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This is something I've kind of struggled with for a while now, as I prepare the second book in my trilogy for self-publication. When I'm confronted with those little ticky-boxes for Genre, I'm not quite sure what to choose. Maybe you guys can help--I'd appreciate it! 
My series is set in a version of Earth that's pretty much like ours, in an unnamed time period that's indeterminately between about the early 90s and now (social attitudes toward things like gay rights and women's rights are more current, but technology hasn't reached the point where things like the internet and cell phones are ubiquitous). Magic exists, but it's rare and the mages keep to themselves. They aren't known to the general public.
The other thing that exists is a series of extradimensional entities that have shown up in the last few years (how and why this happened is one of the main subjects/mysteries of the first part of the series). These entities can possess humans and coexist with them, using their abilities and knowledge to help them fit in as they further their own ends. The entities consume emotion (ideally negative emotion like fear, terror, and despair) to survive, so they use their hosts to generate this (both on a crude level for the lower-powered entities and a more subtle level for the less common higher-powered ones). There's no easy way to tell if a human has been possessed by these entities.
The entities have been successful in "passing" for quite some time. The only people who know about them are a group of mostly insane or mentally unusual individuals (homeless, mentally ill, drug addicts, highly religious/suggestible, etc.) collectively known as The Forgotten. The Forgotten possess various odd, idiosyncratic, quasi-magical powers that showed up around the same time the entities did, but for the most part these powers are only useful for hiding from or avoiding the entities, not fighting them. The two groups co-exist mostly because the Forgotten can't convince anybody that the entities exist, and the entities, while they will happily kill the Forgotten when given the chance, are too busy pushing their own agendas (they don't particularly play well even with each other) to declare war and wipe them out.
Into this comes my protag (25, a bit of a hothead but with a strong protective instinct), his sister (17, who as it will turn out is both Forgotten--with a very unusual power--and has the ability to be a mage), and an experienced mage (mid 30s, snarky British academic who teaches Occult Studies at Stanford as a cover) that the protag encounters and ends up joining forces with. Together in the first book they track down the powerful entity that controls the area where they live and destroy it.
Anyway...the story has elements of Horror (the entities and some of the horrific things they do to feed themselves), dark fantasy (magic and mages), urban fantasy (magic set in a mostly modern-day setting), and dystopian fiction (this is reaching, though, and not really a central point).
Any suggestions about how I should position it?
The link to the first book is in my .sig--the second will be published on Monday.
Thanks much for any help you can provide!
My series is set in a version of Earth that's pretty much like ours, in an unnamed time period that's indeterminately between about the early 90s and now (social attitudes toward things like gay rights and women's rights are more current, but technology hasn't reached the point where things like the internet and cell phones are ubiquitous). Magic exists, but it's rare and the mages keep to themselves. They aren't known to the general public.
The other thing that exists is a series of extradimensional entities that have shown up in the last few years (how and why this happened is one of the main subjects/mysteries of the first part of the series). These entities can possess humans and coexist with them, using their abilities and knowledge to help them fit in as they further their own ends. The entities consume emotion (ideally negative emotion like fear, terror, and despair) to survive, so they use their hosts to generate this (both on a crude level for the lower-powered entities and a more subtle level for the less common higher-powered ones). There's no easy way to tell if a human has been possessed by these entities.
The entities have been successful in "passing" for quite some time. The only people who know about them are a group of mostly insane or mentally unusual individuals (homeless, mentally ill, drug addicts, highly religious/suggestible, etc.) collectively known as The Forgotten. The Forgotten possess various odd, idiosyncratic, quasi-magical powers that showed up around the same time the entities did, but for the most part these powers are only useful for hiding from or avoiding the entities, not fighting them. The two groups co-exist mostly because the Forgotten can't convince anybody that the entities exist, and the entities, while they will happily kill the Forgotten when given the chance, are too busy pushing their own agendas (they don't particularly play well even with each other) to declare war and wipe them out.
Into this comes my protag (25, a bit of a hothead but with a strong protective instinct), his sister (17, who as it will turn out is both Forgotten--with a very unusual power--and has the ability to be a mage), and an experienced mage (mid 30s, snarky British academic who teaches Occult Studies at Stanford as a cover) that the protag encounters and ends up joining forces with. Together in the first book they track down the powerful entity that controls the area where they live and destroy it.
Anyway...the story has elements of Horror (the entities and some of the horrific things they do to feed themselves), dark fantasy (magic and mages), urban fantasy (magic set in a mostly modern-day setting), and dystopian fiction (this is reaching, though, and not really a central point).
Any suggestions about how I should position it?
The link to the first book is in my .sig--the second will be published on Monday.
Thanks much for any help you can provide!
