Why SF Can't Win

[Randy M.]

Originally Posted by KatG

"The Hugo Awards, to give them their full title, are awards for excellence in the field of science fiction and fantasy."

"The Nebula Awards are annual awards presented by Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America to celebrate excellence in science fiction and fantasy writing."

"The Arthur C Clarke Award is the most prestigious award for Science Fiction in Britain, presented annually for the best Science Fiction novel of the year."

Oh look, the award people disagree. You may not like the change, which happened decades ago, but tough cookies.

I was debating about saying something along those lines. Note that past Hugo winners include, in 1959, "That Hell-Bound Train" by Robert Bloch, arguably one of the best short stories published around that time in fantasy, s.f. or horror, but it definitely is not a science fiction story. In 1963, "The Dragon Masters" by Jack Vance, which is marginally s.f. but reads a lot like fantasy, as does "Gonna Roll the Bones" by Fritz Leiber, a winner in 1968.

The win by the Bloch story -- which is said to have stunned him -- set the precedent early.


Randy M.

[Yobmod]

As a SF fan, and reader of most Booker nominees, i would point out that the Hugo has gone to undeserving works far more often than the Booker.

There are few if any Booker winners as terrible as "They'd Rather Be Right" or "The Wanderer", or as mediocre as "Foundation's Edge" and "Hominids", even though it is limited to Commonwealth authors (unlike the Hugo).

Also, i didn't notice any Hugo nom for "The Handmaid's Tale, "The Road", "Illywhacker", "The Life and Times of Michael K", "Briefing for a Descent into Hell", "Time's Arrow", "The Sirian Experiments", "Alias Grace", "Life of Pi", " Oryx and Crake", "Cloud Atlas", "Never Let Me Go" - all of which are SF or fantasy/horror stories.

It seems to me that SF fans and awards are just as closed minded as literary types, and care just as much about who the publisher is or whether a work fits their stereotype. Did Vonnegut or Ballard's obviously SF works get any SF prizes after they changes publishers? Doris Lessing's after she went to SF conferences and championed SF (which she clearly wrote many examples of before she won the Nobel?)? No!

When the Hugo voters start nominating great SFF works from by any author/publisher based on content and quality rather than popularity with not-well-read fanboys and "tradition", then they can start complaining about their preferred genre being ignored. Otherwise it is simple hipocricy.

Oh, and i should point out once again, that Atwood admitted to writing SF many years ago. I know she is famous, but continuing to use her as a Straw-man when it no longer represent her opinion simply shows ignorance. Isn't that what people here are accusing "literary snobs" of?

[KatG]

While I get your point, Yobmod, SFF awards and nominations have gone to non-category authors and more and more in recent years. (And I hated Never Let Me Go, so please let's not play the it's deserving and should have got nominated because I liked it card.) In fact, the Clarke award got yelled at by some for not having enough "category" nominees. There is no prohibition that non-category works can't be nominated by whichever official pool does the initial voting or submitted by publishers should they so care to (which has only been of great interest to them in the last 9 years or so when the category market was seen as worthwhile to chase.) Doris Lessing was warmly welcomed at the SF conventions long before she won the Nobel. It was her fellow lit creds who dissed her for writing SF. Michael Chabon was practically lifted up on shoulders and carried around. The Hugo folk were deeply hurt that Rowling didn't come to pick up her Hugo or at least send someone in her place.

Whereas there is a very strong distaste by judges for the major literary awards not only against category SFF, but also suspense and romance (genre), and strong incentives for publishers to avoid submitting works that will be seen as too genre to awards committees, even if they are published and sold in general fiction. That's something that needs to change, is changing, but it's not going to change if the Hugo and the Nebula ignore all the literary talents in the category for only non-category authors who already have a better shot at major lit fic awards.

