Even if you’re not a science fiction aficionado, you’ve probably run into your share of cyberpunk stories (like the movie The Matrix). But at Writer’s Relief we can’t help but wonder: Is the popularity of cyberpunk—and all of its many, MANY subgenres— suffocating the market?

According to Lee Konstantinou in Slate:

This proliferation of SF punks is what you’d expect from the overproduction of popular culture. Musical subgenres, likewise, offer so many new niches that it can be hard even for aficionados to keep up. When you try to come up with new artistic ideas in a crowded field, a new name can signal your relation to—and distance from—existing styles. Moreover, as SF scholar Sean Guynes-Vishniac argues, publishers always want to find evermore-narrowly-sliced microgenres, hoping to squeeze every aesthetic niche dry.

Read more on slate.com.