SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion
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Should Fantasy and Sci-Fi be Sorted Separately?
There's also overlap, a lot of books that could be shelved as either.But, since I don't read much fantasy, esp. the Sword&Sorcery epics, yes, I agree with you that a filter to separate them would be a good thing.
Point of interest: In the public libraries that I've used, genre fiction is shelved with the 'regular' fiction and there are separate spine stickers for mystery, science fiction, fantasy, and romance (maybe a few more). This seems adequate. I've heard of libraries that have separate shelves for different genres, but that can't work well... would you put Dean Koontz in mystery or SF?
Jacen wrote: "Should Fantasy and Sci-Fi be Sorted Separately?"Hell yeah.
Cheryl wrote: "There's also overlap, a lot of books that could be shelved as either.
would you put Dean Koontz in mystery or SF? "
I sort genre hierarchies like this: Fantasy -> SF -> Milieu-based fiction -> Everything Else
So it depends on the book. If it's a mystery with a single SF element, it becomes SF. If it's SF with a single Fantasy element, it becomes Fantasy.
Certain genres depend upon milieu for their defining characteristics. The Western, the Samurai, the Regency. Westerns have to be in a specific location. Regency have to be in a specific time. Samurai have to be in a specific location and time.
A mystery can be set anywhere and anywhen. Same with a comedy. Support Your Local Sheriff and Unforgiven are both Westerns, but the former is a straight-up farce while the latter is a serious drama. The Electric Horseman and Longmire are both Contemporary Westerns, but the first is a character examination while the second is a procedural. Milieu -> Everything else.
I'd support separate shelving. To me their distinctly different genres. Sure there can be some overlap, but isn't that true of any genre? Mystery can have romance. Teen can have SF or fantasy, etc.
Not sure I see the problem here. Whether a store has one section or two, each section is alphabetized by author. You scan until you find the author of interest. I suppose someone who wanted to browse with no idea of what they might buy next, other than genre, might be a little inconvenienced. But that's not you, is it?Online is even less of a problem. You can set searches with many parameters to narrow down the results.
I separate my owned classics and lit from my popular fiction in two different rooms. Otherwise collections stay together followed by organizing by size. My bookstore combines fiction, literature, and classics all in one area and scifi and fantasy in another. I find the former stranger than the latter but it is a fairly small store. I've had no trouble with the setup.
Chris wrote: "Not sure I see the problem here. Whether a store has one section or two, each section is alphabetized by author. You scan until you find the author of interest. I suppose someone who wanted to brow..."Since most people read in a fairly narrow range of genre, I think that lumping all genres together merely slows us down.
Tonight at the library I saw that typical trend of shelving Mystery and SFF books among general literature. I get why they do that in stores, since SFF is still in something of a ghetto of non-serious writing, so they want to avoid that stigma and trick people into buying these books, but it makes no sense at the library.
My general though is that fiction shouldn't be sorted at all by genre. There is so much overlap and cross fertilisation.Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun is clearly SF, but garbed in fantasy attire; Star Wars is fantasy with space ships ans ray guns.
And what of those writers who use the tropes without acknowledging them - Margaret Atwood for many years decried descriptions of her work as SF, and more recently The Buried Giant is certainly fantasy, but Kazuo Ishiguro is a SERIOUS writer, so it is shelved under contemporary.
I understand the impetus to shelve everything alphabetically, but the older I get the less time I have to waste hunting through thousands of books to find the sort of thing I want. I prefer they be pre-sorted so I can get right to it.That said, when I was younger I felt that books such as Moby-Dick or Cry, the Beloved Country or The Call of the Wild were appreciably no different from Foundation or Ringworld or The White Dragon because I was being transported to a foreign place with an alien culture, whether in space or time. So I do understand the desire to just put it all on the same shelf.
I think that's part of the reason I became so fascinated by genre in the first place: the sifting is not fine enough for me. When I asked for something similar to Paton's Cry, I was given The Good Earth. In the broadest strokes both books are similar. But I wanted to know more about South Africa specifically, not just another country.
Putting them all together worked well for me when I was first beginning to explore these genres but it got trickier to navigate once I became a more experienced reader and started searching for specific works.I appreciate it when a book store seperates the two but keeps books by the same author together on a nearby shelf. Of course I do most of my shopping at used book stores.
