Sorry, I thought that as a graduate student context would mean something to you. Saying “print sf” and limiting all references to “print sf” would normally clue anyone other than an internet-style debater that “print sf” was the subject.
To make it explicit: in this thread I’m referring solely to print sf. Print, print, print, and print.
Anything else I can clear up for you?
I think Exapno’s statements (which I agree with) are pretty much spot-on, but I have to add that the situation in Europe seems to be somewhat different. I gather that science fiction there wasn’t as pulp-oriented as in the US. Fritz Lang, Erner von Braun, Willy Ley, and other intellectuals had no problem admitting that they loved the work of German SF masters (who are mainly unknown outside the US) and were heavily influenced by them. Stanislas Lem, the Polish Sf author (who wrote Solaris among other things had a pretty famous row with the Science iction Writers of America many years back. He thought that American (and British) SF was too superficial, and not serious enough. So American Science fiction isn’t just looked down on by “mainstream” writers – it’s also looked down on by some SF writers. I don’t know if that’s a general thing in Europe or not.
Print sf was the subject of your main comments. Sf more generally was the subject of your challenge, as written. I can make this assertion with some confidence as, beyond the “context” of your own post there was the wider “context” of the thread itself, and more specifically, that aspect of the “context” of your challenge which constituted it as a response to my own comments. I asked where the disrespect for sci fi is. You said some things about print sci fi. You then asked me where there isn’t disrespect for sci fi. Since you phrased the challenge in terms of sf and not in terms of print sf, and since your challenge appeared to be a direct reflection of the question I asked in my own post, I took it you were marking a return to the context laid down by my own question, and that context involved sf as a whole, not only print sf.
That’s not to say I ignored your comments about print sf. Indeed, I spent several sentences responding to them. And that’s not to say I answered your challenge only in terms of non-print sf. My response to the challenge involved print sf as well as non-print. That’d be the “rest of the post” which I have said I suspect you didn’t read. (Reading the first sentence and not the rest–indeed, responding to only the first sentence without a good reason for this limitation–is also a technique worthy of an “internet style debater.”
-FrL-
Hey, whenever I start to feel down about the sci-fi ghetto, I think about those poor bastards in the romance ghetto and I perk right up!
I do think he has a point, Xap, about bookshelves. In every Borders or Barnes and Noble I’ve been in there’s been at least two full rows of books under the ‘Science Fiction and Fantasy’ category. Frequently connected to another row of gaming and comic books. That’s 3 rows in large bookstores for buyers of the genre.
It may not get literary respect but there are people buying it and retailers making shelf space for it.
Yeah, those poor bastards with only 50% of the entire fiction market, all the hottest authors (think chick-lit), and the marketing power of the Romance Writers of America, which has a promotional budget bigger than the entire budget of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. What troubles they have! 
Oh, and JC, they sell at least five and maybe ten times as much as f&sf, which also sells much less than mysteries. What you see in B&N is entirely misleading.
Don’t forget they have Mercedes Lackey now, too. So that’s something for our side, at least.
Edit to add: I acknowledge that romance kicks ass in terms of sales. Hell, rom-com always does well in the movies with exactly the same plot. I wouldn’t mind writing some of that formulaic stuff one of these days. Can’t be all that hard.
But in terms of shelf space I’ll have trouble accepting that, in a world in which competition for shelf-space is steep, booksellers would use that much space for a genre which isn’t moving fairly briskly. We may be in a ghetto, but it’s a compulsively reading one.
This is the answer to the question.
Or the Mystery ghetto. Or the Spy Novel ghetto. As an academic “we want to teach this” only “Literature” gets respect - and a small amount of genre often under the guise of a 20th century survey class.
(Hang on, guys, I’m just zipping up my flame-retardant suit. It’s not as loose as it used to be.)
There we go. OK, here’s what I get from my not entirely insignificant experience with all the comp sci majors who have been coming into my library over the years looking for this stuff. Also, I used to be into Star Wars, LOTR, and still am into Dune, but not that much. Oh, plus I’ve gotten into computers and programming lately, so I’m in touch with a lot of you guys.
