[Pothealer]

Is it my imagination, or, once you are recognized as an author of "novels," it's hard to break into sci-fi, and vice-versa? It seems that there are some really fantastic wordsmiths in sci-fi and fantasy, but popular mindset always relegates them to that one world. If they try to write a piece of conventional fiction, it isn't well-received. Stephen King is the only guy I can think of to whom that rule doesn't seem to apply.

[Yobmod]

I can't think of any mainstream authors that have tried to break into SF. They may write the occasional near future thriller etc, but don't make any affort to become part of the genre.

[Ward]

Iain (M) Banks would be a prominent genre bender.

But there is a sharp divide in most cases, which probably has more to do with specialist publishing houses and marketing than anything else. Of course, there are always the readers inside and outside the genre who only read 'their thing' and don't bother with anything else.

I think it would be much easier to start mainstream and slip into sci-fi than vice verse, mostly because there doesn't seem to be as much snobbery on the sci-fi/fantasy side...

[KatG]

Is it my imagination, or, once you are recognized as an author of "novels," it's hard to break into sci-fi, and vice-versa? It seems that there are some really fantastic wordsmiths in sci-fi and fantasy, but popular mindset always relegates them to that one world. If they try to write a piece of conventional fiction, it isn't well-received. Stephen King is the only guy I can think of to whom that rule doesn't seem to apply.

No, it's just a matter of genre and non-genre publishing and who markets to whom. Plus, maybe a little resistance to authors breaking away from their "brand" of one type of fiction to another. The wordsmiths who not only write sf/f but are published by sf genre publishers and marketed principally to sf fans, though some marketing to more mainstream audiences is sometimes done. Therefore, they are seen mainly as genre writers. This is different from non-genre sf writers who sometimes do sf novels, published by non-genre publishers and marketed chiefly to the mainstream, such as Michael Crichton and others.

Another factor is that most sf/f authors published in the genre like to continue writing books of this type. But for those who want to write other types of fiction, markets do exist. Isaac Asimov, for instance, published mysteries. Jonathan Lethem, who did several sf novels in the genre, then went on to write a very successful mystery novel, "Motherless Brooklyn," and a non-genre fantasy novel, "Fortress of Solitude." A number of sf/f writers have also written children's fiction, westerns, horror, and so on.

Horror is a market that straddles various fields. Horror novels can be sf, fantasy or simple suspense. It has a fan audience and is identifiable as a category, but such an audience has never been large and organized enough for horror to move out of being a sub-genre of mainstream fiction and an adjunct to the sf/f genres. King's first publications were in horror and most of his work has been in horror to great success, and thus mainstream fiction. He has also, though, in the course of his long career, written dark fantasy published by genre publishers and non-genre fantasy that is not really horrific. As part of the horror genre, he may seem to move freely among genres, but that's partly because he is chiefly marketed to mainstream audiences, not just genre audiences.

As more and more non-genre writers use sf and fantasy elements in their work, and as more cross-marketing between mainstream and genre audiences is pursued by publishers and booksellers, the difference is likely to become less and less important, and genre writers putting out other types of fiction are likely to find less resistence from mainstream audiences. But, it's only really going to work if the genre fans let their authors sail off into other waters and not cry abandonment when they do.

[Pothealer]

That's a good explanation, KatG. Thanks!

[Pavane]

M. John Harrison may be an obscure name to many of you (although seeing as he's now getting printed in the Millennium masterworks series, and he's come back yo SF with Light maybe not), but he has received some critical acclaim at least for his mainstream novels like Climbers and The Course of the Heart (although the latter has fantastic elements.

I guess the same goes for Christopher Priest, and most evidently for JG Ballard.

Which raises the question, is the shift from/between SF to 'mainstream' easier in the UK than elsewhere?

[blop]

As more and more non-genre writers use sf and fantasy elements in their work...

The genre/non-genre debate makes me uncomfortable - no-one likes to be pigeonholed. Kurt Vonnegut writes sci-fi and non-sci-fi, but he also writes books that are a bit of both. Slaughterhouse 5 being the obvious one. For the most part that's a book about the Dresden bombings, but there's a crazy sci-fi subtext in there that really enrichens the book. I welcome this behaviour, as the more blurring of genre lines, in my opinion, the better.

[Monty Mike]

I think what you're saying, Pothealer, is quite true. The only other author I can think of, aside from Stephen King, is Iain M Banks. With titles like 'The Wasp Factory' among others, he has done well in both sci-fi and fiction, though perhaps not quite as well as Mr King :)

[Jay_T]

Defintely second Banks - and not just the popular Wasp Factory.


Michael Moorcock has writen the exceptional more straight fiction Mother London (IMHO his best work), and King of the City.

M. John Harrison's Climber's is stellar. (which I guess woudl be no surprise)

Kazuo Ishiguro (who won the prestigous Book award in 1989 for the excellent Remains of Day) has a semi-genre offering Never Let me Go (which si a Booker Nominee this year)

Haruki Murakami the author of The Hard Bolied Wonderland at the End of te hWorld, and the The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle has written straight fictions like Norwegian Wood.

Forgive me, I have a masters in Economics so I want to mention China Mieville (of course the author of the Perdido Street Station, The Scar, and Iron Council) has written Between Equal Rights: A Marxist Theory of International Law.


James Clemens right straight mainstream fiction as James Rollins.

Jack Vance wrote mystery novels.

I didn'ttake te hquestio nas someoen who is going away from the maisntream genre as in that case there are literaly hundred if not thosuands that can be mentioned, but a question regarding compeltely different genres.

[KatG]

The genre/non-genre debate makes me uncomfortable - no-one likes to be pigeonholed. Kurt Vonnegut writes sci-fi and non-sci-fi, but he also writes books that are a bit of both. Slaughterhouse 5 being the obvious one. For the most part that's a book about the Dresden bombings, but there's a crazy sci-fi subtext in there that really enrichens the book. I welcome this behaviour, as the more blurring of genre lines, in my opinion, the better.

Vonnegut is famous for telling the sf genre to get the hell away from him. In his day, sf was beginning to get some attention for literary merit, but was still considered mostly pulp for a small niche audience, and most publications were in mass market paperback. Vonnegut said he wouldn't be trapped in the sf ghetto and made a concerted effort to break into literary fiction circles and not be seen as a sf writer but as a social satirist. And to a large extent, it worked. But he didn't completely abandon the genre and the genre has continued to revere him as one of its early geniuses. To many, he's not a genre author, to others he is. But yes, he didn't want to be pigeonholed.

Kazuo Ishiguro is an example of a non-genre writer who's latest novel happens to be a sf book. Back only a decade or so ago, we in the genre community would hear little about it and the book would not have been marketed to the sf genre audience. But times change, and non-genre authors now welcome and sometimes actively pursue the genre audience because sf and fantasy are now literary hip. Haruki Murakami's home country doesn't have a formal genre market. He's another non-genre writer who sometimes does fantasy or sf. Barbara Hambly is another genre writer I can think of who writes other fiction. She does fantasy novels and non-fantasy mystery novels.

The question now is, will the genre markets be kept as a separate market, which has a number of advantages, or will it be dissolved? Even if it continues, the ghetto walls are definitely breaking down.