Why are science fiction and fantasy books so crappy?

zing zang zung

I think science fiction is a great idea, but why isn't genre fiction integrated into other literature? It's like these people read nothing else. I know only a little of science fiction from my childhood, I liked the genre, but when the same people read the same books, you're not selling the genre to a wider audience.

&_&

"these people" = me, basically

them nerds i seen onna news

Here's the Amazon list of best selling SF/F: http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/25/ref=pd_ts_b_nav

Why is Atlas Shrugged number 6 on this list?

Not to mention that the wider audience has, until recently, rejected anything that smacked even slightly of sci fi. For decades. Which is why a bunch of authors had to publish their "speculative" or "fantastical" works as children's books or borderline young adult lit. Blah blah etc.

One good book out of 25 (maybe 2 if you count Red Mars and 3 if you love Gaiman). Nice job Amazon.

world war z is totally good v. funny reads quickly also lol @ d&d supplementary books this is just for last week i guess????

Anne McCaffrey's comment on how she knew this one guy who was raped with a tent peg and how this forced him to start acting totally nelly and all gay n' shit

this is really weird considering there's some pretty obvious pro-gay stuff in her later work

this is really weird considering there's some pretty obvious pro-gay stuff in her later work

in an unreasonable display of fairness to McCaffrey's stupid statement, stating that getting raped can make someone gay does not automatically mean that one thinks getting raped is the only way someone could be gay or that being gay in and of itself is a bad thing

pretty fucking stupid statement, tho

Stupid is an understatement though! It's bat-shit insane!

I was still in "unreasonable display of fairness" mode.

"It’s a proven fact that a single anal sex experience causes one to be homosexual."

I mean whether you think she's judging homosexuals or that this is the lone cause of male homosexuality is sort of beside the point isn't it when you are saying stuff like this.

lol i need to start working "it's a proven fact" into my conversations more

I've read (it's not a proven fact though) that TWO anal sex experiences can make you DOUBLE gay, but that three can sometimes turn you straight again.

I'm just saying Shakey's logic doesn't follow, ie it's possible to not condemn gay people en masse and still be crazy.

which, you know, is spending way too much time on this but I'd rather have a pointless debate about Anne McCaffrey than rewrite software

only if of those was a negative anal sex experience

xp

Note that the quote's source in the wiki referenced above is just another message board.

Actually I think the second and third have to both be negative, but the studies are kind of inconclusive.

Ooh, I thought this thread was about how sci-fi and fantasy are crappy as genres, and I was ready to bust out the popcorn before thread reading.

I like the question:

"Q: *audible pause* *sounds of paper rustling* But, uh, some people say one experience, especially under the control of outside forces dosen't really make you *emphasis* gay."

someone shouldve asked her if the square root of a negative anal sex experience was pure fantasy

once i touched my butt in the shower and couldnt stop thinking about chris o'donnell for like a week

^^^^ proven fact

it's pretty weird that simmons seems like a rightwing nut considering the really sympathetic portrait of a gay couple in 'the terror' of all places (which i guess was somewhat balanced out by the grotesque gay serial killer-ish character in the same novel).

Simmons is such a shitty writer that I can't bring myself to care what his politics are.

Aside... Am I just being a SF rockist by getting annoyed by current state of things?

(stupid kids with their Twilight books ruining the scene... back in my day SF meant something maaann!)

It's sucked for so long, I can't imagine getting worked up about it.

If TWILIGHT led kids to read other, better SF/F, I would be really happy. But unfortch I don't think that's the main pay-off of the books. Although I do try to bend young minds by giving away books that I think are actually GOOD.

And considering sci-fi as we love it mostly started from crappy adventure serials, it's kind of hard to complain about crappy vampire serials now.

That just reminded me to go find some books for a certain teen.

i'm just trying to read older sci-fi these days, like joe haldeman, vernor vinge, steakley, heinlein. still a big richard k morgan fan, too, and i hear weird (but good) things about his new fantasy novel.

the genre's in kind of a dire state now - and a lot of my favorite stuff doesn't always get classed/marketed as sci-fi (Victor Pelevin is a prime example, but also some of Moorcock's recent stuff - which doesn't even get printed in the US - or things like Kelly Link and Jonathan Lethem). I didn't really dig Richard Morgan but there are still some decent big names that seem to get some level of attention - Gene Wolfe, M. John Harrison's last couple of novels (Light and Nova Swing).

altho Alex otm in general - the genre has pretty much always been awash in tired concepts, hackneyed writing, and terrible pandering

every genre has though, i just think sci fi's are more obviously ridiculous

I've been tending more towards fantasy than SF recently; I still enjoy Erikson even though he's becoming more and more florid with every book he writes and I'll always rep for Tad Williams.

"If you like to underline (like I do) or write in the margins (which I think I find inexplicably annoying), you're screwed if you have to erase."

Haha this is a weird behavior that I appreciate especially when coming across in used trashy books. Some dude who wrote 'baba booey' all over this one section of a bukowski collection totally made it worth reading. Thanks, anonymous stern fan!

I whole-heartedly endorse crap uneraseable paper for the sake of preserving these reading enhancements.

i read a lot of fantasy back in high school, i read a shitload of those terry brooks 'shannara' books

haha I read two and a half Shannara books before going "wait, no"

His "Magic Kingdom For Sale" series was way better IMO.

Was that Black Unicorn book one of those? Someone gave that to me out of order, I think.

yeah i think i got through 3 shannara books, which felt like a shitload. it was basically a watered-down LOTR, right? i even remember some black-clad horsemen pursuing these midget heroes or something.

That was only one watering-down of many.

Was that Black Unicorn book one of those? Someone gave that to me out of order, I think.

Yeah, that's the second one. I don't remember a word of it now but I must have enjoyed it at the time since I read the first four of that series.

yeah i think i got through 3 shannara books, which felt like a shitload. it was basically a watered-down LOTR, right? i even remember some black-clad horsemen pursuing these midget heroes or something.

IIRC the biggest Tolkein rips were in the second book, which was also the best one (and the only one I'd consider rereading).

Agreed on the second. (Actually that had the least rips IIRC.)

i read countless crappy fantasy & sf books from about grade 7 - 11, shannara included.

oh haha I am thinking of the first book plotwise

lmbo, i remember now:

Skull Bearers, "winged black destroyers"[14] who "sacrificed their humanity"[14] to become the Warlock Lord's most trusted servants. They fly around at different points of the novel, demoralizing troops. They are usually seen only at night, though one does fly during the day over the city of Tyrsis on the last day of the battle. One found Shea, Panamon and Keltset and almost killed them before Shea could bring the Elfstones to bear.

this thread seems pertinent: I have just read the wrongest scene in a fantasy book ever written.

Orl Fane, a "Gollum-like"[19] Gnome who "covets the Sword as Gollum does the ring."[19] He stole the Sword and forced Panamon, Keltset and Shea to track him down. He was driven insane and killed by the Warlock Lord after he took control of his mind and forced him to try to take the Sword.

You forgot the deep pit into which the wizard fell doing battle with a demon. Yup.

Mind you, in terms of ripoff stakes, nothing but NOTHING beats McKiernan's Iron Tower Trilogy. All he did was change the names.