wisb-Guardian-Express

(Don't forget to enter here for a chance to win one of three sets of David Chandler's books.)

When I was maybe ten years old I asked myself whether I preferred science fiction novels or fantasy novels.  My eventual decision was that I should prefer SF, since some day I might live on the moon, while I knew I was never going to see a real dragon.

Don’t judge.  It was the seventies, and we had a space program back then.

It was a weighty decision that took all of a lazy summer afternoon lying in a hammock in my back yard, listening to the swelling mechanical sound of the crickets all around me.  When I’d made up my mind, I nodded quite seriously to myself, and got back to the important business of reading.

Books were everything to me back then (they still are, but in a different way).  I read everything I could get my hands on, anything remotely related to genre.  I tried for a couple of days to stick to
just science fiction, but by the end of that summer I had probably read all of Thomas Covenant and C.S. Lewis and re-read the Hobbit, too.

You see, back then, despite my ten year old dilemma, there was no real need to make a choice.  You could have your fantasy and your science fiction and Stephen King and the more promising mysteries your mom checked out of the library, too.  You could have weird conspiracy books like the Illuminatus Trilogy, and bizarre hybrids like A Princess of Mars.  The big distinction between “genre” and “mainstream” was the only dividing line.  I had no interest in reading about alcoholic college professors contemplating their failed marriages.  I wanted adventure, and flashing swords (light-sabers or cavalry sabers, it was all the same) and desperate chases across dead sea bottoms on distant planets.  I wanted every story anyone wanted to tell.

So why, in the 21st century, is that kind of broad reading no longer possible?
Genre readers have split into camps.  Science fiction fans, especially those “hard SF” types, turn up their noses at anything resembling a magic sword… though variable swords with monomolecular blades are just fine.  And the devotees of Low Fantasy (who can tell you, at length, the difference between their genre and Swords and Sorcery) laugh and point fingers at those “skiffy” types who need a graphic calculator to make sense of their favorite books.  Don’t even get me started on what the horror enthusiasts think of you.  It isn’t very nice.

But good God, why?  Why, when we’re already marginalized by the mainstream, disrespected by the press, and treated like overgrown children because we enjoy the sense of wonder, do we divide ourselves even further?  Why do we feel such a need to stratify our own in-group?

Part of the reason is that, well, we won.  Nerd Culture is suddenly cool (well, sort of) and we don’t have to hide our fandom anymore.  But in the process we lost something.  We used to be members of a despised but unified subculture, a secret society who shared common interests.  Now we’re the same as fans of Country and Western music, or Metalheads, or Foodies.  The wider culture has come to accept a little more weirdness and that’s a good thing… but it means we aren’t special anymore.  It means when we run into each other in chat rooms or at conventions, we don’t automatically know we’re among the like-minded.  A rabid Star Trek fan you meet online could also be your school’s head cheerleader, for goodness’ sake.  So there’s no need for solidarity, and, as a result, we don’t stick together.

But another part of the problem is that the subgenres have become too robust.  Fandoms, like species, diverge as they evolve.  There was a time when Science Fiction was about bug-eyed monsters and starships, and that made sense to someone who was into elves and dragons.  As the genres grew more sophisticated, though, they became less alike.  Now science fiction is about singularities and server farms, while fantasy is concerned more with Vikings and complicated magic systems.  Even worse, fantasy has evolved to become more character-driven and generational, while science fiction has become the new Literature of Ideas and Naturalistic, borrowing from Post-Modernism while fantasy subsumed Magical Realism.  That’s hardly something to complain about.  Genre books today are a lot more sophisticated and enjoyable for a graying audience than they were thirty years ago.  The genres have grown up.  My father’s favorite joke used to be that the Golden Age of science fiction was thirteen.  That’s not true anymore.  But it does make it difficult for the subgenres to cross-pollinate.
Which is, in the end, why this kind of polarization is a problem.

The great genre writers of previous generations saw no real distinction between science fiction and fantasy.  They were modes, tropes that you employed because they fit a given story better, but they were happy to jump from one genre to another without worrying what their fans might think.  Even a great of hard sf like Larry Niven would occasionally delve into fantasy (though usually with a smirk), while an incredible fantasy writer like Glen Cook could spend decades noodling on science fiction empire stories.  That just doesn’t happen anymore.  Richard K. Morgan and Terry Pratchett keep trying.  And they’re really good at it… but the fans greet their efforts with a polite nod and a pat on the back at best.  And that really is a problem.  Both science fiction and fantasy grew from the fertile soil of planetary romance (I’m simplifying history, I know, but the point is valid)—John Carter of Mars gave us both Conan the Cimmerian and Flash Gordon, and they begat all the heroes and villains we love today regardless of what side of the aisle we choose.  When we specialize our interests, though, we lose that link to the past.  We also lose the more daring experimenters.  I mentioned the Illuminatus Trilogy above.  Without the subcultural soil to nurture it, could a bizarre mutation like that ever occur in today’s marketplace?  It seems unlikely.
Evolutionary scientists will tell you what happens when a species over-specializes.  At first it thrives because it’s better at exploiting its environment than it was before.  But in the end, when environmental conditions change, the species can’t adapt quickly enough.  It loses out to more generalized organisms, which benefit from what is called hybrid vigor—the tendency of a diverse population to prosper where pure-breds fail.  At the height of the genre subculture we saw the best example of this.  Star Wars was the ultimate hybrid—a Science Fantasy if there ever was one.  If we divide our house into ever smaller slices of the genre pie, will we ever see its like again?


