sci-fi authors to conventional authors

[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

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.

 

[estranghero]

Er...

...But what about Dan Simmons, Greg Bear, and Paul McAuley?

I know Dan Simmons started writing horror book then moved onto SF. However, I know he did a historical fiction (kind of) involving Hemingway in Cuba. And what about Greg Bear and Paul McAuley, who seem to be traversing into territories claimed by Michael Crichton? I mean, last I heard, Crichton isn't exactly genre SF, more like mainstream thrillers.

 

[stencyl]

I think that Gibson's last book, Pattern Recognition, was a shift from straight Sci-Fi to the more literary realm, and it has been pretty well accepted by fans of sci-fi and mainstream fans. I nearly fell out of my chair when my wife told me her book club (one that normally sticks to Oprah-type books) was reading it. I did fall out of my chair when she said they generally liked it. I can't say whether this will be the case with his next work, but I can see him straddling genres with success.

William Burroughs was a beat writer who wrote Nova Express. He's a writer that seems to have been able to cross from the literary to the science fiction realm.

Thomas Pynchon is shelved in fiction in books stores but his stuff has heavy science fiction elements. I'd argue that V. is a woman who is essentially a coupling of the animate and the inanimate, a cyborg of sorts. Heck, the back of one publisher's prinitings of Philip K. Dick's works calls him "the working man's Pynchon."

I think that Ainulindale's suggestion of Murakami is a good one. His work has elements of science fiction, especially The Wind Up Bird Chronicles--a great book.

Then again, that barrier does exist, and it is one that authors acknowledge, even if in subtle ways. Anne Rice writes under a pen name when she writes romance, Neal Stephenson does the same with thrillers.

 

[Mugwump]

Marion Zimmer Bradley (writing as Morgan Ives, Lee Chapman, Morgan Dexter et al), Robert Silverberg (writing as Don Elliot) and Harlan Ellison (writing as Paul Merchant) all made money writing pornography.

Going back the the early years, H.G. Wells' non-SF novels (Tono-Bungay for example) are highly prized.

 

[trentdick2882]

Philip K. Dick has some mainstream novels. Confessions of a Crap Artist and the Transmigration of Timothy Archer are a couple of my favorite books by him.

 

[ArthurFrayn]

Just to add:
PKD was continuously trying to crack the nonSF market. Other books include The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike, Puttering about in a Small Land, Mary and the Giant, and Humpty Dumpty in Oakland. There are still others but these have been in print in the past 10 or so years. Alas, Mary and Puttering are the only two currently available -both are worth reading however.
Of the lot, I thought Humpty Dumpty in Oakland was as good as Confessions of a Crap Artist. Those two, are high on my list of favorite PKD novels.
Nobody revels in telling the story of the schnook, quite like Phil.

 

[KatG]

Michael Crichton writes several different kinds of thrillers, and a number of them have been what are called science thrillers. These sorts of stories by authors like Tess Garitsen and Robin Cook, are technically sf stories, but are published in the suspense market and not often marketed to the sf genre audience. But "Jurassic Park" eventually was marketed to the genre and it's becoming more common for non-genre writers to seek out the genre audience and for science thrillers to be called science fiction thrillers on their covers. Bear and McAuley reflect also new trends where sf authors are being heavily marketed to mainstream readers as essentially science thrillers or science fiction thrillers as well as to their sf fan base.

Neal Stephenson wrote his thrillers, as I understand it, right before breaking out with his sf, so he wasn't trying to hide from sf fans by using a pseudonym. Nonetheless, an alternate writer name is a common way to write in multiple markets, though certainly not the only way these days.

William Gibson was always heavily marketed both to the sf genre market and the mainstream market, and this helped him out a great deal and was one of the really successful crossmarketing efforts. Cyberpunk sf always had a lot of crossover potential and publishers have always tried to exploit it. Anne Rice didn't write romance that I'm aware of, though if she did, pen names there are common because the publishers used to get to own the names even if the author stopped writing under them. She did, though, write erotic fiction under a pen name when she was starting out, but it's not something she's tried to hide. They even made a really bad movie out of one of them. Pynchon is another non-genre writer and I think probably is seen more as a surrealist.

The barrier is there, but it's extremely permeable. It's been more the case that non-genre authors penetrate into the genre market, but it looks to be going the other way a good bit now. Certainly, a sf writer writing another type of fiction wouldn't raise that much of an eyebrow. But it would help if we got more genre sf bestsellers going, and the barrier might crash fully if an sf author got nominated for a major mainstream book prize. Neal Stephenson apparently came close with "Cryptomonicon," and it's likely to happen in the future.

Heck, the back of one publisher's prinitings of Philip K. Dick's works calls him "the working man's Pynchon."

Now that's just really, really wrong. It's insulting to both Dick and Pynchon. Poor Mr. Dick, beloved of Hollywood and critics and still can't get any respect. Nor will it do squat for sales, so I don't know what that publisher was thinking. It wasn't a recent edition, was it?

 

[stencyl]

No, the edition was an older one. I saw it at a bookstore a while back and I can't remember which publisher it was. And yeah, I thought it was sort of insulting to Dick more than the reverse.

I'd agree about Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, KatG. I thought that his last thriller was more recent though. I could be wrong.

 

[KatG]

They're reprinting all of them because he's a mainstream bestseller now, so I'm sure it's confusing. I wouldn't be surprised if we lost Stephenson entirely to the thriller market, but we'll see what he feels like doing.

 

[Soon Lee]

Being a Stephenson geek...

The Big U (1984)
Zodiac (1988)
Snow Crash (1992)
Interface (1993) with J. Frederick George (as Stephen Bury)
The Diamond Age (1995)
The Cobweb (1996) with J. Frederick George (as Stephen Bury)
Cryptonomicon (1999)
The Baroque Cycle
- Quicksilver (2003)
- The Confusion (2004)
- The System of the World (2004)

The 'thrillers' were written post 'Snowcrash' but before 'Cryptonomicon' as an attempt to get into the 'Tom Clancy' market ('if we can get just a small percentage of his sales...'). Then his SF books started selling really well.

Of course, his most recent books are, at most, only tangentially SF. Still good reads though.

 

[Randy M.]

Where does horror go? somewhat tangential

[...]
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.

[...]

Kat, I agree with most of your statement, but I think this is off.

Some horror was considered mainstream, usually that with a literary pedigree. Poe, works by Hawthorne, E.T.A. Hoffman, Gogol, de Maupassant, etc. were mainstream. So, too, Shirley Jackson.

Much horror was published as a subset of the mystery/crime genre. For instance, Cornell Woolrich had a rep as a mystery writer, and his one supernatural novel, _Night Has a Thousand Eyes_ was marketed as a mystery. Robert Bloch, too, to an extent. (Bloch's had collections published by mainstream publishers, but also Mysterious Press and Del Rey.) _Red Dragon_ by Thomas Harris, too.

With King horror became a marketing tag, a way to sell King-like (or King-lite) books, and also an umbrella under which both supernatural and non-supernatural scariness could cower.


Randy M.