Sci-Fi and the Mainstream

In efforts to promote my book on here, on Twitter, on Amazon, on Authonomy, and to submit it in a well presented format to more literary agents, I've been thinking more and more of late about the trappings of Sci-Fi in literature. More specifically, the issue of steering the reading public away from the idea that all sci-fi is aliens or dystopian worlds, and that fantasy is all dungeons and dragons.

One of the problems in successfully marketing a book to both agents and the public, is the narrow fields of genre that still seem to apply. Despite numerous sub-genres such as urban fantasy,  speculative fiction, science fantasy and many more, agents will often state on their websites that they do not handle science fiction, full stop. Like-wise the general public will often lump anything with even a hint of a future technology or something more than human as the kind of material suited more for comic-con than Waterstones or Barnes and Noble. Indeed there are exceptions, and these are the kind of open minded readers and agents that I hope will increase in number, But for the most part, any hint of something beyond ex-SAS soldiers or retro-virus possessing terrorists will be turned down by any agent who says they don't deal with sci-fi.

The problem with this I feel, is that the viewing public of film and television nowadays seems to crave those shows with elements of fantasy but that are set firmly in the real world. And thrillers with action packed explosions or depraved psychopaths that must be stopped by the local ME or ex-cop remain the genre most easily enjoyed by both men and women. Lost would be a classic example of this, where the strangeness and the want for explanations gripped us all. People didn't snub it because it was sci-fi-esque. And those authors who use a genetically modified virus hidden/lost since pre-history as the object of the bad guy's desire in their thrillers would be examples of pushing the boundaries in non-science fiction literature. And I love those books! 

The same should really be true for fiction that steps into the fantastical without making it seem like the fantasy is everyday life. But sadly, this is the roadblock I suspect I'm repeatedly hitting. My book follows more of an archaeological quest path with a bad guy who must be stopped, but it introduces the concept of, for want of a better word, superpowers in a very focused way that takes the story into unfamiliar territory that has both reader and characters wanting to know more about it and what it could mean for what we accept as the norm.

So what does one do? Eliminate the "super" aspect from the book, turning it into something more like one of the countless action adventure stories with the former solider drawn back into the trenches to stop the terrorist threat? That's not where I was going with my concept, but at the same time I don't want to limit my audience (and my chances of representation) by my work being thought of as a purely sci-fi book. I honestly believe that some of the sub-genres of science fiction and fantasy need to be reconsidered by the publishing community. With the growing interest in "on the cusp" films and TV shows that don't stray too far into full on sci-fi, literature could do well to try and change audience perception of some of the science fiction that's out there - because some of it could be more like your normal reading fodder than you think, but pigeon holing often prevents is being spotted on the shelves in the thriller section, or from turning up in an action/thriller keyword search on Amazon.