Here’s the deal, hardcore sci-fi fans. Most non-harcore fans aren’t really trashing and disrespecting the authors. It’s you. Speaking as a guy who doesn’t really care about sci-fi one way or the other, you all are some strange, weird, twisted people. Not all of you, and most of those who are weird aren’t that weird (about sci-fi, anyway), but damn, I’ve seen enough screaming matches in here, other forums, and to a lesser extent real life over stupid details about . . . well, pretty much any and every type of sci-fi thing out there. I just shake my head.
And what’s with all the toys? Miniatures, models, comic books, trivia books, posters, and costumes. These aren’t high school kids we’re talking about. These are guys in their 30’s and 40’s.
Especially the costumes. If you are a guy in your 40’s, and you are not rehearsing for a play, taking your kids out trick-or-treating, or tying your naked wife to the sofa while dressed in an SS uniform complete with matching eyepatch, then you have no business wearing a costume. I’m sorry, but that Tron guy is an abomination, and he should be required by law to pass an army PT test before being allowed wear skin-tight white fabric in public again.
And the whole “We can create a totally new universe with it’s own reality” angle? I’ve got news for you. Not every sci-fi nut leaves the totally separate universe after they put the book down and come to my library. Or starts posting in Great Debates about world politics for that matter.
Yeah, yeah, I know. You’re not hurting anybody, and I shouldn’t judge, and lots of sci-fi geeks used to be linebackers or whatever, but still . . . you asked. Hell, I admire science fiction writers–and the best of the best do get mainstream recognition, btw–but the people they write for? Sigh.
And before anyone posts it, I’ve read the Onion article. I feel the same way about sports geeks.
ComicCon drew about 175,000 people this year. If you believe the tv reports making fun of them, about 174,000 of them appeared in costume.
I’m predicting the death of the con and the superhero movie in about two years from their own weight. Sorta like Comdex at its height.
I don’t think it is true that no sf gets respect. Ray Bradbury, as far as I can tell from the reviews of his new work which aren’t treated as genre, has quite a bit.
David Hartwell noted that sf is unlikely to give mainstream critics what they want, which is characterization. The space that the sf writer devotes to universe generation can’t be used for characterization, space the mainstream writer need not use. Mysteries have the same problem. So do the best seller of the Crichton or Harold Robbins type, which show the reader an industry which takes up space. (Not saying they aren’t junk, just that all these books start with a disadvantage.) Bradbury never spent much time on explanation, he did images and characters, and was thus easier to swallow. The same stuff that makes mainstream attempts at sf so laughable actually improves its perceived literary value, since these books don’t wast a lot of time on world building.
And most literary readers don’t even see the need for logic in a world. A woman in a critique group I was in just didn’t understand why it wasn’t legitimate to make up a new element to allow a new class of aliens. Most critics, who no doubt pride themselves on not getting math or science, are not going to appreciate the far from literary merits of a Hal Clement book. It’s hardly the competence of the writer which is at question - consider J.G. Ballard’s reputation.
To show this is neither new or American, let me repeat Kingsley Amis’ famous poem from New Maps of Hell from about 50 years ago:
*SF’s no good,
they say until we’re deaf
But this is good
Then it’s not sf
*
But all “genre fiction” is treated that way by literary critics. That’s why they’re literary critics. Science fiction isn’t special in that regard.
Also, I agree with Frylock, retail (and library) acceptance of science fiction and fantasy is off the charts. The books are popular and respected by a lot of people, except for the literary critics who hate anything that’s not literary anyway.
These don’t mean anything, IMO. The reviewers are simply emphasizing the fact that good SF novel has to have more than just the applicable futuristic/alien/alternative premise. You’ve imagined a universe in which there are millions populated planets in the galaxy and they have hyperdrive. So they can buzz all over the galaxy whenever they feel like–but now what? You need characters, plot development, suspense, and everything else a mainstream novel needs, if you want it to be really good. And I say this as someone who respects and likes SF a great deal. There’s a reason Bradbury, Asimov, and Clarke are considered good—they’re good writers, not just mediocre writers who happened to enjoy runaway success when they tried to write SF.
