Dan M wrote:
There is so much good science fiction - not to mention 'slipstream', 'New
Weird', etc - out there (old and new) why waste your time reading the crap?
One thing I've noticed, however, is that the shelf space for what I, and
from what I read most folks on Brin-L consider good sci-fi continues to
shrink, being replaced by game based series, movie based series, etc.
I think that is probably more the bookstores that you shop than an
objective reality shift... I mean, sci-fi has always had a strong
relationship with its "pulp" and "mass media" sides. If anything, the
prominence of the game based sci-fi and movie based sci-fi should be a
sign that that the industry is successful and healthy.
Also, there is more speculative fiction slipping across the aisles into
other categories. There have been a number of books added to my sci-fi
wishlist recently that are categorized in the "Literature" areas of most
bookstores, due to both the "high brow" prominence of some authors
toeing into the waters and what appears to be an increasing tolerance by
the literary elites for sci-fi/speculative themes and hooks.
BTW, I don't think graphic novels inherently fit under the "crap" category.
I thought "The Watchman" was very good. My son and I had one big argument
over it. He argued that it was good literature. I argued it was good, but
a different art form than literature because it used graphics to tell so
much of the story.
Certainly the "graphic novel" is a different medium for literature than
the traditional novel, but "graphic novels" fit well within my
definition of literature. Certainly semantics could be argued for days,
but I think that graphic novels do trend closer to literature than, say,
art or film. We could argue that perhaps a new term needs to be created
to cluster graphic novels and illustrated novels distinctly from
"literature", but I don't see a strong need to differentiate between the
type of literature that is the 'modern' graphic novel and 'classic
literature'. Both are welcome to me, but then I'm not a high brow book
critic.
--
--Max Battcher--
http://worldmaker.net
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