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.)

My take on that Salon article was that the guy clearly wasn't reading the good stuff. You can't paint an entire genre with a single brush, because as Deb says, Sturgeon's Law applies everywhere.

It was stupid, but it got people clicking over to Salon to read it, which seems to be their pattern for a lot of the editorial posts nowadays. They make ridiculous sweeping generalizations which get linked to all over the place, thus driving up their hit counts. ::shrugs::

None of whom is now marketed as SF.

True enough.

ETA: Even Dick? How can you not market Dick as SF? ::boggled::

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.

But that's a different question. The quotes you gave were all "All mysteries are bullshit, and here's why". Which raises all my hackles.

But, yes, write a serious literary book published by TOR's SF side, and monkeys will fly out of Clive James's ass before you get a serious review in the Times. By contrast, mysteries get treated seriously all the time. Similarly, there are big-name serious movies made from big-name mysteries all the time, with Mystic River the most recent. Name me one serious movie (as in Oscar contender) that's based on an SF novel.

I was referring to the list I quoted, Suela. Dick's dead, anyway, so the marketing of his latest novels is not in question.

I'm with 'suela. I bloody well adore P K Dick and how on earth would you market him, if not as scifi? Definitely boggling.

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.)

Indeed it does, and it's on my TBR list because I love James and love Adam Dalgleish and have done since the late 1960s.

How do reviewers stand on Ruth rendell? Because she could rewrite the London phone directory and hook me by page five, and I expect that would be the case no matter what genre she chose. But again, not reading reviews, I don't know how she's perceived.

Name me one serious movie (as in Oscar contender) that's based on an SF novel.

Does fantasy count? because I can think of three....

By contrast, mysteries get treated seriously all the time.

Series books less so, I think, and probably for good reason. I mean, Lehane is always a great writer, but I bet a Gennaro/Kenzie book would never become an Oscar movie. Part of it has got to be the formula of it all -- the same characters, doing more or less the same thing in book after book? It's hard to make the case to someone who hasn't read them.