And yes, I'm not terribly surprised that Atwood has not been nominated for Hugo or Nebula for her SF works. She's done an enormous amount of damage to SF authors. Yes, she may have said that she wrote SF in the past, but she recanted. Her argument now is that she writes "speculative" fiction, which consists of things that don't exist but could happen today in the right circumstances -- post-apocalypse by engineered virus, war leading to repressive society, etc. -- and SF is instead things that can't happen right now like spaceships and aliens. Which is ridiculous, and everybody knows it's ridiculous, (not to mention co-opting a term invented by SFF writers and fans.) But there are some fans of hers who are also SF fans who go along with it, so they aren't going to nominate her for a SF award. And there are other SF fans who don't see what the point is in giving a SF award to someone who won't accept it because she doesn't think she ever writes SF.

Much as I think it would benefit SFF fans to stop believing there is an imaginary wall and stop talking about non-SFF media as the enemy, and stop talking about fans who like non-category SFF as if they were traitors (no one ever try that claptrap with me,) there is still a basic problem that LeGuin illuminated once again in her devastating one paragraph blast at reviewers trying to peg Chabon as not-SFF. That is, that a large contingent of contemporary authors writing SFF stories -- and particularly those who do not have a free pass credential as ethnic writers like the Latin magic realists or Salman Rushdie -- are still scared that being labeled SFF will damage their careers or reputation, so they disclaim it, and in the process, proclaim SFF as something inferior and unworthy.

This is not a problem limited to SFF. When Oprah picked Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections for her book club, the guy was up for the National Book Award and he freaked out, trying to downplay the selection, that he wasn't really the Oprah book club type (i.e. commercial, schmaltzy, not an artiste,) as he feared losing the award. Whereupon his publisher shook him until his teeth rattled and he made a half-hearted apology. And still won the National Book Award.

And that's pretty much the key. If more non-category authors win big awards for SFF works, and if a category SFF author (i.e. someone published by Del Rey or Orbit UK,) wins a major award or even gets a nomination, then it makes it safer for authors not to disavow SFF. Which again means that category publishers need to keep pushing their best titles at these award committees.

If it's safer for authors not to disavow SFF, then what gets in the media changes the picture, and if the picture in the media changes, people's perceptions change. And for those SFF fans who grump that they don't care about those other folks anyway, those other folks keep your favorite authors from making a better living and writing more. It doesn't hurt to nudge perception to a more logical stance. SFF will win, but not unless both sides keep challenging the idea of there being two sides and an imaginary wall between them.

So yeah, more non-category SFF being nominated is fine. Make those authors deal with it and the benefits of it, and some who are smart, like Chabon, will embrace it. But the awards are also to promote the category authors too, many of them who write just as well as the non-category ones, and winning those awards gets them some attention by non-fans. And a concerted effort needs to be made on the major lit awards, not just by SFF, but by horror, suspense, etc. Why isn't Dennis Lehane being nominated? He's a college professor too who's taught fiction writing at Harvard. Sure, he was a nominee for a PEN award with Mystic River, but that's as far as he got. And in my view, Mystic River showed far more literary skill than The Corrections.

[psikeyhackr]

The Liberal Arts people greatly outnumber the Science people and the science people aren't getting bent out of shape about literary awards.

It is just another demonstration game of C.P Snow's Two Cultures being played out.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/22/bo...Dizikes-t.html

psik

[KatG]

Snow is full of it. Science people enormously outnumber liberal arts people (and make on average way more money.) Liberal arts people are not all against science either -- many of them do both. People who are sciency or artsy mostly don't read fiction. And both groups are even more outnumbered by the business people, who don't read fiction and have no interest in science except how it might make them money and provide them with gadetry. It's the business people who make culture and jobs and government policy, and half of them don't even come from the country they are shaping, because they work for international conglomerates.

This entire debate is really about advertising. Change the advertising, and you get rid of the debate. Which doesn't have anything to do with science versus art either. It's strictly business.

[Fung Koo]

Sorry, Kat, but I gotta stop you for a sec. Unless you're just parroting Snow for effect (in which case ignore all of the below)...

Talk about creating false divisions...

"People who are sciency or artsy mostly don't read fiction" -- what? First, define your terms. Second... what!?!?

