Spy-fi
The spy-fi genre (also called "spy fi", spy fiction, spy thriller; related to political thriller, action-adventure, and mystery, heists and caper stories) is a popular genre that focuses on the adventures and intrigues of espionage, assassination, politics, and deadly peril of the characters and often various innocents. The genre is defined by elements of plot (adventure, intrigue, mystery), and character and setting (spies, people involved in government or power, criminal elements, law enforcement).
The genre, even its straight form, often teeters or falls over the brink into SF, through its use of fictional, inventive, and unlikely technologies, which may either be the subject of espionage (as in the inventor of a fusion device) or provide the highly-fabulous tools of the trade (as in Batmobiles or James Bond devices). Spy-fi can readily be adapted to SFnal settings, however.
Early spy-fi novels in the nineteenth and early twentieth century involved the European political games of the day. Swashbuckling stories such as The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy suggested the undercover agent, with secret adventures, and foreign intrigues. James Fenimore cooper's The Spy (1821) was a national agent. Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent (1907), developed out of the anxiety of the day about revolutionaries, assassinations, and terrorism, and its influence can be seen in many heist and caper stories and spyfi novels. Gaston Leroux's Rouletabille Chez Krupp was another early popular spy-fi, bringing in the detective element in its Detective Roueltabille. Ashenden, Or, The British Agent by Somerset Maugham was another early spy-fi, showing domestic intrigues in England.
In the mid-twentieth century, Eric Ambler was a realistic writer and political progressive. Several of his novels became film noir works, and his work was also parodied by "The Pink Panther". Ambler brought a new perspective and "realism" into the genre, showing ordinary people caught up in political intrigues. Graham Greene, similarly, critiqued the political realities even as he wrote popular (and sometimes humorous) novels. Helen MacInnes' Ride a Pale Horse and similar novels set the tone for many of today's action-adventure spy-fi films and novels, with their fast facing and complex plots. Probably the best-known writer outside the genre is Ian Fleming, whose James Bond novels brought in many of the techno-gadgetry elements that are often a hallmark of "secret government agency" spy-fi works.
In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the genre's popularity is unabated. Action-adventure crosses continue to grow, and the placement of "terrorism" in popular consciousness has led the genre back to its roots of a hundred years ago. The popular TV series "I Spy" and "The Avengers" — parodied by the also-popular "Get Smart" — brought the genre to TV; today, it continues to thrive with "Alias", "La Femme Nikita", and "24".
Gender, politics and spy-fi
The genre's emphasis on undercover agents, surprise characterizations, etc., has created a fruitful field for interesting female characters. The genre uses many damsel-in-distress conventions, but even in early spy-fi women often cropped up as villains, or as secondary under-spies (Mata Hari-type figures); often, ambiguous of intent. In recent spy-fi, the male protagonist has given way to greater recognition of female protagonists.
The genre has long been a stable bastion of conservative opinion, although writers like Eric Ambler and Graham Greene demontrated that the genre could flirt with leftist views too. However, the basic premises of the genre — violent service on behalf of a government, an ends-justify-the-means philosophy deployed on behalf of some national government or other — fits easily into rightwing and nationalist rhetoric.
As a genre firmly embedded in Western nationalism, its colonialist and imperialist views often shade into racism. This is explicit in early works, in which "swarthiness" was code for sinister, and "exotic beauties" often turned out to be deadly and treacherous (see dragon lady stereotype). Unfortunately, even modern incarnations of the genre are not immune to the lure of racial stereotypes, although they often use race in more ambiguous ways, or even attempt to deconstruct racial stereotypes, even as they rely on them.