Sci-Fi and What?
How did ‘science fiction’ and ‘fantasy’ ever get lumped together in the popular mind? In particular, why did they ever get lumped together on bookshop shelves?
I ask because I’ve just had a couple of days in Brisbane and was able to visit a few bookshops. The nearest town with a bookshop to where I live is 150 km away, so this should have been a real treat. Instead, it was a frustrating and annoying waste of time. I wanted just two things. One was to buy a decent poetry anthology. The other was to have some fun browsing the sci-fi shelves.
The anthology was a dead loss. Bookshops in Brisbane have ‘self-help’ sections as long as a Buddhist mantra, ‘cookery’ sections that would take a lifetime to eat your way through, ‘business’ sections the size of a CEO’s ‘productivity’ bonus, but the ‘poetry’ section, if it even exists, is a couple of Banjo Patterson collections tossed in with a few Shakespeare plays and school crib sheets. Ah well, back to Amazon, I suppose, land of the long tail and minority interest.
I knew I’d do better with the sci-fi because even a Brisbane bookshop always has a ‘Science Fiction and Fantasy’ section. Sadly, however, these are invariably ‘Fantasy’ sections with a few sci-fi books hidden among the hundreds of other books. I must confess, I have now and then read a fantasy novel. I’ve read The Lord of the Rings. I’ve read one or two Anne McCaffreys. I even ploughed through six books of Steven Donaldson’s Thomas Covenant series, each one the size of a brick. But it was a long time ago and I’m over it. People with talking swords fighting with or against dragons just doesn’t do it for me. If I want black-and-white morality and mystical mumbo-jumbo in a pre-industrial setting, I can read the Bible.
Of course, I’m being rather harsh. Most sci-fi – especially space opera – is just as bad. My excuse is that I’m narked that to find anything good – some actual, honest-to-goodness sci-fi – among all these fat trilogies with Celtic fonts on their spines, is like fossicking for gems in the bush.
To avoid wasting shoppers’ precious time like this, I implore bookshops (and publishers, and magazines, and conferences) to do the right thing and separate out the sci-fi from the fantasy. They are like chalk and cheese. What is the point of mixing them up?
I couldn’t agree more! I wonder if this is some kind of awful hangover from some publishing type way back when looking at a sci-fi book and a fantasy book and both lighting up the same circuit in their brain; the one governing the response: “I don’t know what the hell is in those books, but I know that it’s weird people that read ‘em who aren’t people like me. I’d better fence them off together and carry on paying attention to more understandable and sensible things like detective novels.” Grrr!
I’m willing to accept that they may be a crossover between readership, but only as much as there may be between people who might buy a self-help book may also buy crime fiction. You don’t see them lumped together though do you? But there is perhaps more of a potential connection – hey it could be a new marketing approach: if you don’t fix your head with these self-help books, you may go and murder people. Why walk all the way to another aisle to found out how?
Hrm, I’m ranting now! Sorry. I am just so heartened to find someone who feels the same way!
I only found your blog yesterday but already I am subscribed and feeling that little less lonely. Thanks for taking the time to write – I am delighted to read it!
G – on the money with your analysis, as always. Okay, I can't spell too well at the moment becasue i have to have a small eye op next week; so please forgibe typos.
I, too, have gnashed many a tooth while wandering through the SF&F sections; it seems that the insidious growth of fantasy has become (possibly not a blight) a tad unhealthy. I remember the days when a few titles would pop up – a little Howard, perhaps – and I thought then that it was jolly decent of us Sf chaps to share a shelf.
Damn thing needs a good prune. Winter of our discontent, indeed.
I'll email you on the Qt asap, mate.
terry
Emma – thanks for the subscription. I’ll see what I can do about justifying your decision. And speaking of self-help books… It’s not uncommon to see psychology textbooks on the same shelf as ‘The Paranormal’. As someone who studied psychology for six years, you can imagine how pleased I am whenever I see this particular display of gross ignorance.
And as for you, Terry. I hope the eye op goes well. Your spelling could really use a boost
(I look forward to hearing from you.)
Oh boy I share your pain – I studied Psychology at degree level too! Spooky!
black and white morality? the fantasy genre is a lot broader than that! it’s like saying sci fi is only about science and has no focus on people ie a stereotype.
take your point about the sci fi shelves, though. i find it confusing when i’ve been looking for sci fi myself, and would benefit from a dedicated area.
j-a
Hi j-a, At last, a defender of the faith! I was expecting a lot more flak than this! You’re right, of course, it’s a stereotype, yet, like so many steroetypes, containing more than just a grain of truth. And I definitely include ‘sci fi is only about science and has no focus on people’ when I say that. Jeez, I’ve read some rubbish in my own beloved genre!
I can only say I’d had a bad day and wasn’t in the mood to tolerate bookshops that don’t stock poetry and which hide the sci-fi in a haystack of stuff I don’t want to read. (The no poetry thing is very disturbing. Is this a global phenomenon now, or just an Aussie thing?
I’m pretty upset today that, while Isreal is still bombing Gaza and a hurricane is working its way across my state, the 7 o’clock TV news led with an interminable piece about a bloody cricketer who’s retired!! Is that what you get when the bookshops don’t sell poetry any more?