See above referenced Atwood (who also has written “romances” and “mysteries” as well as “SF”) and Chabon (SF, Fantasy, Gay Lit - though he is a straight guy), Rushdie (Fantasy), A.S. Byatt (Romance, Mystery), Allande (Fantasy, Romance)
Another thing about SF Fans is that they organize. When they pay to have their own rather large and organized conventions in which they provide your promotion budget for you, write their own magazines, etc., who can blame the publishers when they give the budget to a less organized and willing to foot their own promotional bill genre. Want to see Tor books get a promotional budget - stop hosting Tom Doherty to come to all your conventions on your dime.
ETA: One thing “literary” novels do that “genre” novels don’t is they make themselves hard to classify…is Oryx and Crake an SF novel (in some ways) or is it a Coming of Age novel? Is Possession a Romance or a Mystery? Is Time Travelers Wife SF or Romance? There are certainly SF novels with a Romance bent - but the MAJORITY of them in the end are still much more SF than Romance.
Robert J Sawyer makes the assertion that Star Wars actually harmed Science Fiction more than it helped. You can watch videos made to his talk at a university here. It’s quite interesting.
I used to argue that Science Fiction was an important genre, and that it allowed the readers to examine their life and issues from a fresh perspective, thus helping us deal with real-life change better than readers of other genres (or non-readers).
The I realize I’m likely to be reading The Feast of the Kroobles therefore being prepared in case creatures made of radioactive meatloaf attack Chicago.
The popularity argument always gets trotted out sooner or later, but it never works.
Porn sells far more product than science fiction does, even if you throw in media sf. But you can’t argue that porn isn’t looked down on by almost everyone.
Reality shows are the hottest and more popular form of television entertainment, yet they are lower than pond scum.
Just because something is popular doesn’t automatically make it good, just as because something is popular doesn’t automatically make it bad. They are independent variables.
And it’s simply not true that the only people who look down on science fiction are literary critics. I’ve already made the point about how widely and deeply the anathema pervades literate society.
Your second sentence amounts to little more than saying, science fiction is well thought of except where it isn’t. What can’t you say that of?
As a general rule, meaning that exceptions exist but are minor, science fiction is either embraced by people or hated, to use the OP’s word, by people. That’s true to a far greater extent than most other fields. It’s been true for all of sf’s existence. There’s no sign of it changing. It’s a fact we in the field battle but otherwise try to live with.
Why not? Science fiction is a very popular genre and the only people that seem to truly dismiss are the ones who dismiss all genre fiction.
This is just wrong. Few reality shows are popular anymore and the only ones that remain popular are the ones that are considered good television (case in point: The Amazing Race, Survivor, American Idol).
Secondly, reality television is just a fancy name for multi-episode game shows. Giving them their own genre like reality television is moving the goalposts.
But literary critics don’t look down on science fiction concepts, they look down on “Science Fiction: The Genre”, which to them is nothing more than whizbang space adventures, hot alien babes and media tie-ins. That’s the science fiction they look down on, and again, that happens to all genre fiction that’s not of a literary bent.
Basically for the same reason crime novels and adventuere stories are similarly looked down upon–because it’s actually enjoyable and interesting to read, therefore it is not found in college literature anthologies and other vectors of so-called quality literature.
The academic lit-wits who consider themselves arbiters of what’s worthy, and those who seek their approval by following their dicta, subscribe to and propagate the idea that fiction has “literary merit” when it is boring, opaque, precious and generally tedious, while that which people might actually enjoy reading – because it tells interesting stories and has characters you can actually believe in and give a damn for --is dismissed as “popular”,“escapist” or “trashy”. If one disagrees with the edicts of the quondam solons and canonizers as to what constitutes worthwhile reading, one is likewise dismissed as having bad, subliterate, or at best unsophisticated (a condescending way of saying the same thing) tastes in fiction.
It’s elitist and it’s a scam, but it’s been paying the bills for professors of literature, and making their echoing admirers feel superior and more enlightened, for at least a century.