column: EUOLogy #18

[Mistress of Darkness]

Terry Brook's Shannara novels had a "novel setting"? I like his early work, but you have to admit it's a lot like Tolkein. So much so, I don't think it could be considered "a novel setting."

[MsFish]

Romance:   At least two deal with issues such as sexual abuse and psychological trauma.  

I didn't even have to try, and here are plenty of books that prove that romances and thrillers often stretch worldviews.

I don't mean to disagree with your whole point here, because I'm not sure I do, but I'd just like to point out that that Anita Stansfield novel I read a month or so ago dealt with abuse and psychological trauma extensively, but I don't think it stretched my worldview.  In fact, I really felt like the treatment was cheap.  There are probably some out there that handle it well, but the argument that just because a romance involves abuse it stretches worldviews doesn't really work.  It depends on the book.  

[Skar]

Terry Brook's Shannara novels had a "novel setting"? I like his early work, but you have to admit it's a lot like Tolkein. So much so, I don't think it could be considered "a novel setting."

Neither would I, but then I've been reading SF&F since I was 6 or 7.

To someone who has never read any fiction or even someone who has read only romance or mysteries, it would be a totally novel setting.

However, if someone who has never read any fiction were to pick up a typical romance or thriller, the "world" presented would be very recognizable to them.

[MsFish]

I don't know what world you live in, but my world isn't anything like the world in romance novels.  

[Skar]

   I think you know what I mean.

[stacer]

I still want to know what EUOL's sources say about the rising trend of juvenile fantasy.

[House of Mustard]

Never said it, never thought it.

You did say it.  You put a disclaimer afterward, but you did stereotype an entire genre as worse than SF&F:

Where I was presented with ideals of courage and honesty and intelligence and so on in my pulp in romance you get sappy sentimentalism and fuzzy thinking and thrillers generally get their shock value from showing the reader how even the hero is really just a shlock too, once you get to know him.

(for all you readers of romance and thrillers out there, I know I'm being unfairly broad in my descriptions, the point remains the same)

and you said:

Yes, SE but even the SW and ST series strive to tell a more meaningful story than your average Romance (haven't read many of these so I'm being a bit presumptuous)

Since you only made these comments in your first post, Skar, I get the idea that they are your actual feelings on the subject -- you switched to a more academic argument later on.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like you really DO believe SF&F are superior to romance and thrillers -- in more than just a personal taste kind of way.

But I wasn't initially responding to you, anway.  I originally posted because of EUOL's article wherein he says:

We SF&F people certainly consider ourselves to be a step above other forms of genre fiction. We don't want to be forgotten -- we want to say something meaningful about human nature while we tell our story of another world.

This was the initial source of my complaint.


Also: Skar's post was the second time in this thread that I've been called condescending.  Sorry about that -- I didn't mean anything of the sort.  Let me just restate that I rarely ever get emotionally involved in debates, and I generally argue for the fun of it.

That said, the kinds of genres that are being belittled are my livelihood.  I don't feel too guilty about defending them.[/size]

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

How many people have seen at least one of the LotR movies? Most people, I'd believe. At least a disproportionately large portion of them Ditto for Star Wars. Who isn't familiar with the ideas of Superman, whether or not they've read it?

So... when they read something like Sword of Shannara, and they're already familiar with Gimli and Legolas.... what exactly is stretching about that? I'm sorry, Skar, but you're proposing a creature that's very rare at best when you talk about someone completely unfamiliar with F&SF. I dare say that there are more people familiar with the culture of Star Wars or Middle Earth  these days than there are familiar with the culture of the French Revolution. Thus it stretches one more to read a well researched romance set in the French Revolution than it does to read a Tolkien clone.

[Skar]

 

That said, the kinds of genres that are being belittled are my livelihood.  I don't feel too guilty about defending them.

Ah.  Much is explained.  Forgive me.  I did not realize that your work was in the romance genre.  (I did buy your latest book but don't plan on reading it until my self-imposed moratorium on fiction is over(May), I will be reading it however, no matter its genre-label)

I will concede the point that a well-researched piece of Historical fiction is indeed world expanding for the reader. More so than a Brooks clone of Tolkien.  However, the fact remains that the world-expanding event that made Brooks into just more run-of-the-mill for your reader was an exposure to SF&F (LoTR)  You can't claim the same effect from an exposure to, say... "You've Got Mail."

When I said that I had not read much Romance/Thriller, however, I did not mean that I had read none. You'd all be surprised what you'll try reading when that stack of ten books sitting on the table with the donuts and coffee in the airport lounge is the only thing available.  My experience with books in the "romance" genre has been universally bad.  My experience with thrillers almost so, the only exceptions really being Clancy and Vince Flynn.

So I suppose you are right.  I do consider even pulp SF&F to be far superior to bodice-rippers.  And yes, according to my internal understanding of what classifies a book as romance, the moment a book is known to contain quality it becomes something other than "romance"  

I also realize that bodice-rippers are a subset of the genre that is generally known as "romance"  When a well-researched piece of Historical Fiction is lumped in together with a bodice-ripper there's something wrong.  I DON'T want to get into another debate on labeling, however.  So would someone just explain to me how Bodice-rippers and Historical Fiction and "Wake Me When it's Over" are one and the same?  What do they have in common?