I prefer my SF & F to be shelved separately as well.Sadly, I have never had Nicki's problem: so many [genre] books to choose from. It's more like two shelves stuffed with all the SFF they have. And it's alphabetical. And not in series order. And ALWAYS missing book #1. And a stinking hot mess.
My local library has alphabetized everything: nothing is sorted by genre. So on a single shelf you can go from non-fiction to mystery to Fantasy to Romance to comic books and graphic novels (and anything in between)
It's terrible. I literally hate going in there unless I'm picking up or dropping off. I do not search the stacks anymore. It's only an exercise in frustration. Now I search for all my books online and I order them at the library for pick up.
I suppose if you know exactly what you are looking for, having it organized alphabetically makes it easier. But when you are browsing for something to read in your genre of interest, it makes it much more difficult to find that next new book that might tickle your fancy. Personally, I prefer them separate. It's a definite pet peeve of mine when I'm looking for a new science fiction book to read to have to sort through fantasy, urban fantasy, paranormal, etc. I see the problem with cross-overs and I'm much more understanding of those that are in that grey area, so long as they at least have some element of the genre where they are being shelved in them. But I have to say that as a science fiction fan there's nothing more disappointing than seeing a shelf or a list labelled as science fiction and finding out a good chunk of it is novels about vampires. I suppose I'm being too picky though. I'm sure there are a lot of logistics involved in the combining of various genres, especially with hard copy books. And each genre itself likely has several categories. I suppose you have to draw the line somewhere.
Nicki wrote: "MrsJoseph wrote: "Sadly, I have never had Nicki's problem: so many [genre] books to choose from. It's more like two shelves stuffed with all the SFF they have. And it's alphabetical. And not in ser..."I live in a culture free zone.
1 book drop off spot ("library")
1 real-ish library 20 mins away
1 book store: a piss poor barnes & noble (in a strip mall)
And that's it! I have to drive 30 mins out of the city I live in.
MrsJoseph wrote: "MrsJoseph wrote: "Now I search for all my books nonlinear and I order them at the library for pick up."Sometimes that's the only way to find what you want. Hooray for the Internet!
Laughing. So in which category would you put Stephen King's books? There are extraterrestials here and there and rich fantasy worlds, particularly in the Dark Tower series. And then the dumb bookstores go and classify his work as horror of which there is certainly some to be found in his novels. Mostly I think there should be a category for good books of all genre. Oh wait, there is. It's called Literature. Strangely I haven't found any goodreads groups organized around Literature. Speaking as a Fantasy author, I think all the fuss about genre is really stupid. Browsing only your category of interest will prevent you from reading many good novels.
Paul wrote: "My general though is that fiction shouldn't be sorted at all by genre. There is so much overlap and cross fertilisation.Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun is clearly SF, but garbed in fantasy atti..."
I agree with you Paul.
J. wrote: "Strangely I haven't found any goodreads groups organized around Literature..."Then you're looking in the wrong places. Off the top of my head, Catching up on Classics reads through 1999, 21st Century Literature, and Reading the Chunksters if they're still active, FABClub (Female Authors Book Club), Literary Fiction by People of Color, On the Southern Literary Trail, Around the World in 80 Books, Gothic Literature, Literary Award Winners Book Club, and there are groups organized around Pulitzer Prize Winners or Banned Books.
J. wrote: "Mostly I think there should be a category for good books of all genre. Oh wait, there is. It's called Literature."So what is "good," and who decides? The split between Literature and the genres reflects different approaches to how those questions are answered. I will point everyone toward Neal Stephenson's explanation of the situation. (Go to Question 2 in that post.)
Absolutely. I get super turned off by Kings and Queens, knights and Kingdoms. Anything fantasy is complete "Meh" and to see it lumped with hard sci-fi which I find fascinating doesn't make much sense.
Jacen wrote: "So, this has been a growing pet peeve/frustration of mine for several years now, and I'm curious as to the thoughts of others on the subject. To be clear, I think/understand that Fantasy and Scienc..."Soft sci-fi and fantasy mesh well. But Hard Sci-fi deserves to be shelved in its own genre.
