Why do you think that there is prejudice against fantasy and science fiction in literary circles?
I believe these forms are higly creative ( although they can also be highly copied so is regular fiction ). I can site many works that are equal or superior to mainstream fiction or classics. For instance you would be hard pressed to find a work more with the depth and breadth of Lord of the Rings in mainstream genres.
Your thoughts on this.
- zymbar
Tags: Fantasy Fiction, Mainstream Fiction, Mainstream Genres, Prejudice, Science Fiction
April 10th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
I think that, right now, coming off the “Harry Potter” high we’ve all been on, science fiction and fantasy is gaining popularity and “street cred”.
Don’t get me started on Lord of the Rings. You won’t like my opinion on that!
LOL!
Cheers.
April 13th, 2009 at 10:51 am
I agree with you. When people find out I prefer to read science fiction and fantasy, there is a subtle shift in there attitude, as if they are looking down their nose.
But I think they don’t like science fiction because you have to be smart enough to understand the science part of the fiction. People who lack intelligence to do so, feign superiority to cover their stupidity
April 15th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
They CAN be highly creative. They aren’t always. I see too many bad fantasy things out there – things where authors just don’t seem to care about doing their research and getting details accurate and consistent. I guess so many people feel now that fantasy is the easiest genre to write in — you can just write whatever you want. But writers like Anne Mc Caffrey spent years getting all the details down for the planet Pern. She did a spectacular job of doing the background work before she jumped into writing. Too many think that isn’t required for fantasy. I would prefer to see fantasy that follows more traditional paths – like physics and geography – than fantasy that is just elves and fairies all over the place doing basically whatever the author wants them to do.
As for science fiction – true science fiction is speculative fiction. It takes a problem or issue from today and projects it into the future. Again, when done right, it can be tremendous. When done without the background work, it is usually trash. Pax – C
April 18th, 2009 at 8:09 am
Probably because it started out in the pulps–with flying saucers, BEMs and all that. But then, literary circles look down on most everything, don’t they? Sometimes that seems to me to be their raison d’etre. Most literary stuff is pretty awful too: murky, dreary and pointless. And like sci-fi heavyweight Theodore Sturgeon said: “90% of EVERYTHING is crap.”
April 20th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
i agree with persephone. no matter what, a good work of literature needs to be believable and rooted in the familiar. fantasy/sci-fi require elaborate constructions of new worlds that are semi-recognizable to what we’re familiar with. but there are so many fantasy/sci-fi works that lose sight of that.
April 21st, 2009 at 3:55 am
Well in my opinion (and I have heard this time and again) people think anyone who reads or writes fantasy or sci-fi are out of touch with reality.
I write fantasy. I do medieval history research in my spare time and have spent ten years creating my fantasy world. Ten years. People give me that “I’m so sorry” look when I tell them I am a fantasy author. I don’t let it bother me anymore, I just tell them to read my book and then try to give me that look.
It is true that people seem to think fantasy is easy to write because you get to “make stuff up”. But I agree with the other people here. If you don’t take the time to research it, why write it? Does anyone realize that armor used in fantasy still has the same name and description of that used in medieval times? A helm is a helm. Not only is it a nautical term for a ship it is also a hat worn on the head to protect the wearer from harm. But, what type or style of helm? What is another name for it? These are things people look for.
The problem I have with mainstream fiction and non fiction is it is the same topics written over and over yet they sell. How many times can you write about the same thing even if you do put your own “twist” on it? Although, the same can be said for fantasy and sci-fi. How many different explanations can we get for dragons? On the other side of that coin, though, why do people keep regurgitating the same dragon lore over and over? Tolkien took the time to create his own world, legends, languages, races…everything. No, not everyone will like his work or appreciate it. But one thing they should appreciate is the time he took. Before him, no one wrote about dwarves or elves or trolls the way he did. He’s the father of fantasy. Where do you think Dungeons and Dragons got their beginning? Even C. S. Lewis broke new ground with his Chronicles of Narnia. Up until these books, dwarves, elves and trolls were in fairy tales.
But I digress. True, no one gives fantasy writers the same respect as others. People want to read about tragedy in real life situations that happen to everyone but them. They want to stay in tune with the real world and not think outside the box.
This coming from a girl who once saw the headless horseman riding his horse backwards in the shape of clouds.
April 23rd, 2009 at 8:49 pm
There are respected novels from these genres but you’ll find that fantasy, science fiction, and romance are caked with the lower-level writers.
Fantasy novels are essentially stuck in a rut, in the 80’s a few books came out that tried to break the cycle but now they just ended up creating another group of copycats. You’ve got your Lord of the Rings clones and you’ve got your Dark Fantasy novels, the only difference being which one has elves or not. Eragon is a good example of what’s wrong with fantasy.
I can’t really speak much on Science Fiction or Romance, as I don’t really read them. The vast majority of books in all three of these genres amount to just “more of the same” so most literature fans will simply turn their nose at them, not being able to find the true original books that do manage to come out of the sea of clones.
