continuum (as HCE pointed out); however, genres are supposed to be definite categories, and so I will continue to work with this concept as if it did in fact have clearly defined categories.

Now we have three major genres; put those on the top of the alignment chart. Along the sides, put various types of narrative, and fill in the boxes with stories or types of stories that fit the combination. You get something that looks like this picture on the right.

Yes, I realize the only thing I could come up with for "Realistic Western" was Little House on the Prairie.

 I'd like suggestions for other narrative types to add to the chart, if you can come up with some, and stories that better fit each category.

A caveat: remember that it's more of a continuum than a set of boxes; you can still mix and match, but I encourage you to use these as starting points for writing your own stories. Hopefully this makes genres make more sense to you. DFTBA all!