Does Science Fiction have an equivalent to Fantasy's LotR as a trend setter?

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Hear, hear.

Another lover of short stories here. When I haunt used book stores looking for cheap paperbacks, I am always drawn to the large number of SF anthologies published in the 1960's and 1970's. (I'll admit that Roger Elwood nearly killed the form by publishing such a gigantic number that the quality deteriorated, but that's another story.)

I also miss the SF novels that were less than 200 pages. (I can recall Doubleday hardcovers, obtained from the local library with the rocket-ship-flying-through-an-atom sticker on the spine that meant "science fiction." which were always 181 pages.) I realize that the disappearance of these is a result of economic factors in the publishing world, but I miss them.

 

[JaimeRetief]

How do you determine if a book is read by dedicated readers or casual readers? And do you mean dedicated to the genre, or a particularly dedicated sub-group within a genre?

My sense is that breakout novels are breakouts because they reach outside the hardcore readers in a genre. So looking at some fantasy debuts of the last 15 years, it's seems doorstoppers aren't at all a barrier to breaking out into broad popularity: Gardens of the Moon - 666 pages; The Name of the Wind - 662 pages; the Blade Itself - 517 pages. And fantasy is maybe the most healthy genre in fiction at the moment, so hard to see how its best-selling books are only read by a small group of dedicated readers. Even in mystery, the biggest selling novels these days are often big books: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - 465 pages; A Wanted Man (Lee Child) - 626 pages. Dan Brown's latest is 461 pages. Stephen King's 11/22/63 clocks in at 849 pages! Huge bestsellers. And books don't get to be bestsellers unless they find a mass audience of casual readers.

First of all, King produces horror, that is a niche with a fanbase.
Second, King and Child are established writers, with their own fanbases and with decent name recognition.
And when you average out the page count of the books you mentioned Fantasy still manages a higher average page count.

And what do you think these casual readers who hate longer books do? Stop reading? Do sudokus instead?

You do know that reading for pleasure is suffering a decline, right?

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I will return to reading the anthology I was reading.

I like a good Anthology now and again.

 

[dask]

Re: A Word Concerning the Insufficiency of Short Stories

Phooey.

You may return now to your normally scheduled thread. I will return to reading the anthology I was reading.

Thank you.


Randy M.

Nothing wrong with a good novel no matter how long it is but it's tough to beat a good short story, or a bunch of them. When it's my time to go into assisted living my box of personal belongings will be 96% anthologies and old sf mags.

 

[Nerds_feather]

Nor is it the first time it's been discussed at such length on the Chrons. Me, I'm sorry, but I like long books and series. I like the much greater immersion they give, I love the opportunity for much great character development. I find many of the 'golden age' short books lack the depth and texture that the longer books give. So, again I'm sorry, but I don't buy long books because that's what the publisher are somehow (I still don't quite understand just how) forcing on me I buy them because I enjoy them. Simple as that. And I was brought up on the short books of the '60s and '70s but I just loved it when, for example, Heinlein started writing longer books like I Will Fear No Evil and Time Enough For Love.

Oh... and I don't really like short stories; you're just getting to know the world and the characters and they're over. I'm always left feeling frustrated and wanting more. So much so that I tend to actively avoid them.

I like short and long novels--whatever best fits the story. Thomas M. Disch's The Genocides is perfectly suited to its 162 page length, and George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones to its 702.

On the other hand, I thought A Dance with Dragons was a bloated mess at 1,033 pages, but that it would have been quite good at, say, 600.

So I certainly don't like length for length's sake, and I do wish the fantasy market in particular were more tolerant of shorter novels and standalones. But I don't have anything against longer novels or series--if that's what best fits the story being told, then that's what I want.

 

[psikeyhackr]

The impact of cryionics on economics and society was nothing new for me, Simak did something very similar in Why Call Them Back From Heaven , however Simak's book was much better than Cryoburn.

I have not read that story so I cannot compare them myself. But the reviews say dead people were put into cold storage with the presumption that future technology could reanimate them. I presume no one was revived in that story. Three characters were revived in Bujold's and presumably thousands of others were. Part of the problem in the story was a technological flaw that would "kill" people while they were frozen.

Simak's story seems to be based on "Faith" in technology and resulting in a different point from Bujold's.

psik

 

[Ray McCarthy]

dead people were put into cold storage with the presumption that future technology could reanimate them

The flaw is that they are dead.
If such a thing is possible you need to freeze the person while they are alive. Though you have to quickly replace the blood and other fluids with a fluid that doesn't freeze and avoid cell rupture. Then if there is a cure for their cancer or whatever, there is something to revive.

 

[J Riff]

Still, it's great to settle into a long long book, like LOTR, where after the first few chapters you think: Oo, this is going to be good, and you look forward to a long long journey into staying up all night and losing your job because it's just so good.

 

[JaimeRetief]

I have not read that story so I cannot compare them myself. But the reviews say dead people were put into cold storage with the presumption that future technology could reanimate them. I presume no one was revived in that story. Three characters were revived in Bujold's and presumably thousands of others were. Part of the problem in the story was a technological flaw that would "kill" people while they were frozen.

Simak's story seems to be based on "Faith" in technology and resulting in a different point from Bujold's.

psik

Technicalities, at the core in both you have the idea that you can postpone prosperity in the "current" life for some massive payoff in the future, in Bujold's this is done via proxy votes and financial investment, Simak gets the same effect via a much larger economic contribution to the pyramid scheme.
And I do think that a number of the post-freezing repairs in Simak's story were made possible, the corporation was holding off the resurrections because it wanted to develop actual rejuvenation and immortality, and to solve the various other problems that would arise from immortality and the return to life of so many corpsicles.

 

[JaimeRetief]

The flaw is that they are dead.
If such a thing is possible you need to freeze the person while they are alive. Though you have to quickly replace the blood and other fluids with a fluid that doesn't freeze and avoid cell rupture. Then if there is a cure for their cancer or whatever, there is something to revive.

Bujold's cryogenic suspension happens after a patient is either dead or has sufferend injuries so extensive as to make death certain under current conditions.
Furthermore post-mortem cryogenic suspension in the hope of the discovery of a future "fix" that will bring the patient back is a concept that is quite widly used.
There are even real life companies that will frieieze your corpse, or your brain, and keep it in cold storage in the hope that one day somebody will be able to fix you, for a small fee of course.
Since this is an interesting discussion I decided to make another thread about immortality and reincarnation in SF, right here