April 26th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
i think that sci-fi and fantasy are quite well loved genres by both readers and critics. “hard” sci-fi might be a little harder to sell to the general public hence causing mainstream journalists and reviewers to pass, but overall i think it gets the same kind of fair treatment as any other subdivision of fiction.
i agree that these forms are HIGHLY creative; also, i think both fans and critics probably expect a lot more from sci-fi and fantasy writers as far as immersion (ie setting, science, etc) and plot go. if i were reading a romance novel or a mystery, i probably wouldn’t care about the setting as much as i did when i was reading “the disposessed” by ursula k. le guin. even the horror genre doesn’t have that kind of pressure… you can write vampires and werewolves all day long, but once you go into outer space or a world with dragons and flying ships, you really have to be on your a-game.
that’s my opinion anyway. i’m a lover of classic sci-fi and fantasy (ie bradbury, asimov, le guin, heinlein) so the hard scientific fact isn’t quite as important to me as immersive story, great plot and imaginative setting.
April 27th, 2009 at 12:48 am
Because much of the writing in sci-fi is second if not third rate. Sci-fi, like a lot of genre fiction has a different set of priorities than regular fiction. It is the ideas in a sci-fi book that make the book, not the prose or deep thinking.
Some sci-fi and fantasy is as accepted and recognized as any other fiction. A look at any high school curriculum will usually reveal at least a half dozen sci-fi novels. Nobody denies Huxley, Orwell, or Vonnegut. Nobody in their right mind would claim that Harry Potter is great art. Most sci-fi is churned out by hacks that will milk a dozen books out of a single set of ideas.
Sci-fi, fantasy, westerns, detective novels, romance novels, and any adventure fiction like the Hollywood blockbuster rely on less on character development and a lot more on fights, chases, and steamy sex. Once people started deserting books for TV, it was these simpler adventure tales that were abandoned first.
April 30th, 2009 at 8:13 am
Generally speaking, it goes over many people’s heads, and that (to quote Fry from Futurama) makes them feel “weird and uncomfortable.” Many people just want the same novel re-packaged and re-named with the same characters and story line. Scifi does not suit them.
Also, there is the long held “geek prejudice.” To wit, if you read scifi, you must still be living with mom and have a Klingon suit in the basement.
May 1st, 2009 at 9:53 pm
I read your question yesterday, and I really didn’t know how to answer it. Reading the answers above, I agree with some of the responses and think others must have been written by the people who believe in “literary circles” (which, to me, is the most far-fetched fantasy; it’s rare that people form themselves into any shapes over literature these days).
This question makes me remember back when I was in college, and I wrote this story about a man struggling to live in the arctic in the 1800’s. I met with my professor to talk about it, and she looked up at me partway through with an odd smile on her face. “You know, this story is romance,” she said. I was shocked. Visions of women in skimpy dresses and bare-chested muscle men flashed into my mind. How could she say my story was romance? But then I remembered that “romance” is more broadly defined than Harlequin. It can just mean that you have an exotic setting and an emphasis on struggling against nature.
But I’ve thought about that day a lot, and my high-nosed reaction. I believe the prejudice against genres lies in the labeling. Have you read about juvenile delinquency in any basic psychology books– how a child does something wrong and is labeled a “bad kid”? No matter what the kid does in the future, sometimes the label sticks, and the kid starts to believe it.
In the early years of science fiction (or scientifiction), it wasn’t labeled. Writers who wrote it also wrote all kinds of other books. Just because some books involved time machines or encounters with aliens, the books weren’t put into a genre category, so readers didn’t dismiss them as “bad.”
But later, when the books were labeled, any books with space themes or science or that just took place in the future got shoved into a category, and that category included some poorly-written stuff. So now, the whole genre is like a “bad kid” who might not be bad, but gets called that anyway.
It’s the same with every genre. Once a certain label gets put on a book, we humans assume it must not be “cutting edge.” Since it can be put in a category, it can’t be anything new. And in our modern world (“modern” meaning that we always think newer is better), we scoff at the genre books because they represent the past and must be bad copies. Or so we think.
But the problem is, the world is not that simple. The “bad kid” can turn out to be a wonderful person, and the “bad genre book” can turn out to be a wonderful and original work.
It just makes me wonder about those “literary circles.” How do they feel about their label?
May 4th, 2009 at 11:35 am
I’ve encountered this issue as well. “Fan Fiction” gets even more criticism within literary circles.
Some of the writers I know have no problem with fantasy or SF that is original. For example a fantasy world of unique creatures with unique cultures might attract attention. So much of modern fantasy and SF is unoriginal, that it gets the attention it deserves. One writer I know referenced a story about how an elf “of course” hated a dwarf. “Oh, but of course he hated dwarfs, he is an elf after all.” The author was using an idea so cliche, such thoughts were “obvious”.
The trick is one: How well written is the piece AND how original are the ideas within.
This isn’t always true of course. I know of one story about a young wizard who attends a school for wizards, and faces all sorts of challenges. It’s unoriginal and poorly written. Yet it has gained quite the following world wide.
I personally think it all amounts to snobbery. If you like the genre, don’t worry about what other people think.
May 6th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
I should probably read the rest of the answers, so as not to sound repetitive of anything else someone might’ve said, but…
Most people have to find a sense of familarity in the books they read. They have to read something that they can connect to in their own lives. Someone I know admitted to this to. He said it was hard to get into Sci-Fi because none of it related to his real life.Yes, this means there is a reason why most of the jocks I see reading are reading sports related books! The worlds authors create in literary or general fiction- worlds that are similar if not exactly like our own world- are the easiest to find that connection in. Science-fiction and fantasy, not so much. That connection is there, if people would look closer though.