Cathy wrote: "Soft sci-fi and fantasy mesh well. But Hard Sci-fi deserves to be shelved in its own genre. "That would make sense to me. Soft sci-fi shares more in common with fantasy than hard sci-fi.
Except for Bradbury's "Martian Chronicles" which are either *L*iterature or Poetry....
Oh my, this thread certainly brought out a lot of interesting opinions, as well as fodder for some additional discussions, maybe. In example, it occurred to me to wonder about the localizations of some of these bookstores and libraries. Is not splitting the genre a regional or country-based thing?But, ignoring my tendency to wander off on interesting rabbit trails....
Not sure I see the problem here. Whether a store has one section or two, each section is alphabetized by author. You scan until you find the author of interest. I suppose someone who wanted to browse with no idea of what they might buy next, other than genre, might be a little inconvenienced. But that's not you, is it?
That is, in fact, me. When I go to a bookstore or library, I'm not looking for a specific author. If I was, I would have ordered it, cheaper, from Amazon. No, when I go to the physical brick and mortar location, library or bookstore, I'm looking to discover books that never made the "top ten books of X" lists. Things that might very well appeal to me personally, but weren't the very very tip top best works as judged by people I don't know and might not agree with. This means that the author means less than nothing, I'm looking at descriptions (and once it interests me, possibly reviews on my smart phone).
As things currently stand, if I go in looking for "genre X" it takes me hours to work through most store's SF&F combined section, as I have to slog through all of the "genre Y" and "genre Z" books to pull out what I'm actually looking for. While I personally find it relaxing, it also means I only go when I have several hours to kill.
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As to the various crossover works, why not simply put the sections side by side and slip a book shelf between them with works that fit equally in both?
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I'm also super jealous of the people who have bookstores near them that separate them -_-. Even my favorite bookstore, which has an absolutely massive SF&F section, keeps them combined. I'm not sure I've ever encountered a bookstore that kept the apart. Though, I have encountered a few such libraries. I love those particular libraries.
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I'm a little curious about people that want them kept together. I assume that even separated they would still be sorted by author, so what is the trouble with separating them? If you already knew what you were looking for, wouldn't being able to walk to the section it was in and look through a smaller number of books for the author name still be faster?
Jacen wrote: "That is, in fact, me. When I go to a bookstore or library, I'm not looking for a specific author. If I was, I would have ordered it, cheaper, from Amazon. No, when I go to the physical brick and mortar location, library or bookstore, I'm looking to discover books that never made the "top ten books of X" lists.."Yes, this is an interesting discussion.
Brick and mortar bookstores may be a dying breed, but I think they will always have a place. They are particularly suited to the “browsers”, the individuals who want to physically interact with the books: to pick them up, to look at the ‘blurbs on the sleeve, to thumb through them, and to generally have a tangible and tactile encounter with them. Although this is not usually me, it does seem that there are still a lot of folks out there like this, readers who will never be completely satisfied with Amazon. And I agree, these "discovers" like yourself are probably the people who could benefit the most from this sub-shelving, Fantasy versus Sci-Fi.
For me though, for the occasional times when I am indeed “gathering” and not “hunting”, I don’t really care. I like it all and am happy just grazing around pretty much anywhere in that part of the bookstore.
Another general comment and some junior philosophizing. We as a species love to divide and to categorize things. It seems to give us comfort and to make us feel like we understand it all a little better. It also helps us to organize our thoughts when discussing these sundry things. Books are no different. The problem is that things are not always easily divided. The lines of distinction are often blurry. Things sometimes don’t fit into neat little categories. And again, books are no different. And because of this, I don’t always want someone else doing the dividing for me.
Jacen wrote: "As it stands, the majority of online book sources, from Amazon to Library Districts, combined SF&F into a single section."Actually, Amazon does split them. When browsing books there, the general Science Fiction and Fantasy category is further sub-divided into Science Fiction and Fantasy.
Edwin wrote: "Jacen wrote: "That is, in fact, me. When I go to a bookstore or library, I'm not looking for a specific author. If I was, I would have ordered it, cheaper, from Amazon. No, when I go to the physica..."I fully agree, There have been discussions on other threads of how to categorise various genres: so many different points of view.
