The "SciFi" Taboo

[Oblio]

I just found this news item on my home page today and thought I would share it with the community to see what their take of the article is:

http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/news/2007/04/scifighetto_0412

It basically says publishers and film makers try desperately not to put a story in the Science Fiction genre.   It seems to me that is is part of the dumbing down of America where anything thing with the word "science" in it is scary. 

I could take a political bent on this because I believe it comes from the top, but I guess the people choose the leadership to reflect their ideals. 

Well I just wanted to get other points of view on this story

[Jim]

I think they avoid it more because of the "nerdiness" of the term, in the sense that it's going to be something that thickly-bespectacled, pimple-faced, socially-inept and unattractive people will obsess over for years to come.

Studios and publishers are reluctant to be seen as pandering to that crowd, as ridiculous as the notion is.

I think these publishers and studio people are hopelessly out-of-touch. I was at a Borders Express last night looking for a specific comic book, and I saw a young man who was clearly the very picture of teenage hipness poring intently over a manga book.

I've been to conventions where I've seen queues of typical-looking young people lined up to get autographs from their favorite artists.

But you can't convince a 60-year-old publisher that anyone who reads or watches science fiction is anything other than a carbon copy of George McFly in Back to the Future.

But, eh, so what. We know what it is.

[SFEley]

I just found this news item on my home page today and thought I would share it with the community to see what their take of the article is:

http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/news/2007/04/scifighetto_0412

That's a deeply stupid story, clearly written (or edited) by someone with no grounded knowledge of science fiction themselves.  It pretends that this is some sort of active trend (it isn't, a lot of mainstream media's been like this for decades); it totally confuses the real motives behind Heinlein's use of the term "speculative fiction;" and it takes no notice that many serious people in the field find the use of the abbreviation "sci-fi" instead of SF insulting.

The world's been like this for a very long time.  Science fiction still does fine.  A lot of the people who distance themselves from the labels (Atwood, Goodkind, etc.) annoy the crap out of me, but it's not so much what terms they choose as whether they place themselves 'above' other people writing the exact same stuff they are.  Folks who choose to relabel what they do for pure marketing reasons (e.g. Moore, Vonnegut) but who don't have insulting things to say about other science fiction don't bother me at all.

[FNH]

You got me...

the real motives behind Heinlein's use of the term "speculative fiction;"

Motives?  What are they?  I've wondered for a long time about where that phrase came from.

people in the field find the use of the abbreviation "sci-fi" instead of SF insulting.

Why is that insulting?

[wakela]

people in the field find the use of the abbreviation "sci-fi" instead of SF insulting.

Why is that insulting?

Kind of like the article says, same reason San Fransiscans find "'frisco" insulting.  No particular reason.  I'm not sure what happened to referring to someone as "oriental" either.

An SF writer told me that Sci-Fi refers to robots, ray-guns, and rocket ships.  It's the cheeseball science fiction that makes no attempt at realism.  SF, on the other hand, is supposed to me more thought out and somewhat believable. 

[FNH]

people in the field find the use of the abbreviation "sci-fi" instead of SF insulting.

Why is that insulting?

Kind of like the article says, same reason San Fransiscans find "'frisco" insulting.  No particular reason.  I'm not sure what happened to referring to someone as "oriental" either.

An SF writer told me that Sci-Fi refers to robots, ray-guns, and rocket ships.  It's the cheeseball science fiction that makes no attempt at realism.  SF, on the other hand, is supposed to me more thought out and somewhat believable. 

Thanks for the clarification.  All sounds a bit silly.

[Heradel]

Folks who choose to relabel what they do for pure marketing reasons (e.g. Moore, Vonnegut) but who don't have insulting things to say about other science fiction don't bother me at all.

Though Vonnegut's obituaries pretty uniformly had the Science Fiction Writer bit, so I don't know how well the relabeling can work.

[Simon Painter]

I've noticed, though, that there seems to be progressively less Science Fiction content in the Hugo awards each year.  I do wonder if they're trying to present less of a 'geeky' image to the public by awarding fiction that's more mainstream.

[Rachel Swirsky]

A lot of the people who distance themselves from the labels (Atwood, Goodkind, etc.) annoy the crap out of me

On the one hand? Annoying.

On the other? I think I would have done a lot better in my recent interview with an agent if I'd kept my mouth shut and pretended I'd never been published. ("I was recently published in a British protest anthology with Charles Stross." "Who's Charles Stross?" "Nevermind.")

[Rachel Swirsky]

And btw, the distancing thing? Works. The agent was not the first gatekeeper to the lit world who's has asked me who I admire, and when I say, "Atwood," said, "Ah, but she's not really science fiction."

[SFEley]

On the other? I think I would have done a lot better in my recent interview with an agent if I'd kept my mouth shut and pretended I'd never been published. ("I was recently published in a British protest anthology with Charles Stross." "Who's Charles Stross?" "Nevermind.")

This was an interview toward possible representation?  Why in the Nine Hells would you want an agent whom you felt you had to keep your mouth shut around or hide things from?  To me, on this very limited information, it sounds like the interview went very well -- you learned that this agent might not be the one for your work.

(And yeah, I know that's a bitter pill when any agent at all seems better than none.  But it really isn't true.)

[Rachel Swirsky]

Yeah, that was my rationale behind presenting myself as a sci fi writer.

What I really want is someone who knows that I identify with genre, but that I may prefer/be better marketed as lit. I want someone who shares my views on the permeability of boundaries, and who is excited by liminal work.

It's going to be a bitch to find.

More or less, since I spend my days with one foot in some community, sometimes I'm like "Yay! We've made two steps forward toward juding work on literary merit not superficial marketing identification!" and sometimes I'm like "ARGH! Why must we take one step back?"

I don't *need* an agent yet (no novel), but it'd be nice to get one while they're coming to me (agents peruse iowa like talent scouts peruse high school football teams), so it'd be one less thing to worry about when I leave.

</grumble>