What do you consider to be fantasy?

[Miller]

-Very true Yobmod.

In reply to Eventines question, I really don't know. I barely read anymore...lol. I used to read alot, but the last few years have been bleak. I'm going to try and remember the last books I even read.

-Jack Whyte, almost all his series, eventually got burnt out. Forget what the series is called now? To do with xcalibur kind of, old roman times.

-Then a few random books that I started and never finished, happens alot it seems. One of them was The Jesus Incident, an old book by Frank Herbert, which wasn't doing it for me. Can't remember the others.

-Pillars of the Earth, dunno who wrote that? It was good though.

-Some Sylvia Brown books my gf was talking my ear off about. Though they are hardly novels, heh.

-Last attempt at reading a book was George RR Martin, A Game of Thrones, which is about halfway through, sitting collecting dust.

It was the last book I tried to read that got me started at writing my own book. Though, after about 65k words I hit a burn-out period, and have been wallowing in it for like the past week or more.

I have read Alot of other books, but years ago now. Two I had tried to finish, but just couldn't bring myself to do it, was the LOTR trilogy and the first of the Harry Potter books.

 

[KatG]

Well, I'll be curious to see if Hard Fiction develops as a term for general use, but there already is a term out there for what you're talking about Miller -- literary fiction. But you get a lot of argument about who has a literary style and who does not. The Dark Tower series, for example, and King in general, is thought literary by some and others not. Literary is thus far too contentious a term for bookstores to use as a classification system. Instead they go by markets.

There is first off the general fiction market. This is the big overall market that contains just about everything and the kitchen sink. It is also sometimes called the mainstream market. Since King is a bestseller (and one of the big ten,) he is automatically saleable in general fiction, which is most often where you'll find him and the Dark Tower series in the bookstores, possibly the series being put in a special display in the center or front of the store.

Then there is the classics/literature market -- the old books we consider classics of literature that are studied in universities. Sometimes this gets a separate section in the bookstore and sometimes they just throw them in with the general fiction.

Then you have horror, which is a genre market, but a very small one. So a bookstore might have a separate horror section, but more often than not, they'll just put the horror titles in with the general fiction. If they have a horror section, King will be in it, as he is the king of horror, and it is likely that The Dark Tower series may be put there as well. But if he's in the horror section, he will still also be sold in the general fiction section as he is a mainstream bestseller.

Then you have mystery, romance and sff genre markets which get their own sections because they have large fan audiences, and children's which usually gets a whole chunk of the store. Because The Dark Tower is a dark fantasy series, it is often also sold in the sff section, as well as in horror sections and general fiction sections. After all, they want you to be able to find the thing.

All of which has nothing to do with what type of story it is, which is a fantasy story. A literary (in my opinion,) dark, trippy fantasy story. So why doesn't King call it that? Because he's an author. And as unashamed as he is about being a writer of horror and fantasy, and as much as he appreciates genre fans for their support of his work, he wants more than just them to read the work. So it's fiction, general fiction. And yes it is. But the type of story that it is, is dark fantasy.

For me (and yes, this is all only for me,) it's not where a book is put in the bookstore, or what the author calls it or if fans just have to call it slipstream because that sounds cooler. It's what's actually in the story. Say you have a guy hovering in mid-air. That is something that doesn't actually exist in reality. But if you find out in the story that the guy is hovering because of thin transparent wires for a special effects shot in a movie or as part of a magician's illusion, then we're back to reality and it's a contemporary fiction story.

But say the guy is hovering because of a specially designed hover suit that pushes air in a way to resist gravity. Such a suit does not currently exist, as far as we know. It is an imagined reality, but it is one based on science speculation, on a suit being invented that can do this. So it's now a sf story.

But what if the guy is hovering because a floating ghost who can't be seen is holding him up in the air? Well, that's not reality either, and it's not speculated science. Even if the guy is an astronaut who invented a new type of ray gun. It's supernatural fantasy.

In each case, you have the exact same event -- someone hovering in the air, but the stories written around the event are completely different types of stories. And that's all these terms mean -- they identify what the author put into the story, the content. They don't define the content or change the content. A fantasy story is a story with fantasy in it.

 

[Erfael]

Here's something China M. said in a recent interview, which is his view on the literature/not literature debate.

(Fantastic + plot = pulp. Fantastic - plot = literature. Discuss.)

 

[Jack]

Say you have a guy hovering in mid-air. That is something that doesn't actually exist in reality. But if you find out in the story that the guy is hovering because of thin transparent wires for a special effects shot in a movie or as part of a magician's illusion, then we're back to reality and it's a contemporary fiction story.

But say the guy is hovering because of a specially designed hover suit that pushes air in a way to resist gravity. Such a suit does not currently exist, as far as we know. It is an imagined reality, but it is one based on science speculation, on a suit being invented that can do this. So it's now a sf story.

But what if the guy is hovering because a floating ghost who can't be seen is holding him up in the air? Well, that's not reality either, and it's not speculated science. Even if the guy is an astronaut who invented a new type of ray gun. It's supernatural fantasy.