Business people outnumber the others? Does a pharmaceutical company qualify as a business or a science? Does an animation studio qualify as art, science, technology, or just the catch-all "business"? What qualifies someone as a "business person" as opposed to an artsy or sciencey person? Where does someone with a sciences or arts degree working in business fit in? What about non-academics? What about those without college/university education at all? What about trades -- where do they fit? Is a roofer a scientist or an artist or a business person? What do we do with someone with an arts degree who writes technical manuals? Or someone with a science degree who is an artist? Etc etc etc...

Just take this minimal information about the Top 10 rich dudes in the world: http://hubpages.com/hub/Top-10-Riche...e-In-The-World

Only three have completed degrees, and all three have both arts and science degrees. So what group should we slot them into?

---Back to the Topic---

When it comes right down to it, the reality is that people have to to create divisions between themselves and others. "I am this, you are that. We are different."

It's called in-group/out-group psychology. It's a psychological/sociological phenomenon that has to do with the way human beings acquire a sense of identity, and how we discriminate generalized knowledge into specialized categories.

At the beginning, individuals and groups may really be different from others (to greater or lesser degrees). And when individuals and groups separate themselves, they organically (by mutual reinforcement) develop specialized jargon, modes of speech, modes of dress, common ideologies, etc., predominantly based on the original set of differences that are perceived as positively indicative of the in-group.

Anyone who has met a teenager should know exactly what I'm talking about.

But, it then changes and becomes self-fulfilling -- at a certain point, individuals and groups make themselves different from others. Or they at least support a continued illusion of difference. (You have to have a new and improved product to sell for people to buy it, don'tcha know!) In organizations, it's called "nationalism" or "regime change" or "corporate restructuring" or "propaganda" or whatever. For individuals, it's called "quirky" or "character" or "elective eccentricity."

Awards are predominantly an extension of this process -- a recognition of the contribution of an in-group member to the in-group by the in-group. The more nebulous the group (the less inclusively and exclusively defined it is), the vaguer the membership. The more specific the group (the more inclusively and exclusively defined it is), the more specific the membership.

The Hugo and Nebula are theoretically awarded to the specialized SFF "in-group" members, whereas the Booker, National Book Award, whatever, are for the broader non-genre "out-group" (relative to the SFF "in-group"). Of course, we know that within the broader non-genre "out-group" there are still actually a gazillion different sorts of in-groups (but they may not enjoy the same level of perceived difference that SFFH does from the rest of literature). And they, too, have their own awards for being exemplary of the traits of membership to their in-group.

In a sense, an award is recognition for a sort of Exemplary Conformity. Or for Exemplary Non-conformity, in cases where conformity comes to be seen as a negative to the in-group. Non-conformity can be seen as beneficially enhancing the internal variability and resources of the in-group -- which is very much like attacking and taking over the neighbouring village to add their gene pool, food source, etc, to your own. Or "genre-bending," as applied to groups in fiction.

Think of political elections -- this very process, acted out. When things are good, stay the course. When the party is stale, call in the new guy with the radical views.

Giving an out-group member your in-group award is, therefore, an extremely contentious issue -- if the perceived difference is great enough, it's anathema. It would be like the Republican party electing an Independent as their leader (or worse, a Democrat). Or presenting the Hugo to a non-genre writer (or worse, to Atwood). Or the Booker to a genre writer. Etc...

In each case, that's not who it's supposed to be for.

"SF Can't Win" because SF is a specialized in-group operating within the broader literary out-group. Granted, the borders around the in-group are fuzzy at best. But a feature of groups is that they are capable of recognizing each other as members or not. That's why the fringe is so tricky. And if you examine the evolution of cultures, arts, genres, etc., the fringe usually ends up becoming its own in-group (steam-punk, urban fantasy, magic realism, soft sf, etc).

Snow's "Two Cultures" argument is just a specialized version of the exact same process whereby we differentiate ourselves from our peers, or how political parties are created, or factions within an organization, or countries define their borders, or people draw a line around their village, etc.

It's a real thing that he's talking about, naturally occurring, and it's been happening forever. He is by no means the first to talk about cultural divisions, nor will he be the last. But he's applying it to the academic reality of his time. Given that he's talking about academia, then his "Two Cultures" is really an argument for that all important source of comfortable existence -- funding.