I have found many a new author by browsing , looking at mixed shelves . If I wanted a particular genre I would go online and check it out and order it.
Shops/ libraries are great for just finding someone new to read
Edwin wrote: "Although this is not usually me, it does seem that there are still a lot of folks out there like this, readers who will never be completely satisfied with Amazon. And I agree, these "discovers" like yourself are probably the people who could benefit the most from this sub-shelving, Fantasy versus Sci-Fi."It's more than that, when I go though Amazon it very much tries to curate what it thinks I will like and shove that in my face, this is great...normally. But when I'm digging outside the bubble I only have 2 options, 1 sort by most popular books in genre, which is 80-90% the same books it's been for years. Or 2 sort by newest released and look though every...single...one. This is an insane amount of effort and it lacks the one layer of filtering which makes it easier to handle.
This is part of the sidebar for Amazon's paper book section for science fiction. The same exists for ebooks.
The original complaint was that SF and fantasy were lumped together. For Amazon, it's true at the highest level, but they can be easily separated and have even more subcategories.
The sidebar also has several other ways to narrow down the results.
Mod
Separation has actually been a negative for me. I, being the discerning, self-aware person I am (HA!) know exactly what I think I'd like, and it's never those other things that don't sit in the same genre aisles I know by rote. I'd never have read several of the books I've found enjoyable if I'd stayed in sections I tend to like most. Separating them out means I'm less likely to go around the store either because:
1. It takes too much time
2. If the book isn't where I thought it would be, I have no idea where else it might be
3. I become a little embarrassed if I stray into genres that have social stigma attached to them (YA, comic books etc)
4. I have been made uncomfortable when going out of my gender-roled genres by people thinking I'm lost or a "fake" fan
Usually, I either go by word of mouth or see something eye-catching in displays at stores that say "New!" or "Classics!" or whatever other kiosks their statistical models say my area may find appealing. But mostly it's word of mouth, and I borrow books from my TBR list from the library, or buy them on Kindle, where the only thing that matters is what sort of story I'm in the mood for.
Chris wrote: "This is part of the sidebar for Amazon's paper book section for science fiction. The same exists for ebooks."Interesting that "hard Science Fiction" is a smaller part of the total, only about 11,000. That's what I usually think of when I think of science fiction.
Allison wrote: "The last time I went to a brick and mortar store without an idea in mind of what I wanted, I ended up with one tried and true book (a Neil Gaiman) and a book that had all the trappings of a book I'..."And going to those areas of social stigma you might find something of interest .
its why I think separating out into genre of SF or Fantasy is wrong.
Reading book s I didn't think I would like just to make sure they were alright for a grand daughter opened up a whole new area of books for me
Bruce wrote: "Interesting that "hard Science Fiction" is a smaller part of the total, only about 11,000. That's what I usually think of when I think of science fiction."Part of that is likely the debate about what constitutes "hard" science fiction. It's an extremely fuzzy and ill-defined line. One which pretty much no one seems to agree on.
Another contributing factor is likely the large scale "universes" that are generally considered to fall into the "sci-fi" category, but not into "hard" science fiction. In example, there are well over 100 books for the Star Wars franchise, and those would never be sorted into that "hard" category.
Ultimately, there is also the fact that Amazon is self-tagged(at least for self-published authors such as myself), and you only get two genre tags. As hard sci-fi is a bit more niche, it's less likely to be chosen by an author whose works are borderline.
Kateb wrote: "And going to those areas of social stigma you might find something of interest .its why I think separating out into genre of SF or Fantasy is wrong.
Reading book s I didn't think I would like just to make sure they were alright for a grand daughter opened up a whole new area of books for me
I kinda hate comments like this. "its for your own good" comments.
I'm sort of an adult. I know exactly what I like, what I don't like and when I want to take chances.
Forcing me to look at crap I have no interest in "for my own good" or to "broaden my horizons" doesn't open me up to anything but frustration and - eventually - anger.
But it DOES lead to me keeping money in my pocket (out of pure frustration).
so other than anger and disdain you are saying you would keep the genres separate?