Coming this Spring, the debut novel from the fantastic mind of KatG:

A Guy Hovering In Mid-Air

Is it general fiction? Is it science fiction? Or mayhaps fantasy? You'll have to read straight through to the stunning conclusion to find out!

Advanced Praise for A Guy Hovering In Mid-Air:

"Is the guy hovering in mid-air because of thin transparent wires for a special effects shot in a movie or as part of a magician's illusion? Or is it a specially designed hover suit that pushes air in a way to resist gravity? Or maybe even because a floating ghost who can't be seen is holding him up in the air? You'll have to read to find out!" -Homer, sffworld.com

 

[Miller]

No no, I don't care if the term Hard Fiction ever gets used, lol. I completely agree with all you said KatG, don't get me wrong. -A book is a book is a book- If it's good thats all that matters anyways. I could jump from one genre to the other, never really caring, as long as I like what I'm reading.

One frustrating fact is that there are ALOT of great writers out there who never get recognized. Publishing houses seem to have the market by the balls. I have seen other threads where writers on the forum have books published by small houses, and are frustrated by the fact they aren't really being put out there as much as would benefit them. When meanwhile, I wouldn't doubt it if their books are awesome. So many writers, a fair amount of readers, and yet it's still really only possible to push the New York Times idea of what should be sold/bought. To an extent anyways. Thats kind of a generalization.

But like you said, King's book would be put here, there, and everywhere, ensuring it is seen by the masses, yet another great writer sits in the corner of the bookstore, way down at the bottom cause his book title started with Z, hehe. Realistically, lets face it, its basically impossible for it not to be this way. Supply/demand, marketing realism, and the simple fact there are X amount of books flooding the market at any given moment keep it this way.

It's frustrating to imagine the big houses are so picky at what they accept, yet understandable at the same time. But still, it creates a catch-22 for Alot of writers. I would love to see the effect of a seriously bad book, written with the intention of a testing, being put on both Oprah and the NY Times number one spots. Then see if it still does awesome, over everything else available. I can imagine what the outcome would be. Even if it was stupid people may even make themselves like it only because it was a top listing.

-The guy standing at his kitchen window with a plate of hamburgers for $3 each, in some neighborhood, no signage or advertising (best burgers you have tasted) VS. McDonalds and the crappiest burger on the market...hands down, its the big mac that will win. Some people may even like the Big Mac, sort of, in some sick way, hehe. But good chance of seeing that other guy standing at his kitchen window when your hungry.

Now that same guy goes for a walk along a mainstreet, burgers on a platter, with a sign hanging from his neck saying 'Yummy Burgers $3'. Now he has some exposure. Sells a few, maybe all of them. Did he make enough to pay the rent? No, lol. Is he discouraged? No. He is ambitious now, running home to make some more. Yet how many people are going to pass by those burgers because he doesn't have a Food Safe Certificate, and a fancy sign (or whatever regulations may apply, etc.), most of them. Why should they waste there money on something they may not like, without a sign saying 38billion served, that keeps rising everyday. No track record.

Maybe, realistically, if people are really worried about the money in it, or the fame, they should write only what either there agent tells them to write, or just plain copying the general mainstream bullshit of the month. Then, after doing that forever, they will have a name and finally be able to write what they want, slowly losing readers in the process...maybe, LoL. Or maybe you will be the mainstream, and people will be trying to copy you, who knows. But it's an industry, thus a job if you want to be up there, and basically I think people need to think of it as such. Or they can just write whatever they want, and continue to wonder why it sits on a shelf.

Thats a huge generalization as well, more a rant really.

 

[KatG]

Homer -- thank you for that, it was lovely.

Erf -- Mieville's quote is just the old literary-commercial chestnut. Which goes: the commercial stuff is all about plot and action and melodrama, not about writing style or thematic material or higher concepts. And the literary stuff has little plot and is all about philosophy, deep meaning, language and characterization. And everything is in its neat little box, you see, commercial trash and best know your place, and literary literature which is to be properly appreciated and revered. Only in the real world of fiction, it's pretty much bunk. All stories have plot and thematic content and literary is a very broad concept that applies to style, not subject matter. And even if you want to argue for it, and ignore pulp's current literary status besides, it has nothing to do with fantastic elements. But I think Mieville just likes to have fun. How old is he now?

Miller -- my apologies to you and everybody for being annoying girl with this post earlier. The brain damaged part of this post has been removed. I guess you could say that we'll never make up the injustices that are inherent in any market, but one of the things that the fantasy genre market was created for, and the sff section of the bookstore with it, for good or for ill, was to make sure writers doing this kind of fiction had more opportunities to publish and to connect with a growing fan audience. Essentially, we're so special that we get our own special market, plus whatever inroads we can make in general fiction. It does help keep the books from being buried in the back of the bookstore, or worse, from not being published at all. And the bestsellers, while they can cause problems, are also major factors in expanding the genre market and making inroads into the general fiction market, which allows more sff titles to be published. So fantasy as a market label means something. But fantasy as to type of story is broader than the sections of the bookstore -- it is the content that is put into the story, the rationale for what is in the story. Or something like that.