So yes -- it's a straw man. And the assertion that kids are dumber about science because of the arts, or vice versa, is fundamentally stupid. But it's unavoidable.

The bottom line is that those that buy into in-groups as anything more than placeholders for your sense of self are idiots. But understandable idiots. You gotta have compassion for them -- they're only doing what comes naturally.

[KatG]

SF is a specialized in-group operating within the broader literary out-group.

No, it's just perceived that way by some. It's not perceived that way by others. The ones who do perceive it that way are mostly people who are confused by packaging. That may be human nature but it's also human nature to point out that the Emperor has no clothes. As you note:

Granted, the borders around the in-group are fuzzy at best.

The borders are "fuzzy" because they only exist if people say they do and man the borders. And they only exist for those people because one person or group manning an imaginary border has no control over anyone else. Change the message and the borders go poof.

But a feature of groups is that they are capable of recognizing each other as members or not.

Except none of them, fans or non-fans are any good at this at all. You have SFF fans who don't even know they are SFF fans, who are, again, easily confused by packaging. Change their perceptions of packaging and their notion of identity changes. SFF fans -- who you'd call the in-group -- have very little resemblance to how members of the "in-group" are presented to many people. So it's not a matter of changing fans or SFF. It's a matter of perceptions, which are often two-box, but are not set in stone (nor based on reality usually.) Perceptions shift on their own, but placement in those perceptions has an effect too. Publishers submitting more genre writers to award committees is a matter of placement and it creates a shift. Michael Chabon refusing to declare himself non-genre is a change of placement and it creates a shift. Readers talking about SFF published by both Random House and Del Rey together, which there's no reason not to do, etc. Bradbury and King winning the Letters award from the National Book Award folk creates a shift, and so on and so on.

As does people pointing out the reality -- there aren't two boxes that everyone falls neatly into. The Emperor has no clothes on.

Only three have completed degrees, and all three have both arts and science degrees. So what group should we slot them into?

Exactly.

[Fung Koo]

Originally Posted by KatG

No, it's just perceived that way by some.

So the question, then, is whether or not one's perception of reality is any different than actual reality.

Human Beings, being the subjective sorts that we are, tend to conflate perception with reality -- perhaps because our perception of reality does in fact largely define our reality. For example, it's well established that: If you are happy, you smile more / If you smile more, you'll feel happier. So is that perception, or reality? Or both?

And we're talking about a few human created systems of organization, here, stacked upon each other. Nested, dependent systems of "perceived" reality.

Individuality -- perception, or reality?
Social groups -- perception, or reality? (and what about for: 1st order groups, such as family; versus 2nd order groups, such as towns/cities/countries; versus 3rd order groups, such as job types, political parties, clubs, etc).
Fiction -- perception, or reality? (and what about for: poetry versus prose? fiction versus non-fiction? genre? etc)
Awards for fiction -- perception, or reality?

Tell me which one of those is certainly "real" reality without perception occupying a large part of it. And then tell me how perception of reality is actually different than socially operating human reality.

It's not perceived that way by others.

Which, again, begs the question.

If membership to groups is only perceptual, and therefore not real, how is it that the two groups (the group that believes that SFF is a in-group, versus those who don't) come into disagreement? Which perception correlates to the actual reality?

The point, really, is that people will modify their description of "true reality" to support their "perceptual reality." That's how in-groups are created.

In the end, "reality" itself is only a perception -- a sort of universal straw-man. There's no "true reality" -- if there was, why all the countries and religions with ideologies of which reality is the correct reality? Even philosophies like, say, Buddhism, that teach that our social groups are illusory can't get away from the fact that they, themselves, are a social group -- they've also simply modified their version of what "reality" is to suit their point of view. But are they any more "real" than anyone else? Based on what?

The ones who do perceive it that way are mostly people who are confused by packaging. That may be human nature but it's also human nature to point out that the Emperor has no clothes.

Once again, begging the question.