David Chandler is the author of the Ancient Blades trilogy, comprising Den of Thieves, A Thief in the Night, and Honor Among Thieves, all of which are currently available from Harper Voyager.  He promises they’re straight-up fantasy, with none of that icky science fiction stuff at all.

Once in a while, I check my audience statistics to see where people who read this blog are from.  The usual four are always high on the list (U.S., U.K., Canada, and Germany), but sometimes there are a few new additions that make me giddy.  Don't get me wrong:  I love all you Americans, Brits, Canadians and Germans!  You're truly wonderful and I thank you for reading.  But sometimes it's wonderful to see people from elsewhere reading this weird project of mine.

With that in mind, I would like to say a hearty American hello to all the readers from the following countries:

• The Netherlands
• Brazil
• Russia
• Australia
• India
• France
• The Philippines
• Hong Kong
• Thailand

That's all I've got.  See for yourself.

I'll let the episode description do the talking for me:

This week's roundtable is a monster. JoSelle Vanderhooft, renowned editor of Steam Powered, Steam Powered 2, and many other fascinating collections, joins us for an extensive discussion about LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) speculative fiction, the reception of LGBT people in the community (and publishing), the political side of things, and, of course, JoSelle's work!

What are you waiting for?  Go listen!

(Thus begins an irregular column in which I talk about random experience I've had involving tablet PCs on display in stores.)

I had the chance to play with a Kindle Fire yesterday (my local Barnes and Noble didn't have a tablet in the store, which sucked).

Initial thoughts:

• The design is sleek and clean.
• The interface is intuitive and fun to play with.  There are probably flaws in the interface, but I didn't notice them at the time.  Honestly, I figured out how to do everything almost immediately.  Maybe that's just me...
• It's fast.   It switched between reading (books, magazines, online stuff) and viewing (movies, apps, etc.) fairly smoothly.  Other tablets might run faster, but I don't think most people will notice while using the Fire.
• I don't think it will be good as a reading device, with exception to magazines that are still in magazine format.  The color and background options for the eReader were lacking.  You could make things semi-okay for reading, but I think e-Ink still reigns supreme in this category.

An amusing fact:
There were a whole bunch of other devices on display (a Vizio something or other and two Acer devices).  All but one of those was busted for one reason or another (or the interface was clunky for a touch pad, in comparison to the Fire).

Verdict:
I want to wait for my local B&N to bring in a tablet for me to play with before I make a decision.  Right now, the $50 price difference gives the Fire a huge edge.  But if the B&N has a better interface, better options, and better performance, it'll be worth throwing down the extra cash (one day -- I don't have the $ to buy anything like that right now).

To be continued...

Dear Mr. Morrow and Publishers Thinking of Doing the Following:

Book bloggers read and review books for the love.  We are not paid.  At best, some of us will sell a review here or there, or we might earn a little cash from advertising.  But almost all of us do this because we love books, and we do it knowing the only form of compensation is the thrill of getting a new book in the mail.

But this is not a job.  We are not employees on the tab or paid under the table.  Free books does not equal compensation, in part because free books is an unequal relation of value.  You give us a book, but we have to read and review it, which means the value of the book in relation to the time spent working on it averages out to less than minimum wage.  Effectively, if free books constitute compensation, then those of us who blog about books are making less than someone who works at Taco Bell.

The point is:  this is not a job.  We do this for the love.  Most of us will never have jobs at magazines as reviewers.  Most of us will never get beyond sharing our love of books with people who share our interests. That's just the way it is.

In other words:  we are not your bitches.

While you might think your new policies are about efficiency, what they tell the rest of us is that you do not value what we do.  As @MotherReader has already pointed out:  "Can you imagine them sending this to Horn Book or the NY Times?"  Exactly.  The language of the letter is a double bitch slap to the face:  first, you tell us that what we do is a job, despite the fact that we are not paid for it, and then you treat us as less worthy of the kind of attention afforded to a place whose job it is to review books.

Don't get me wrong.  I completely understand why publishers want to streamline the process, and I sympathize with it.  But turning book blogging into a "play by the rules" game is far from streamlining anything.

Instead of treating us like review slaves, you might consider asking book bloggers for their opinions.  Surveys are a wonderful thing, and book bloggers are usually quite happy to offer their thoughts on a range of topics related to -- you guessed it -- books.

Just don't treat us like we're your bitches.  Because we're not.  We're lovers of books who enjoy sharing our love with others.  Slapping us in the face with these kinds of policies, written with such words, is not a great way to keep us interested in talking about your books.

As Larry of OF Blog says:  "I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more."

Signed,
A Book Blogger


Thoughts from others:  Larry at OF Blog; LA Times Blogs.

A long, long time ago (in a galaxy far away), I bought a B&N Nook.  Why?  Because I liked:

• the design (the first Nooks were beautiful)
• the touchscreen at the bottom, which makes navigating the device easy and searching for books more interesting than other eReaders (it lets you browse by the covers)
• having a physical bookstore to go to, since I still buy hard copies
• the various in-store bonuses (reading anything in the store for free, free food, etc.)
• freedom from Amazon (I'm not a fan of Amazon's attempt to strangle publishers, just as I am not a fan of publishers strangling writers)
• freedom from a single store (the ePub format lets me buy books from all over the place; that doesn't mean I go elsewhere to get them -- just that I can)