7 Comments »

1. 

   Interestingly, I find most of these already shelved under science fiction and/or fantasy already at Borders. Some are in young adult SF; some are also shelved elsewhere (e.g., Octavia Butler in African American fiction). Are there particular stores which are worse offenders than others?

   Comment by Jill McElderry-Maxwell — October 19, 2009 @ 4:58 pm

2. 

   Iain Banks?

   I grasp your basic concept, I think I even agree with it. I’m not sure I want to risk getting into a fight with the staff at my local Waterstones but I might be prepared to stand outside with a few A6 flyers covering the general idea on the front and The List on the back. Or stand inside and hand a flyer to anyone buying Atwood saying “have you also considered…?”

   Attwoods arguments are annoying. But I can kind of see her point. If you want to be on the coffee tables of ladies wot lunch you do NOT want them having to tell each other to find you next to the fairies and the robots. Sadly, this means LwL are also going to miss out on a HUGE range of fabtastic literature encompassing thought provoking speculation. Indeed I am trying to educate one such “I don’t like SF” lady but it’s done by handing over carefully selected works not leaving them to wonder unguided down the rows of Star Trek novels and Pterry.

   But Banks doesn’t argue. Banks writes hard SF – and the books go on the SF shelf. And he also writes utterly-definitly-not SF, drops the middle initial, and the bookshops correctly file them under general contemporary fiction. I’m not sure it does anyone any favours to mix them. If someone reads The Crow Road and wants to try more Banks, then they’ll find Consider Phlebas mentioned on the “Also By” page. And Banks’ own website makes it very clear he’s the same guy and lists all past and future projects of both “subguys”, including one which looks like it ought to be racked in both places!

   But I shall be fascinated to see how the project turns out.

   Comment by Chris Comley — October 29, 2009 @ 4:24 am

3. 

   @Chris Comley The parenthetical after “Iain M. Banks” was meant to clarify that only the initial-less books belong in SF. Banks is a great example for everyone to see. He writes great SF and great non-SF and that’s fine. Sure, he does the initial thing, but that just makes them easy to tell apart. Having Atwood’s SF books in the SF section does not make them lesser books, nor does it in any way detract from the value of her other books. She just doesn’t understand this. Perhaps if more authors followed Banks’ example the LwL wouldn’t be afraid of the SF section.

   I like your idea of a flyer. Perhaps we need one for people who would like to help out that way. Any suggestions you have on wording or content of that would be great. Otherwise, I’ll just fumble my way through it.

   Comment by jrrl — October 29, 2009 @ 12:21 pm

4. 

   Once, in the early ’60s, I added a hand-lettered card to the drawer in the science-fiction section of the catalogue in my neighborhood library in Chicago, for Walter M. Miller, Jr.’s A Canticle for Leibowitz. I was pleased to note that it was still there a couple of years later.

   Question: How much discretion do librarians have in this matter? Is it primarily a decision of the publisher? Most books have printed inside them Library of Congress cataloging-in-publication data, indicating the places they should be shelved/ catalogued.

   Comment by Susan Walsh — October 29, 2009 @ 7:33 pm

5. 

   CS Lewis’ SPACE TRILOGY (Perelandra, Out of the Silent Planet, That Hideous Strength)

   Comment by Skip Mendler — November 2, 2009 @ 10:38 am

6. 

   Madeleine L’Engle, A WRINKLE IN TIME

   Comment by Skip Mendler — November 2, 2009 @ 10:39 am

7. 

   I really found the discussion enlightening. Can that be restored? I promise not to move anything… :^)

   Comment by Terry Veazey — November 14, 2009 @ 11:32 pm

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