The borders are "fuzzy" because they only exist if people say they do and man the borders. And they only exist for those people because one person or group manning an imaginary border has no control over anyone else. Change the message and the borders go poof.

I disagree -- they don't go "poof" so much as they simply shift, go through a period of flux, then settle back into a slightly revised system of organization that continues to satisfy the social need of the now-fractured predecessor group.

There are social differences (perceptual or real?) within different social groups (Americans versus Brits versus Canadians, say -- perceptual or real?) that affect how groups get organized and transition from grass-roots, bottom-up memberships, to full fledged Organizations with top-down, proscriptive membership. Not all go that far, though, and that complicates the issue.

Think of a Convention. At first, it starts off as a couple of friends that get together to discuss an interest (a local in-group). Those friends then invite in other friends, and the group expands. At a certain point, the membership grows large enough that the original in-group no longer personally knows every other member (some researchers in the area of business argue that the magic number is in the 50-75 range -- others go to an upper limit of about 150. See: http://www.thefriendshipblog.com/tags/number-friends).

It's at this point that the group changes. There are two scenarios that usually hold true: either the group formalizes their membership and graduate to a capital-O Organization (become top-down and proscriptive); or, the group rejects organization and graduates to Partnerships.

A Convention is then formed. Some Conventions have strict requirements for participation, while others are somewhat looser -- Organization, versus Partnership. In an economic sense, a Department Store or a Mall is a top-down Organization, whereas a Market is a sort of bottom-up Partnership. There's no real difference between them in terms of what they do, but they are organized differently. Partnerships tend to be less exclusive in their membership.

Partnership organization is what the SFF community is. It's several loosely affiliated in-groups of like-minded and like-interested individuals, which share a common thread of interest between them (this form of organization may also sometimes be called Denominational, Chaptered, etc). This creates a nebulous in-group under a common moniker that ties together the various sub-in-groups.

These sorts of Partnership organizations are much harder to pull apart than Organizations proper, because the bonds that hold them together aren't clearly defined (you can't identify a chain, let alone a link in a chain, to break). They are "organic" and "naturally" formed, unlike top-down Organizations which become increasingly artificial as time passes. As such, Partnership organizations tend to last longer than formalized Organizations. They are highly adaptable, and almost impossible to break up -- precisely because they don't believe themselves to be organized into a master group at all, and even if they do, there's very little instruction coming from the top -- in fact, these groups tend to resist instruction from the top.

That's why they don't go "poof" if you convince them they don't really exist -- clearly they do exist. There are vested interests, but their existence is not altogether dependent on any other group. So when these loosely affiliated Partnership organizations are encouraged shift, they do so slowly, and remain relatively well defined as a generality. Gaps that are left by the changes get filled by new local in-groups (usually out of the former membership, with a few new faces), that go onto become organizations of either sort.

Again, this all begs the question.

Except none of them, fans or non-fans are any good at this at all.

As above -- they don't actually need to be. The requirement for belonging don't come from the top.

SFF fans -- who you'd call the in-group -- have very little resemblance to how members of the "in-group" are presented to many people.

Stereotypes exist for a reason.

In fact, they exist for the same reason that in-groups do. It's a psychological/sociological phenomenon that has to do with the way human beings acquire a sense of identity, and how we discriminate generalized knowledge into specialized categories.

Whether stereotypes hold true over time, however, is another matter. And when you're dealing with Partnerships organizations, you end up with stereotypes about one affiliate being transposed to all the other various little sub-groups that make up the mosaic that is the SFF community.

So it's not a matter of changing fans or SFF. It's a matter of perceptions, which are often two-box, but are not set in stone (nor based on reality usually.)

I'd suggest that the SFF community would benefit most by developing more specialized awards for their affiliate subgroups, and also give out awards specifically for non-genre fiction.

Recognition of accomplishments outside of the in-group serve to demonstrate the in-group's participation in the broader social community, both to the out-group and to the in-group. It creates respectability amongst the outsiders and fosters respect for the outside amongst the insiders.

The SFF Community, however, tends to remain fiercely introspective (which is often typical of Partnership organizations) -- but is, I think, also it's most significant fault.