MrsJoseph, Kateb did say "I think" so I'm pretty sure he was just giving his opinion.I'm kind of mixed on this topic. I find it a lot easier to keep the books I own split but I don't mind that the library combines all of the fiction books alphabetically. I do strongly object to the fact that the biographies are on the fiction floor.
But although I don't mind the books being organized alphabetically, this did cause me to miss out on some stuff while I would keep reading mediocre authors simply because I knew their last name. I've read a ton of Iris Johansen books just because I happened to like one 15 years ago and I knew where she was located in the library. And she's not that good!
Sarah Anne wrote: " I do strongly object to the fact that the biographies are on the fiction floor."
*blink* *blink* Why on Earth would they put biographies on the fiction floor? Though, I suppose some of those celebrity auto-biographies are probably effectively fiction. Still seems like a weird choice, though.
Isn't it absurd? I think I spent half an hour looking for them on the Non-Fiction floor. I guess they had 3/4 non-fiction/bios and 1/4 fiction when they were splitting things up? Yet all fiction is together with just alphabetical order.
Kateb wrote: "so other than anger and disdain you are saying you would keep the genres separate?"Yes. If I want SF, I want SF. If I want Fantasy, I want Fantasy. If I want Romance, I want Romance.
Being forced to dig through anything I have no interest in doesn't work for me.
Maybe it works well for those who don't know what they want.
Sarah Anne wrote: "MrsJoseph, Kateb did say "I think" so I'm pretty sure he was just giving his opinion.I'm kind of mixed on this topic. I find it a lot easier to keep the books I own split but I don't mind that th..."
I hope I didn't give the impression that I am/was upset at Kateb. I'm not - it's the thought pattern behind the comment that annoys me. And he was not the first person to say it so I hope I didn't give the impression of singling out. That was not my intention.
I just feel that force-feeding anything "for your own good" is mostly terrible. And often detrimental.
Take UF, for example. A lot books that are Paranormal Romance often end up in the UF/Fantasy/SFF section. But they are ROMANCE. So there's a heavy romantic plot line because the dang things are romance.
But then dudes get the pseudo "UF" and get upset. And the next thing I know tons of people who hate Romance are talking shit about Romance because they are angry they were tricked into buying something they normally avoid.
And now a lot of UF and Romance (PNR) have been combined and a lot of people I know who hate PNR but love UF are constantly upset and frustrated.
I have that conversation regularly in Feedback. This wasn't a problem when I was younger. Things were clearly labeled.
Mod
I'm kind of mixed on this topic. I find it a lot easier to keep the books I own split but I..."
MrsJ, I understand but as Kateb quoted me, and I was certainly not promoting anything "for my own good" I think maybe we're having slightly different discussions maybe? I'm totally against All Fiction Ever Written being lumped together. And I agree it's frustrating when books that are only SFF for "color" purposes end up in SFF sections. That is irksome, though I think we've sort of discussed some of the reasons it happens.
What I DON'T want to do is see Urban Fantasy, Contemporary Fantasy, Contemporary Horror, Supernatural Horror, Hard Sci Fi, Space Operas and so on all separated. I have a hard time as is figuring out if something will be considered SFF or literary fiction or YA or Comic book adjacent--where does Watchmen live, for example? Searching for that book I've found to be inconsistent. If instead there'd just been a Speculative Fiction section, possibly with some stickers or displays featuring a subgenre, I'd probably have an easier time sifting through. My personal solution for buying something on a whim is all cover, blurb and first page anyways--not genre related. If I'm not there on a whim, I really just want to be able to find what I'm looking for and get out.
But it's also possible niche-genred stores just are not "for me." Like I said, I live well and happily online, where I can sort by reviews and "also boughts" and the hive-mind suggesting things to me. I may just not use those physical resources like you do, which is probably why there are so many options for categories out there :-)
I think we are. I was specifically referring to the parts about not seperating and "books I don't like opening me up" etc.When it comes to "What I DON'T want to do is see Urban Fantasy, Contemporary Fantasy, Contemporary Horror, Supernatural Horror, Hard Sci Fi, Space Operas and so on all separated"
I would prefer to see those grouped as:
Fantasy -->Urban Fantasy & Contemporary Fantasy
Horror --> Contemporary Horror & Supernatural Horror
Sci-Fi -->Hard Sci Fi & Space Operas
I don't think sub-genes should be broken up - but I want the genres to be clearly labeled and easy to discern.
