I always get uncomfortable when someone sees me as an authority on books. I know a lot about them but I know a lot of people that know a lot more and I’m always worried about doing the following:
The same applies to discussing literature of all forms and stripes. Sometimes, we just don’t know what we know and we think we know more than what we really know (and yes, I realize that sounds like something Donald Rumsfeld might have said about the situation in Iraq several years ago). But yet we often make the mistake of presuming that our perspective is the “privileged” one, that others who disparage our opinions are somehow wrong.
link: OF Blog of the Fallen: Perspectives, namely those in that rat’s cage called review blogging
That’s because I’m part of a wonderful bubble that’s in danger of being broken like this:
So, traipsing home disappointed I started to wonder (and then Larry’s post punched it home) about the perspectives of bloggers. Thanks to reading other blogs and being infected by buzz, we become all wrapped up in shiny releases – and sometimes little realise that those releases have absolutely NO impact on booksellers.
link: Floor to Ceiling Books: Living In The Blogger Bubble
Absolutely NO impact on booksellers is probably a little strong. I think there is probably some disconnect between what happens online and what happens in bricks & mortar but that’s not a bad thing. As I’ve mentioned before I can walk into a bookshop and find gems that haven’t been on my radar, which was exciting and occasionally expensive.
But the book-o-sphere is having an impact. I’d guarantee that some books we get excited about and have spikes in online sales they would not have done so without all the buzz that goes from blog to blog.
There are arguments about where are spotlight should fall:
I’m increasingly discovering that there is something resembling a backlist movement. This is what the internet should be used for – not to prop up the titles that get decent amounts of marketing spend on them (mine included) but exploring niches and discovering range.
link: Genre Diversity – Mark Charan Newton
I’m a Pom-pon boy. It’s called NextRead for a reason. For me it’s a game of discovery of my next read. I could and did for a while read a small narrow range of authors and I’d be quiet happy to carry on but some small corner of me is a writer. I know that there are writers there that have someone worth reading and giving them a moment of my time is quite exciting when you find authors you meet minds with. And there is no better feeling than reading a book you totally get.
Speaking of meetings of minds and getting. Well I did get this and I didn’t meet minds on it at all:
Yet the perception – that I believed for a second that fantasy was inferior – proved pervasive. Weirdmage asked, “If you really think Speculative Fiction is an inferior genre, why start a blog about it?” while LEC took after Alex’s tactic, wondering “Are you trying to become the Literary Scotsman, Niall?”
Let me stop for just a second to say: no. I have none of the delusions of grandeur, as if blogging about literary fiction – so called – would somehow grant me such grandeur, that so many commenters seem to assume.
link: The Speculative Scotsman: From the Comments: Complex Inferiority
I think I’m off his Christmas card list for my comment on the earlier post, From the Comments: Inferior Fantasy. Before we carry on just take a second to read it through and make up your own mind.
Right, decided?
This takes us back to the start of this post. If you’re going to say something controversial like Rant: Science Fiction isn’t just dying it has crumbled to dust. Where is the new blood? make sure you explain yourself and not let your point get lost. My point was that we need to support the new writers SF a little more and question why the default in SF is to go backwards. I don’t think I did well there. I did better at Mark’s challenge of diversity with my celebration of short stories.
But there is lighting fires and championing what you believe in like the need for more SF authors on the block and getting people reading and there is:
Fantasy can be a bit crap, can’t it? However close the genre may be to our hearts, we’ve all read some particularly awful examples of the form in our time, I’m sure.
Yes fantasy can be crap an so can literary fiction and crime and chic lit and so on. But you know what? Fantasy can we wonderful as can literary fiction and crime and chic lit etc. Literary fiction isn’t the cream that’s been saved from joining the mould in a pint of milk. Fantasy isn’t a bit grubby and unrefined, which is what came across in the rest of Niall’s post:
‘The cream of the crop of non-genre fiction is going to be necessarily creamier than that in fantasy’
And I think at this point I couldn’t come up with something better than:
Sorry but this is really a load of bollocks.
Alright lets look at this again:
I don’t need for every fantasy novel I read to be academically and intellectually remarkable. I don’t demand that all of fantasy must suddenly devote its attention entire to impressing notoriously hard-to-please critics. That’s not what I want from the genre by any stretch. I understand that what matters most of all, in terms of the experience of reading, is that, as @NextRead put it, we have a good time. I had a good time with The Way of Kings (more on which later, and elsewhere, in fact). But is having a good time truly all that matters? In a vacuum, that kind of argument might fly. As one genre among many, however, and as a staunch supporter of that genre with high hopes that it be less often on the receiving end of snooty, derisory and dismissive attitudes, the likes of which we’re constantly complaining about across the blogosphere, I want twenty Ian McDonalds where I’ve suggested there might be ten, as it stands. I want a hundred Ian McDonalds, damn it. And how is that such a horrendous thing to hope for?
link: The Speculative Scotsman: From the Comments: Complex Inferiority
There are loads of things to address…
I’m happy with what’s on my shelves. I know that there are going to be a range of storytellers there and a wide range of ways they can be told. And I do have my preferences in what stories I immediately want to read and some stories I get persuaded to read by others (I’ll never forgive them for Twelve never especially James Long- I question his taste I really do 
) but I’m never stuck for something to read and something to try.
If you want a certain style of writing then go for those authors that do it for you. Is it really true that those who want their ‘genre in a lit fic style’, whatever that means, come up short? – I can take a stab at some authors that would fit but I don’t really think in those terms.
Everyone is a critic in some way even if it’s just saying to your friends, ‘You have to read Twilight! I want to know if your Team Edward!’
I’d love to know who are doing this:
…that it be less often on the receiving end of snooty, derisory and dismissive attitudes, the likes of which we’re constantly complaining about across the blogosphere.
Who have those snooty, derisory and dismissive attitudes? And does it matter?
The only issue should be between the author and the reader. Did they manage to tell you a story that by the end you found you enjoyed. If not, is it you or the author? You can’t complain when you get a burger at McDonalds – you want pretentiousness choose a Michelin Star!
Now I’m doing it. I’m reinforcing the idea that one thing is better than another. It’s an easy trap to fall into isn’t it…
And after making a whole post about it what do I really want to say?
I’m more interested in finding interesting books and reading and sharing them.
And you know what if you’re worried about being judged for your reading buy an iPad or a Kindle and keep reading what you want!
And if you need help finding your idea book there is a a whole book-o-sphere to help you out!
by Fred Vargas
