2 Replies to “First Cup of Coffee – June 17, 2021”
Yay on getting to see the secret garden. FTR, I am still hoping we will someday get to see the passageway of doom, but I don’t want you to carry your laptop and coffee and try to record all at once.
I think there are probably several things at play as to why some in the SFF community haven’t heard of more recent big selling authors. Part of it the misogyny that still runs in parts of the community. Kissing books have cooties and can never be considered real science fiction (insert eye rolling smilie here). /sarcasm
Part of it is commercial success vs literary. But a big part may also be the science fiction vs fantasy divide. I know a number of people who love sci-fi but won’t read fantasy and vice versa. And a good subset of those people won’t read anything where the romance is overtly mentioned. I think some secretly wish we could go back to the way the old canon had very few female characters and the ones they did have were only there to make the hero look good or have something to fight for.
And some could be the sheer amount of content available nowadays. I sometimes look at the various best sellers lists or those articles/blog posts on “most anticipated summer reads” or “best of the year roundups” and I have never heard of more than 50% of the authors listed. This is true at both genre and sub-genre levels as well as fiction as a whole.
The internet, cable tv, etc have opened up the world in so many ways, but they’ve also made it easier for people to stay in their own bubble. That’s true in politics (people who only get their news from bias-affirming sources) but it is also true when it comes to all forms of entertainment from tv and movies, video games, and books. When you divide up all the bubbles you don’t get much overlap. So you can have two readers who each read almost exclusively fiction in the SFF genre and yet they may each read entirely different sets of books. And what you read influences what you like and seek out more of. Most readers will read more than one genre and are open to suggestions. But there are so many sources now and things aren’t as centralized as they once were. Add in self-publishing and removal of the gate-keepers which is great on many levels as you get more BIPOC authors, etc. But they still have to find an audience.
This is obviously about more than just the SFF publishing space and I have lost my point. I am trying to say I think it’s indicative of a wider societal issue or something along those lines.
//
Yay on getting to see the secret garden. FTR, I am still hoping we will someday get to see the passageway of doom, but I don’t want you to carry your laptop and coffee and try to record all at once.
I think there are probably several things at play as to why some in the SFF community haven’t heard of more recent big selling authors. Part of it the misogyny that still runs in parts of the community. Kissing books have cooties and can never be considered real science fiction (insert eye rolling smilie here). /sarcasm
Part of it is commercial success vs literary. But a big part may also be the science fiction vs fantasy divide. I know a number of people who love sci-fi but won’t read fantasy and vice versa. And a good subset of those people won’t read anything where the romance is overtly mentioned. I think some secretly wish we could go back to the way the old canon had very few female characters and the ones they did have were only there to make the hero look good or have something to fight for.
And some could be the sheer amount of content available nowadays. I sometimes look at the various best sellers lists or those articles/blog posts on “most anticipated summer reads” or “best of the year roundups” and I have never heard of more than 50% of the authors listed. This is true at both genre and sub-genre levels as well as fiction as a whole.
The internet, cable tv, etc have opened up the world in so many ways, but they’ve also made it easier for people to stay in their own bubble. That’s true in politics (people who only get their news from bias-affirming sources) but it is also true when it comes to all forms of entertainment from tv and movies, video games, and books. When you divide up all the bubbles you don’t get much overlap. So you can have two readers who each read almost exclusively fiction in the SFF genre and yet they may each read entirely different sets of books. And what you read influences what you like and seek out more of. Most readers will read more than one genre and are open to suggestions. But there are so many sources now and things aren’t as centralized as they once were. Add in self-publishing and removal of the gate-keepers which is great on many levels as you get more BIPOC authors, etc. But they still have to find an audience.
This is obviously about more than just the SFF publishing space and I have lost my point. I am trying to say I think it’s indicative of a wider societal issue or something along those lines.
Believe me – no one wants to see the passageway of doom!
Probably all of these things are true 🙂