EX: I am one of those people who don't read a lot of Hard Sci-Fi. I don't understand much of it and I get stuck trying to make it actually work (equations, etc). I don't want to get caught up on String Theory , etc so I stay with the soft sciences (when I read SF). So, for me, picking up a Hard Sci-Fi because it was mixed in with the Romance -->Romance SF would be a problem.
MrsJoseph wrote: "I would prefer to see those grouped as:Fantasy -->Urban Fantasy & Contemporary Fantasy
Horror --> Contemporary Horror & Supernatural Horror
Sci-Fi -->Hard Sci Fi & Space Operas"
If I might add a suggestion, there's a lot of soft sci-fi or science fantasy being promoted as sci-fi. I would suggest including these with the Fantasy category so they're not mixed in with the Hard sci-fi and space operas.
Bruce wrote: "If I might add a suggestion, there's a lot of soft sci-fi or science fantasy being promoted as sci-fi. I would suggest including these with the Fantasy category so they're not mixed in with the Hard sci-fi and space operas. That is the constant debate of "science fantasy" vs "SF." Is Star Wars a Fantasy or SF?
Honestly, I hate this debate - especially considering the fact that some things that are [rightfully] considered hardcore Fantasy is considered SF by the creator. Take the Pern Series for example. I've never read them but the author says they are SF. I'd categorize it as Science Fantasy then (or in my personal library as Fantasy)...
Look at Andre Norton's Witch World series. It was originally started when Fantasy wasn't as big as it is now (and SF was much, much bigger). Norton's pub's told her to make it SF and so she did. While the world-location & research is Fantasy + History, it's origin + Origin stories are more SF/Science Fantasy.
If someone had only read Web of the Witch World - which has heavy SF sections and depends on SF to make the plot work - and claimed the series was SF...what can you say?
Mod
I think that's the argument for NOT separating things! Who gets to decide? It's store by store, ideology by ideology. Without consistency, even if you DO go to the section that houses the books you want, there's no guarantee you'll actually get the books you're looking for.
If you were looking for hard military sci fi and got Pern, you'd be frustrated. If you were looking for Pern-like books and got Wizard's First Rule, you'd likely also be pissed. I'm not sure we can get into a position where blindly selecting a book can be safe in terms of quality or enjoyment simply by where it's located. Even though Pern and Fifth Season are both science fantasy-related and great reads, I'm sure a lot of people would read both and never in a million years compare them.
So, I don't blame stores who throw up their hands and tell us just to use context clues and reference staff.
There was a video store in my hometown that obsessively curated its sections, and it did use subgenres, stickers, displays, and all of their staff probably could have run seminars and classes on cinema. It was incredible. Still is, actually, though its mission has changed somewhat :-)
I think it's possible to have a well-organized shop or library, with excruciating details examined and cross-referenced, but it's certainly not the norm. The 17 year old Barnes & Noble cashier probably has not yet made an extensive study of any genres, let alone several of them so that they can compare cross-genre works based on things like tone, color, pacing, or themes. And even if this is a remarkable young person who has done all of that, chances are their manager isn't letting them re-shelve things according to some grand plan known only to that employee.
So, if your local boutique has an amazing, intuitive layout, I think that's marvelous and I'm super jealous. Mine are not, and in the end it's just the path of least resistance to say "All speculative fiction is in this quadrant alphabetically by author." We're none of us tickled pink about it, but I know where I'll find Octavia Butler. If I want to see what other works have been compared to hers, I'll have to go online first, or trust the reference staff and whatever algorithms their data analysts have assembled.
Allison wrote: "I think that's the argument for NOT separating things! Who gets to decide? It's store by store, ideology by ideology. Without consistency, even if you DO go to the section that houses the books you want, there's no guarantee you'll actually get the books you're looking for.If you were looking for hard military sci fi and got Pern, you'd be frustrated. If you were looking for Pern-like books and got Wizard's First Rule, you'd likely also be pissed. I'm not sure we can get into a position where blindly selecting a book can be safe in terms of quality or enjoyment simply by where it's located. Even though Pern and Fifth Season are both science fantasy-related and great reads, I'm sure a lot of people would read both and never in a million years compare them."
