Should SF/F authors read in their genre?

And then there’s that opening line: “I don’t see why it should be respected.” Excuse me? You’re writing in a genre you don’t feel should be respected? So, by default, we should just look at you as another of those hack writers that you so despise, because, hey, fantasy doesn’t deserve any respect? I don’t really care if you read within the genre. That’s pretty much pointless to me. John Varley told me in an interview he reads mostly mysteries, but he writes science fiction. And he’s good at science fiction. One doesn’t have to be superbly versed in genre to write in it. I simply have problems with this presumption that just because the genre has quite a few writers who basically write derivative garbage that it should be treated with no respect whatsoever, with exception to a pair of writers who only until recently began pushing out of the land of “crap literature” into the literary academia (the supposed “good literature”). If that’s so, then all literature, by extension, deserves no respect. Literary fiction isn’t graced with a tremendous amount of originality, nor has it been founded upon only great books. There are plenty of crappy, completely useless and utterly pointless novels that have been under the label of “literary fiction” (and I have read quite a few of these crappy lit fic novels). The same can be said about every single genre that has been created and will be created. There are great and crappy science fiction novels, horror novels, romance novels, mystery novels, detective novels, etc. There’s no such thing as a genre of perfection, one in which all the novels are great. Yet we give respect to certain genres while shunning others (“we” being the literate and educated, primarily the academia), despite their imperfections and unoriginality.

Of course fantasy has an abundance of what one might call “lesser literature”. Yet this is what people want. They enjoy it. It’s entertaining and that’s it’s purpose. Shouldn’t we respect it for that? Just because you don’t like a specific set of writers, or a specific class of fantasy, doesn’t mean we should shun it to the bottom of a well, forsaking it to be consumed by people who, I suppose, have to be mindless nitwits simply because they like such things. Sometimes entertainment is all you need. That doesn’t make those that read it particularly idiotic or mindless. We should be thankful that they’re reading at all, and even more thankful that it’s because of the people reading “such stale, hackneyed and vapid pulp”, as Bilsborough says, that we even have an industry revolving around the act of writing. Entertainment value, no matter how desperately you want to argue against this, is keeping literature alive. So I say celebrate vapid pulp, because without it there wouldn’t be a fantasy genre, or if there was one, it would be so small and under-appreciated that nobody would really care if Bilsborough released a new novel.

Lastly, of course, is the comment about Americans, and I put this last for a reason. It doesn’t bother me all that much. Yes, I think it’s rather offensive that because I was born in America I’m suddenly devoid of taste, and that my choice of reading is cause for ridicule. What does being American have to do with it? That’s my question. This is a lot of that “Brits are better” attitude that I find to be rather silly. I think it’s an inborn pride that has never let up, and, of course, Americans have a similar attitude (or some of us anyway). Some of the discussions about the American comment have been somewhat ridiculous, in my opinion. While I would agree that calling Americans phony and essentially useless is offensive, I don’t think it will affect Bilsborough’s readership much. Remember, Pat and the other blogs discussing this comprise of a very small number of people (big by blogging standards, though). How many people who see Bilsborough’s book in stores are going to know that this guy said derogatory things about Americans? And how many that know are going to actually care? Probably not that many. I’m not going to hold Bilsborough’s American comment against him as much as his other statements, and even those other statements might not stop me from reading his work (if his work sucks, it will).

Now, to the question at hand, which has, I think, been answered: Should SF/F authors read in their genre?

I personally don’t think it matters. It might help make one a better genre writer, but in the end I think it’s irrelevant and a somewhat pointless requirement to place on authors. If the book is good, why does it matter at all if the writer reads within his/her genre? Presumably, you wouldn’t be able to tell anyway. You’d just call it a good book and that would be that.

What do you all think?

P.S.: Yes, I am well aware of the fact that Bilsborough specifically said “sword & sorcery”, but like science fiction, fantasy subgenres blend, so making such a statement is basically reflecting on all fantasy. The only way this wouldn’t be true is if, unbeknownst to me, publishing companies were stamping the specific subgenre on fantasy books. Since I’ve never seen this I’m going to assume that it doesn’t exist, and if it does, it’s not common.