[PJ-Comix]

I cannot think of a more relevant genre than that of SF.

I can but I'm not saying that SF is bad. I've read quite a bit of it including most of the Vonnegut books. However, like it or not, SF is treated as a different genre than novels. Otherwise your libraries and bookstores would have SF mixed up with literary novels. Even you wouldn't want that. Better for SF to be in a separate section. I know I appreciate that distinction when I am hunting for an SF book. And quit treating books like they are people. You are acting as if some horrible act of discrimination is taking place. I support segregation....of books. It just makes things easier.

[JenB]

Actually... I have never been in a library where the SFs are shelved seperately. Sure, the paperback racks are seperated into "SF/Fantasy" - they call it all sci-fi, the danes - westerns, romances, mysteries... but to say that all the other genres are literature and SF is not is most unfair. It's not the segregation of the books I object to; it is the ghettoization of the SF fandom, which is more prevalent than you might think. It sounds dramatic, but how would you like to have to defend your choice of reading to anyone who happens by? People who read Forest Fire in the Timnberland of My Heart get fewer stares than people with spaceships on the cover.

And yes, I appreciate having an SF section in bookstores, but they also take the "literature" out of everything else and hide it so those of us who want our space fic don't have to paw through Faulkner and Joyce. Ever notice how the SF section is prominent, but the so-called great works are buried with the cookbooks?

[HairOfTheDog]

You're the one that brought up class... And discounted our favorite as a simple rehashed recycled fairy tale... You aren't just filing them, you are ranking their importance, or lack of it. That is what we don't agree with.

Enough said by me... We both know each other's favorite books, and that is why we came here is it not?

[Illbay]

Discrimination?

I wonder, tho'. I notice that the Modern American Classics Library list of "the 100 Best Books of the Twentieth Century" included several mysteries--such as The Maltese Falcon--but NO SF.

Do you agree that Mystery novels are ALSO kept in a separate section in the library?

I think the library does this for the convenience of its patrons, but they DON'T compartmentalize these novels as "outside the pale."

I think SF ought to be included. In fact, the lines between SF and other genres have become so blurred anyway...is Frankenstein "real" literature, or is it not SF? How about Brave New World, or 1984?

The best SF writers I know of do NOT restrict themselves to reading SF. In fact, they tend to be more well-read--certainly wider-read--than just about anyone else.

I think we need to cease with the artificial labels. A novel is a novel, period.

[Sabertooth]

However, like it or not, SF is treated as a different genre than novels.

Well, we certainly must conform to whatever the literary/library sages have deemed appropriate for us.