How is that not interesting, anyway?

Damned if I know. Maybe being able to actually write has something to do with it, rather than the choice of genre in which said writing occurs?

Sorry, Deb, don't mean to affect your molars.

But I'm really curious about which fantasy and/or scifi writer you think isn't getting that snob value or, at least, being taken seriously. Tolkein? Heinlein? Asimov?

I get the feeling Heinlein and Asimov have both suffered huge drops in their literary cred. Tolkien less so, since Auden pimped for him and the movies have renewed interest.

I'm not really advocating for science fiction or fantasy to get a boost here, so I don't have a list of under-respected authors in mind. I do think writers like Ursula K. Leguin and Samuel Delaney do get a bit more literary respect. Maybe Wm. Gibson.

But that wasn't so much my point. I'm not necessarily buying the article's contention, but just musing about the idea that mysteries have gotten a critical free ride. Not the Josephine Teys of the world, but the Sue Graftons who write very formulaic stuff.

I've spent thirty-plus years listening to people drop their voices to awestruck hush levels when discussing scifi and fantasy.

Yes, but they're fans. Seriously. In the mainstream reviewing, Ursula Le Guin consistently gets respect. She is also consistently cited as the only respect-worthy SF writer. By contrast, Chandler, Sayers, and James always get props.

What free ride? A free ride by who? If one genre (and as you may have noticed, I don't write straight genre and rarely read it) is outselling another, there are all sorts of reasons that can be the case: better writing, sheer weight of numbers - a problem which solves itself in the end - or something in the concept of the genre or particular authors therein that fills a need in the public's reality.

And Sturgeon's Law (ahem) applies to every field. For every Sue Grafton there's a Robert Aspirin, writing fluff in another genre.

Jeez.

Wait, are you talking about reviews, as opposed to sales?

Oh. OK. Different deal entirely.

I wouldn't know. Believe it or not, I don't read reviews 99.99% of the time; only the ones I need (of my own stuff and friends). And I wouldn't read fantasy or scifi reviews in any event, because neither genre produces much that I choose to read, and the litcrit wouldn't mean anything to me.

Reviews, I'll take your word for it. Carry on.

She is also consistently cited as the only respect-worthy SF writer.

Well, Philip K. Dick too. And more obscure/literary people like Octavia Butler. Margaret Atwood gets tons of respect, even though she claims she's not writing SF (but she is!).

People like Karen Joy Fowler appear to making the transition to mainstream cred without stopping writing genre-ish stuff. Also Molly Gloss, Jonathan Lethem, Michael Chabon (though Chabon is writing more genre as time goes on, and Lethem less) ...

I don't think anyone ever claimed Asimov was a great prose stylist, nor Heinlein.

Hecubus, as for that Salon article, I recall it being debated at length when it was first posted, but that might have been on LJ rather than here. I'm sure, whichever it was, Micole participated in it. *g*

Deb, I'm really not talking about actual value of the genres or writers but perceived value. How reputations rise and fall - separate from the actual merits of the work.

The writer in the article went on to cite a lot of mystery writers after Ross Macdonald that had gotten big buildups, but that he found wanting. Again, I'm not supporting or refuting his case, just wondering out loud if anybody else saw a broad general trend among the standard critical quarters with a bias toward mysteries being treated as literary, and science fiction and fantasy as purely locked in the genre ghetto.

I don't think it's an either/or question.

See, I got from Hec's statement that he was talking about readers, not reviewers: the man/woman on the Clapham Omnibus, toting a book around that will make him/her appear intellectual.

Reviewers, huh. As I said, completely unqualified to debate on that one (me, unqualified, that is).

I'm sure, whichever it was, Micole participated in it.

I'm sure.

Here's the actual article. You need the Salon day pass.

People like Karen Joy Fowler appear to making the transition to mainstream cred without stopping writing genre-ish stuff. Also Molly Gloss, Jonathan Lethem, Michael Chabon (though Chabon is writing more genre as time goes on, and Lethem less) ...

None of whom is now marketed as SF. (Chabon never was; he had a Pulitzer in-hand when he started his genre book.)

It's as if P.D. James's books had stopped having "A Mystery" on the cover. (I just checked; The Murder Room both has a genre title and says An Adam Dalgliesh Mystery on the cover.)