http://sf-fantasy.suvudu.com/2010/05/genre-lized-anxiety.html Suvudu - Science Fiction and Fantasy Books, Movies, and Games Wed, 23 May 2012 07:09:40 -0400 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5.2 hourly 1 http://sf-fantasy.suvudu.com/2010/05/genre-lized-anxiety.html/comment-page-1#comment-13724 C.J. Tue, 18 May 2010 15:26:31 +0000 http://suvudu.com/2010/05/genre-lized-anxiety.html#comment-13724 Much in the same vein as Serdar is saying, genre is much more a classification of 'intended audience' than it is of the style/aesthetic/plot of the book. Many authors and publishers use them as marketing techniques to essentially grab the readers they are looking for. Pynchon, Palahniuk, and Christopher Moore, as examples, all write within 'speculative fiction' (as Neal Stephenson calls the true SF), but for whatever reason, you would be hard pressed to find them amongst the ranks of Ringo, Gaiman, or RR Martin. Some authors want to separate themselves from the SciFi/Fantasy crowd. Unfortunately this may perpetuate, if not be the cause of, SciFi/Fantasy as being looked as less literary in society and by association, the book world. Flip side of the same coin, newer novels by William Gibson and many of Gene Wolfe's classics barely fit into either definition of fantasy or SciFi. Yet go into any book store, and there you'll find them. It's a matter of where the authors and publishers want to be seen. What crowd they want to mix with. And more importantly which readers they want browsing their shelves. The readers themselves are as much to blame. If we weren't all as self censoring as to limit ourselves to our own little sandboxed genre, classifications may mean more than a marketing scheme. I'm as much to blame for this as anyone: browsing the SciFi/Fanstasy section easily twice as thoroughly/frequently as any other fiction section in the store. That being said, genres as we see them today have taken steps away from the Ivory tower, worried less about the definitions of classifications, and more focussed on the practical applications. Much in the same vein as Serdar is saying, genre is much more a classification of ‘intended audience’ than it is of the style/aesthetic/plot of the book. Many authors and publishers use them as marketing techniques to essentially grab the readers they are looking for.
Pynchon, Palahniuk, and Christopher Moore, as examples, all write within ’speculative fiction’ (as Neal Stephenson calls the true SF), but for whatever reason, you would be hard pressed to find them amongst the ranks of Ringo, Gaiman, or RR Martin. Some authors want to separate themselves from the SciFi/Fantasy crowd. Unfortunately this may perpetuate, if not be the cause of, SciFi/Fantasy as being looked as less literary in society and by association, the book world.
Flip side of the same coin, newer novels by William Gibson and many of Gene Wolfe’s classics barely fit into either definition of fantasy or SciFi. Yet go into any book store, and there you’ll find them. It’s a matter of where the authors and publishers want to be seen. What crowd they want to mix with. And more importantly which readers they want browsing their shelves.
The readers themselves are as much to blame. If we weren’t all as self censoring as to limit ourselves to our own little sandboxed genre, classifications may mean more than a marketing scheme. I’m as much to blame for this as anyone: browsing the SciFi/Fanstasy section easily twice as thoroughly/frequently as any other fiction section in the store.
That being said, genres as we see them today have taken steps away from the Ivory tower, worried less about the definitions of classifications, and more focussed on the practical applications.

]]> http://sf-fantasy.suvudu.com/2010/05/genre-lized-anxiety.html/comment-page-1#comment-13723 Serdar Sat, 15 May 2010 15:50:55 +0000 http://suvudu.com/2010/05/genre-lized-anxiety.html#comment-13723 The problem with doing away with labels is that people find it hard to function without them. After a while it gets tiresome to have to explain the same things over and over, so you fall back on a label as shorthand. The real issue with labeling right now, as I see it, is how it is used as a pre-emptive marketing tool -- the label is thought of as a kind of container into which any number of products are created and dumped, for a prospective target market. The long-term effect of such a thing is that much less thinking about how to find an audience for products that don't have an obvious, built-in market for them. The problem with doing away with labels is that people find it hard to function without them. After a while it gets tiresome to have to explain the same things over and over, so you fall back on a label as shorthand.
The real issue with labeling right now, as I see it, is how it is used as a pre-emptive marketing tool — the label is thought of as a kind of container into which any number of products are created and dumped, for a prospective target market. The long-term effect of such a thing is that much less thinking about how to find an audience for products that don’t have an obvious, built-in market for them.

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