Annie Bot is literary science fiction within the subgenre of gender-focused dystopias. Science fiction typically refers to texts that depict an imagined future that may be characterized by technological advances, space or time travel, and major environmental or societal changes. Science fiction exists in both popular and literary forms, and literary science fiction is typically characterized by in-depth character studies, intellectual complexity, and engagement with big-picture thematic concerns related to social issues like gender, sexuality, race, class, and human-created phenomena like war and societal upheaval.

Science fiction that engages with issues related to gender has a well-established history. Many 20th- and 21st-century authors have explored the changing nature of gender roles during various time periods, the way that gender impacts relationships, beauty standards, the role that gender plays in sexuality, patriarchal (and matriarchal) societal organization, and many other related concepts. Science fiction has long been an important literary avenue to explore hypothetical questions related to gender in part because of its speculative nature: Sci-fi texts allow authors to create worlds that do not yet exist, and the theoretical nature of the writing allows for the exploration of alternative models for societies, alternative identities, and alternative ways of experiencing sexuality and gender.