Andrew Porter passes along the Washington Post‘s attempt to be gracious and kind to those of us in the genre ghetto:
Poor science fiction writers. They are still so often banished to that unfortunate realm of “genre fiction,” despite the genre-transcending brilliance of “Dune” or “Ender’s Game” or anything by Ursula Le Guin. People always expect them to be speaking in Klingon or carrying a lightsaber or worshiping an idol shaped like Joss Whedon. People roll their eyes at the complicated rules that fantasy writers construct for their universes, at the fact that it genuinely matters to them whether fairy dust would be a cure for dragon’s blood, or whether a soldier that had been possessed by a demon would obey the same rules of warfare that a regular human might.
What these people do not understand is that sci-fi writers are not creating books but creating whole worlds, and that these worlds are the building blocks for their readers’ imagination and discovery.
As you can probably imagine, given the name of this blog, my initial response was unprintable. Genre fiction is not an “unfortunate realm”. “Genre-transcending” is not a compliment and I am getting really tired of people thinking it is. Speaking in Klingon is awesome. Carrying a lightsaber is awesome. (Don’t believe me? Ask President Obama.) And who are these “people” who do all this expecting and assuming and eye-rolling? This division of the world into “people” and “science fiction writers” is as obnoxious as dividing the world into “people” and “New Yorkers” or “people” and “farmers” or “people” and “cross-dressers”.
The second paragraph seems to suggest that the author of this article (if such it can be called) is really trying to help science fiction writers transcend (ahem) stereotype, but the way to do that is not to congratulate those writers who’ve managed to write something the literati find tolerable. It’s to celebrate everyone in SF writing and fandom, to acknowledge that some bestsellers also wear Spock ears, to stop calling genre fiction an “unfortunate realm” and start digging into what makes it popular and enjoyable and thought-provoking and wonderful. Yes, it’s a genre with genre conventions; so is “literary fiction”! Is that such a bad thing? What’s wrong with actualized metaphors and dragons and aliens and FTL travel and sentient computers and rule-bound magic and wild magic and the unreal and the surreal and the impossible and the wondrous? Nothing, is what. Nothing is wrong with those things at all.
Welcome to Genreville, pop. more than you think. And we like it here, no matter what “people” say.
I was so irked when Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell was shelved in general fiction at B&N while I was working there. It was a fantasy novel, gosh darn it! No fair taking good stuff out of its proper section to try to entice the literati…
All sorts of aspects of “normal” life have arcane rules — particularly among the academia, but also with, say, football or horse racing. And while I do like the writer’s second paragraph, I do, like you, wonder who the “people” are that he’s talking to. I acknowledge that I tend to spend time with like-minded folks, but even the non-SFF folks I interact with have usually read something by, say, Philip Pullman or Suzanne Collins.
In short: hear, hear.
I believe the writer of the article is female.
“It was a fantasy novel, gosh darn it! No fair taking good stuff out of its proper section to try to entice the literati…”
Good point. It would be one thing if doing so brought more people into the Fantasy section. But instead, there’s a sense that the “good stuff” will find its way out of the SFF ghetto.
Some genre publishers love it when their books get shelved in general fiction – a lot more people find it that way. I myself am ambivalent about it…on the one hand, yes, more people find it, read it, and love it, so there’s a lot more sales. And it’s a bit subversive to make them THINK they are reading general fiction when we KNOW it’s SFF. Very cool. On the other hand – I like genre literature and I don’t care who knows it, so I’d rather be looking for titles in the SFFH section than general fiction. But it can be fun to find Charles Stross filed next to Danielle Steel. I know which I’d pick.
Ah, the sweet smell of unintended condescension. What is it about people thinking the genres need to be made to feel equal to other labels on the bookstore shelves? And yes, that part where they poke at the very things geek culture is proud of? *bristles*
As a professional writer of science fiction and fantasy for almost 30 years, I’ve had more than my share of hearing, “Your story can’t be science fiction; it’s too good,” or “when are you going to stop wasting your time and write something real”? I remind them that the books we read in freshman Humanities — The Odyssey, The Aeneid, Dante’s Inferno, not to mention a great deal of Shakespeare — are fantasy.
“Oh. You write fantasy. Like Star Wars and Harry Potter.”
“Not exactly. I write like me. But yes, and I’m proud of it.”
I’m with you, Deborah… ALL those great stories that began our love affair with fiction would, if published today, be classified as fantasy – Beowulf, King Arthur, Homer’s Oydssey… Funny how quickly people forget – dragons have been a part of our storytelling culture longer than the concept of genre itself.
Guess where everyone went to listen to the new poetry? the ghetto
Where’d they go for the cool music? the ghetto
Where do they go to learn new dance? the ghetto
and where do literary authors go to learn what to write about? OUR ghetto.
All great art is from hunger; great observations on the human condition rarely come from those who are content with the status quo.
If you can survive, ghettos make you tough, and compassionate and give you an understanding of your fellow man that is unsurpassed. I’ll take the tough, mean old ghetto, where all the cool, cutting edge stuff happens daily, over mundanity any day.
RE: “Genre-transcending” is *not* a compliment
Yes!
“Genre-transcending” is not a compliment and I am getting really tired of people thinking it is.
Amen. Wonderful post. I think the only division that I’d say stands is that between “people who still think there is a stigma attached to genre” and “the majority of the world who loves this stuff.”
Bam. Well said.
I like the second paragraph, because that is what science fiction writers do. However, I also am one of those nerdy Joss Whedon-loving geeks that the article seems to cringe at. And as much as I like the second paragraph, that first paragraph is awfully long and awfully condescending. Yes, some people roll their eyes at the very notion of scifi/fantasy genres. But then, these same people aren’t the type of people i’m writing for anyway, so who gives a crap? Mostly, I learned a long time ago that i’m not interested in writing for anyone else but me.
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Thank you for helping to dispel some of the snobbery about genre fiction. Why does something have to “transcend” the genre to be considered worthy of being read? That’s like slapping a more serious cover on a Harry Potter novel so adults don’t feel silly carrying it around. The labels have nothing to do with the writing and everything to do with the publisher setting different sales expectations for the book.
A lot of the best-written books I’ve read recently have been genre novels, and a lot of the books that underwhelmed me in the last 20 years would be lumped in with the “literary fiction” label, which I agree has just as many conventions as science fiction. I like science fiction and fantasy books because they help us see beyond our own horizons and ask big questions about what unites us and what makes us human. That’s the spirit that inspires our devotion to light sabers and Spock ears. (Well that and SF paraphernalia is cool.)
I love the frequency with which lovers of “serious” fiction try so earnestly to rescue the good SF and fantasy (as they define it) from the genre ghetto, like some Lady Bountiful rescuing an intelligent hillbilly youth from her/his ignorant and contemptible roots.
They really seem to see us, from Ursula K. to Ted Sturgeon to Suzette Haden Elgin to Eric Flint to Nicola Griffith, as poor benighted savages whose primitive customs occasionally produce accidental artistry.
You guys remember when last years Booker Prize nominees did not contain a single science fiction novel, despite a banner year in English and Australian sci-fi. One of the prize judges referred to sci-fi as a “literary ghetto.” I won’t defend the genre in such a base way as to point to the top grossing films and what genre they come from, I will say that sci-fi and fantasy have influenced the literature of the main stream more than mainstream has influenced it. My god, “Lovely Bones?” Fantasy!!! “Strange and Norrell?” How about everything Thomas Pynchon writes? Everybody needs to feel better than somebody.