Writely Ways and a chance to hear me talk

[cornerofmadness]

This past week was banned book week and I reread Fahrenheit 451 in celebration. I also presented it at my college library for the same reason. They recorded my few bits of reading so if you want to hear me reading (probably badly) click the youtube.

Watch on YouTube

It got me thinking, not about being banned (though frankly that might not be tremendously bad for sales. I know I buy banned things I would never have read in the first place just to see why it was banned) but about genre. Written in the 1950’s, Fahrenheit 451 was a futuristic dystopia parading as a utopia. It is, in it’s core, science fiction and yet, it remains an enduring classic.

I know I’ve blogged in the not-so-distant past about genre, but I guess it demands repeating, mostly because I keep seeing people dismissing genre fiction as unimportant. I do not grasp this. Granted some of it is just there for sheer entertainment without much of a deeper message, but I think you could say that of most books. And there is nothing at all wrong about entertainment.

But here we have SF bringing a very important and ultimately timeless message of the importance of knowledge and free access to it. Star Trek often tackled many social issues, albeit occasionally very clumsily, but it still did it. This was echoed in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Many crime shows and novels do the same and yet time and again you’ll see them ignored by award shows; you’ll see people on reading challenges dismiss you because you’re not reading ‘real’ books.

I suppose it frustrates me since I write genre fiction. In the end, I’m not going to let it stop me. If nothing else, to me, it’s a reason to read and write more of it.

Now if I could only get my nano characters screaming in my head as loud as my redneck vampire and his werewolf protectors. Whimpers.


Yearly word count-

69523 / 125000 words. 56% done!

Vacation in Victoria – still no work done

FMA bigbang –

3409 / 15000 words. 23% done!

Splinters of Silver – hopefully I forgot the flashdrive in my office at work or I’ve lost it. Whimpers loudly. At least I have a hard copy but a lot of important stuff was on that flash.

Comments

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

I hope you do have the flashdrive at your office. I know that feeling so much.

I have gotten reactions much like that - I don't read real books. They're published, they've got words and a cover and sometimes illustrations - what makes genre different than history or biographies? I will read those, too, depending, but I want something that will ultimately be enjoyable, and hopefully teach me something. Of course, there are novels I read just for the sheer enjoyment of them, as well.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

yeah it blows

I have never gotten why 'mainstream' novels are worthy and genre aren't. Ask flipyon her experiences at Emerson College which now teaches genre fiction. Not so when she was there. I was not allowed to read even classic SF/fantasy like Tolkein when I was in High School for the open reading assignments.

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

*blinks owlishly*

...Open Reading Assignments...?

Bad enough I was reading ahead in classwork books, or brought my own books from home or the school library to read. And they weren't the equivalent of Harlequin Romances, they were stuff with some meat to them, for the most part; Herbert or Bradbury, or Andre Norton...

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

we had about a half dozen assigned books and then we could pick one book to do a paper on that was of our choosing

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Wow...how delightful would that have been.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

yeah and in our senior year we had FOUR non-assigned books, one American, one English, one French and one Russian. I substitued Faust for the Russian one

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

I've never read Faust.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

the first part was good but Goethe took a break of like decades and the second part made no sense

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Oh, I hate it when that happens.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

yeeah it was something like 30 years between, he wrote the end when he was an old man

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

That's looooong.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

it showed

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Tanith Lee did that with one of her "series" as well; and didn't that author you liked with the character named 'Cat' do the same thing? Maybe not that long, obviously, on either of their behalves, but still.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

yes Vinge. it was nearly 30 years in that case. And i never finished the book. When he turned around and threw away everything he fought the whole series for? it was horrible

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

In Lee's case, the first book was okay, and the second book was better.

I hear that's not the case with her sequel to The Silver Metal Lover which I've not read.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

yeah i've heard that too

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Jaki did make some noise about that.

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

And you're reading pretty well. :D

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

whee

[ital-gal.livejournal.com]

good job! Agree 100%

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

thank you

[bay115.livejournal.com]

Nice job on the reading there!

Also total agreement on genre fiction. As long as a story is written well, it shouldn't matter if its mainstream, SF, romance, etc.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

thank you very much.

yeah it amazes me that the perjudice still remains strong