[psikeyhackr]

Snow is full of it. Science people enormously outnumber liberal arts people (and make on average way more money.)

How do you figure that?

At the high school I attended 4 years of English Lit was mandatory for EVERYBODY. Only 2 years of math were required. But I remember having a talk with two boys that chose to drop out of the top class after 2 years. They looked at me like I was crazy. Math and Science were the only classes that were any fun. I got B's in English Lit because it was so easy.

But the world has changed since 1959. Not too many people had computers in their homes that are more powerful than 1980 mainframes in 1959.

These computers present the opportunity to short circuit the so called educational system that wastes time on junk. Kids don't need to waste time traveling to libraries that you can't find stuff in anyway. Now we can't find stuff on the internet.

psik

[KatG]

Partnership organization is what the SFF community is. It's several loosely affiliated in-groups of like-minded and like-interested individuals, which share a common thread of interest between them

No, it's not. The SFF community isn't actually a community per se. It includes everyone from someone who buys a SFF title once in a blue moon to people who organize conventions. It's more like an amorphous mass in which some organisms occasionally act.

There is a SFF field, which consists of publishers, booksellers and authors. By publishers, I mean both Random House and Del Rey.

The notion of genre as a sub-set of this field largely results from confusion over packaging and how fiction publishing works, in the past and in the present.

Psikey, I'm sorry that you think the world and the population are less scientific and science dependent now than in 1959, but I disagree. As for trying to divide the culture into arts and science thinking, I think it's stupid.

[psikeyhackr]

Originally Posted by KatG

Psikey, I'm sorry that you think the world and the population are less scientific and science dependent now than in 1959, but I disagree. As for trying to divide the culture into arts and science thinking, I think it's stupid.

I don't know how you are interpreting what I am saying but the world is MORE science dependent now than in 1959.

You don't have to look hard to find PLENTY of people talking about science scores declining over the last few decades so I am not sure what country you are talking about. I am referring to the USA.

http://homelandsecuritynewswire.com/...on-imperils-us

All you have to do is research reviews of 2001: A Space Odyssey from 1968 to see how much the movie reviewing community was out of touch with science and good sci-fi. Science is not something seprate from how reality works it is the study of how reality works. Not knowing science simply means not knowing reality.

In light of the positive response 2001 was receiving from mass audiences and other reviewers, some critics who had given the film a negative review went to see it a second time. Free from the initial shock and prepared for its unconventionality, many took a closer look and decided to recant and publish positive reviews. As one author put it, “accompanying this truly popular response came the more or less public realigning of some critical opinions and even in a few cases downright recanting.”

http://www.palantir.net/2001/meanings/essay05.html

Social reality and physical reality may be somewhat separate things but social reality can never escape the physicsl. People that LOVE CARS and don't know a cam shaft from a crank shaft are hilarious. Hopefully thsir mechanic knows the difference.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/25078...-h/25078-h.htm

http://librivox.org/the-machine-stops-by-e-m-forster/

Putting Science Fiction and Fantasy in the same genre was a socio-economic decision made before I started reading the stuff. It doesn't change the fact that science advances and technology becomes more sophisticated. You just need to walk around an American city and look at all of the ugly satellite dishes stuck on buildings to know this ain't the 60's anymore Toto. What do you mean Best Buy wiped out the data on your hard drive when they did the upgrade. ROFLMAO

psik

[Fung Koo]

Originally Posted by KatG

It includes everyone from someone who buys a SFF title once in a blue moon to people who organize conventions.

C'mon now. Just cuz I've sailed in a boat a few times in my life doesn't make me a sailor. If we're going to be that inclusive, then of course divisions are irrelevant.

However, I maintain that there is such a thing as the SFF Community, and that it is distinct from the general literary community.

It's more like an amorphous mass in which some organisms occasionally act.

harr harr

There is a SFF field, which consists of publishers, booksellers and authors. By publishers, I mean both Random House and Del Rey.

The notion of genre as a sub-set of this field largely results from confusion over packaging and how fiction publishing works, in the past and in the present.