HA!
To me its a great example of why they should. The argument is pedantic in reality. Typical literature rules would say that Star Wars is SF and Pern is Fantasy. But it is a debate that people (like us) have all the time.
If you walk up to a layman and asked where to find the Star Wars books...they'd say "SF." And if you asked for Pern, they'd point you to Fantasy.
So...the real debate (for me) is "Why does Science Fantasy even exist as a term?" "Is it the same reason NA got started??"
And in the system of "throw them all in and let God sort them out," you'd probably never read or hear of Octavia Butler or NK Jemisin. I've never read Pern but from what I've read of it...I doubt Pern vice Wizard is a far jump. But if you read Pern and got Star Wars next... that'd be terrible and nothing alike.
Sarah Anne wrote: "Yet all fiction is together with just alphabetical order. "Clearly, they are pod people only pretending to be human. Don't turn your back on them. For surely no merely human evil could commit such a horrific act against humanity. I'm fairly sure I'd compulsively start sorting them all into some sort of sense, and end up banned from their location.
Allison wrote: "I think that's the argument for NOT separating things! Who gets to decide? It's store by store, ideology by ideology. Without consistency, even if you DO go to the section that houses the books you want, there's no guarantee you'll actually get the books you're looking for."
Eh, so long as you're not unreasonably expecting perfection, it wouldn't be that hard. Online sales mean that authors/publishers have to self-tag their books these days, and they only get two genre/sub-genre tags on places like Amazon. Just use those tags to sort the shelves.
Will it get perfect results? No, of course not. But it would get a solid general sort. And, for that matter, if it's a large percentage of libraries/stores doing it, the authors/publishers will tag carefully. Ending up in a section whose readers would be less likely to enjoy the book would ultimately be detrimental to them.
I still like putting them together, at least in the library, and using spine stickers to indicate the tag. Now I realize this doesn't work in the physical B&N, but it could adapted to online stores easily.
MrsJoseph wrote: "So...the real debate (for me) is "Why does Science Fantasy even exist as a term?" "Is it the same reason NA got started??"I know it's very unfair of me, but my mental picture of how it got started features a bunch of math and science majors being seduced by Starbucks and Apple products. They have a powwow and decide that some Science Fiction isn't sciencey enough for them, being nothing more than plebeian fantasy with rocket ships. And thus Space Fantasy was born, as a way to purify their genre by throwing the stuff they didn't like into the fantasy section.
In reality, I read the wiki entry for the term, and apparently its spread is the result of stories like Heinlein's "Magic, Inc." Essentially, stories that deliberately attempted "to apply the techniques and attitudes of science fiction to traditional fantasy subjects."
Interestingly enough, Star Trek is also considered Space Fantasy, it seems. Which I find as solid proof that my own guess at how it got started might have more truth than I want to think about. After all, I've seen an awful lot of the people that claim Star Wars should be listed as fantasy using Star Trek as an example of proper science fiction....
SciFi and Fantasy Book Club
Books mentioned in this topic
Dragon's Egg (other topics)John Carter of Mars (other topics)
Midnight at the Well of Souls (other topics)
The Tyrant of Mongo (other topics)
The Dragonriders of Pern (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Iris Johansen (other topics)Kazuo Ishiguro (other topics)
Dean Koontz (other topics)
What I do find irritation with, is the online filtering and in-store shelving of the combined genre. As it stands, the majority of online book sources, from Amazon to Library Districts, combined SF&F into a single section. The same holds true for physical stores, where the resulting difficulty in finding one or the other while browsing is even worse than online (where subsections and tagging can assist). As both genre have radically expanded in volume over the years, I've come to personally think they really ought to be separated for sorting purposes. Again, not for communities, advertising, and so on, as there is too much crossover in readership, but purely from an organizational standpoint.
My personal library, estimated at some 1,500 books collected over 20+ years, has long been separated in this manner. I find that it radically aids in my search for material, both what I've already read, and my bookcase of TBR materials(yes, I have a bookcase dedicated to unread books, I'm a genuine bibliophile). It is very possible that my opinion on the subject is merely the result of mild O.C.D., however, so I'm interested in what other people think.