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

I think the problem is that you studied in the English Department and not the Comparative Lit dept

actually, while I meant that as a joke, I'm kind of serious. One of hte primary differences between studying literature in an English Dept and a Comp Lit Dept is the emphasis on recognizing that genre/movement/national/linguistic barriers are hardly barriers at all. The outsides of those divisions are blurry, fuzzy, and broad. After all, what would Don Quijote be if it weren't for a long tradition of books written in english, French, Greek, and Latin (answer: nothing). It's a parody, but it's also a novel of knightly quest. On the same note. What would Star Wars be without Westerns? Very different, that's what.

Just because something is a Romance does not preclude it from being a western, a fantasy, historical fiction, a comedy, a mystery, or possibly all of the above. The only thing that makes us call something a romance or by one of it's other genres is the audience it will most appeal to. A well researched historical fiction that focuses mostly on how it is visited by time travellers will be put in the Science Fiction section. A well researched historical fiction that focuses primarily on the protagonist finding a love interest that not only reciprocates but is worth of her love will be put in the Romance section.

So, just because it's something else, like a Mystery or a Spy Thriller doesn't make it "not romance."

But I can't resist syaing this either: in your "You've Got Mail" example, the film will no more prepare someone to read a Romance set in a foreign setting/time than it will prepare one to read The Sword of Shannara.

The short answer then, is that they share a primary plot focus on falling in love, finding the right person to be in love with, etc, etc.

[House of Mustard]

Wake Me... is romance in two ways: (1) it contains a romance, although that is not the main part of the story and (2) more importantly, it's being marketed as a romance.  Though I'm not terribly happy about that, I'm not complaining because that will tend to make it sell well.

Technically, I think it's much more of a thriller (kidnapping, terrorists, etc...) than a romance.  Either way, though.  Personally, I prefer to think of it in the humor genre.

Actually, my first book, On Second Thought, fits very neatly in the romantic comedy genre.

[Skar]

A well researched historical fiction that focuses primarily on the protagonist finding a love interest that not only reciprocates but is worth of her love will be put in the Romance section.

So...romances are primarily about love and emotion and relationships and not about nifty new places, people, and things.

But I can't resist syaing this either: in your "You've Got Mail" example, the film will no more prepare someone to read a Romance set in a foreign setting/time than it will prepare one to read The Sword of Shannara.

It seems to me that "You've Got Mail" and its ilk would prepare someone for a Romance in a foreign setting/time because the central issue, what they're primarily about, is the same, love/relationships.  But it would not prepare them to read a Brooks/Tolkien novel since the central issues are entirely different.

Now, to descend into ambiguity, there is a genre called romantic fantasy, Patricia Briggs is, apparently, a good example of it, and I like what I've read by Patricia Briggs.

[Sigyn]

Labels, labels, all is labels.

I had no idea that "Wake me. . ." was being sold as a romance.  None of the stores I've been in have labeled that or HoM's other book that way.  Instead, they've labeled them as Mormon Fiction, a label that has all sorts of connotations that I'm not going to touch at the moment.

I want to talk about romance novels.  I know that bodice-rippers make up a large portion of the genre, but there is also the section of regency romances, which tend to be cleaner than the average romance.  However, they still count as romance because the main object of the book is to tell a love story.  That doesn't mean these books don't tell other stories as well.  I'll cite Georgette Heyer who wrote romance and mysteries.  Her regency romances tend to be light in the way they deal with characters, but she often brings in bits of mystery and comedy as well. My sister mostly reads Mormon romance fiction, and she tried Heyer and couldn't read it because it was too outside of her experience. She didn't understand the regency world and its conventions so the book wasn't enjoyable to her even though it was still technically part of her favorite genre. She loved "You Got Mail" but it didn't prepare her for an author who is one of the "queens" of romance.

What I'm trying to say is (and you know I'm not doing it very well if I have to sum up at the end) romance is not a genre of "read one, you've read them all" just as sf&f isn't like that.  Both groups have large portions of pulp that is very similar, but it isn't all that way.

Also, as for sales of Sf&f dropping, I would guess that that statistic is for adult sf&f. Children's sf&f, while a hugely growing market, tends to be lumped together with children's sales.

[House of Mustard]

I had no idea that "Wake me. . ." was being sold as a romance.  None of the stores I've been in have labeled that or HoM's other book that way.  Instead, they've labeled them as Mormon Fiction, a label that has all sorts of connotations that I'm not going to touch at the moment.

In non-LDS stores, like Media Play or Barnes and Noble, it's labeled as LDS fiction.  In LDS stores, though, they split things up a little.  Actually, my book has caused all sorts of trouble for the publisher -- they can't figure out which genre to stick it in.  They made over 40 cover designs, but determined they were all too suspense/thriller, and they switched over to a more humor-based cover.  And then the back cover synopsis makes it sound like a romance ( it calls it a "full-throttle ride into the human heart").

I was doing book signings on Saturday, and all of the employees described it differently -- some as mystery, some as thriller, some as romance.  And then they'd say "but it's hilarious."  Personally, I've always labeled it an action/adventure novel.

I guess this is the problem with labels.

[Skar]

YES fuzzy labels are bad.  If we must label, and we must, then the labeling should be precise.

My wife read it, liked it, and did not think of it as a romance.  

She thought the cover was totally misleading and ugly. And that quote you gave about the full-throttle ride sounds like a romance, not much else.

Sounds like your publisher needs some new copywriters and art directors.