Are you just plain denying any group that forms around an organization? Or only for books?

Just because a scene follows out of a specific-market industry doesn't invalidate the existence of the group that assembles under it. There's no such thing as rock and roll. There's just a bunch of publishers, sellers, and bands. So, there's no such thing as a rock and roll fan.

[KatG]

C'mon now. Just cuz I've sailed in a boat a few times in my life doesn't make me a sailor. If we're going to be that inclusive, then of course divisions are irrelevant.

Oh, I see, you want to be in charge of the purity test as to who is a viable SFF fan and who is not. Sorry, doesn't work that way.

Fans are not the same thing as a community and a community is not the same thing as a genre. Fifty years ago, you could make a decent argument for a sub-community built around the magazines, especially with the mentoring they did. Thirty years ago, you could still make an argument maybe from the conventions combined with SFF media, but you'd be pushing it. But today, the SFF fan base (and just for you, we'll limit it to those who buy SFF regularly,) is in the millions, is international, and the majority of them don't go to conventions, don't read the magazines, and don't read reviews or hang out at SFF sites. What they do do, though, is buy SFF, category and non. And their perception of what those SFF titles are tends to come from where and how the particular titles are sold, and same for non-fans and to a large degree, also hardened SFF fans like us.

So you have a writer like Jonathan Lethem. He wrote category SF, very well received. He still writes in the category market, short fiction, does editing in it, goes to conventions. But he went off and wrote a mystery novel that got literary acclaim, then he wrote a magic realist historical fantasy, Fortress of Solitude, which was published by a general fiction publisher in general fiction but also covered in SFF media, and he wrote a non-SFF about a band, etc. So to some SFF fans who discovered him in the SFF section of the bookstore or encountered him at a convention and such, he's category for his SFF. To others, who read him in general fiction, which includes his category SF that was reprinted by Harcourt Harvest in general fiction, he's general fiction.

And a writer like Kij Johnson, who did historical fantasy The Fox Woman at Tor, again well received, and who was just at WorldCon, etc. So to some, she's category. But to others, who encountered her say in college or through vendors that are not bookstores with their SFF sections, she may be seen as general fiction, especially by fans and non-fans who think category fantasy fiction has to be alternate world fantasy. (Or that if it isn't in mass market paperback, that means it's more literary.)

And so on and so forth. So what's going to happen is that in a few years, a writer who is considered in some sectors "transitional," like Jonathan Lethem or Neal Stephenson, is going to win one of the big lit prizes. And then some time after that, an author who is still publishing with category publishers, possibly one of the smaller ones that are seen as more arty, will win one.

This is not going to make category SFF universally respected and seen across the board as all titles being potentially literature. Suspense fiction has been playing this game a lot longer and still deals with mistaken beliefs that a set of elements is inherently un-literary and has to be overcome, even as suspense titles, just like SFF titles, are widely studied in academia. Nor will it kill the category SFF market. As long as hundreds of SFFH titles are selling well, the market and the specialized imprints will continue, which offers more opportunities for authors doing SFFH, and SFFH titles also being put in general fiction will continue, titles that are interchangable because which imprint publishes them doesn't really matter to the content.

What will happen, though, is that the notion that literary SFF is always "non-SFF" will become less and less viable an idea, and proclaimed by fewer and fewer people and media. The section of the bookstore will become less important to people's general perceptions of what titles are, etc., essentially just like the suspense field. And SFF -- which has already won, but which has not been acknowledged because of the not-SFF perception -- will definitively win.

Which for some people is very important and others could care less. But nonetheless, that's where we are heading.

[psikeyhackr]

Originally Posted by KatG

Oh, I see, you want to be in charge of the purity test as to who is a viable SFF fan and who is not. Sorry, doesn't work that way.

Well some people are mere SF fans and not SFF fans.

Send a squadron of star furies to wipe out those Jedi knights Mr. Geribaldi.

psik

[KatG]

Originally Posted by psikeyhackr

Well some people are mere SF fans and not SFF fans.

Only if they pass your SF fan purity test, my good man. I believe I've failed it several times already.