Science fiction is sometimes referred to as a genre or type of literature; other genres include romances, westerns, horror stories, and detective novels.

The genre of science fiction contains a number of subgenres; descriptions of genres are useful to the general reader insofar as a genre recognizes common elements of works. Thus a reader who enjoys a particular work might look for other works that belong to that same genre.

The list of genres that appears here is by no means exhaustive but will serve as an introduction to many of the most popular categories of science fiction.