Why Are so Many of the Great Writers in Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Falling into Neglect ?

[Dave]

I don't believe this thread has yet run it's course.

Taste is personal and subjective. It was just evidence to show an indication of how well read the various authors were compared to each other. Someone is claiming that one author is more 'influential'. Actually having read the author is the first step in trying to make sense of that claim, as I'd suggest as a hypothesis, the more well-read an author is, the more influential - whether for good or ill - they will be.

Having once worked in a public library in my youth I doubt this hypothesis. The most popular books for women were Mills & Boon romances and for men it was probably pulp Westerns paperbacks. That was almost 40 years ago. No one would try to claim that in the last 40 years the biggest influence on popular culture has been Mills & Boon romances and Westerns.

Of course, one must look at the age of the reader being influenced. Those books were primarily being taken out by people of a certain age. Younger readers no longer read that material. Younger minds are generally more open to new ideas. If you apply your hypothesis only to those people that marketeers call "early adopters" then it will probably be true.

However, I would hypothesise that what they are reading still has much more to do with "fashion" than with "quality." The initial question of "why some authors are 'fashionable' while others have fallen out of favour" is still not adequately answered by this discussion. Maybe it is too complex to ascribe to a single thing. People have said quality, the publishing industry, Hollywood and I'm sure all those are involved. Maybe the question is like asking why the length of ladies skirts go up and down each year?

 

[Venusian Broon]

I don't believe this thread has yet run it's course.

Having once worked in a public library in my youth I doubt this hypothesis. The most popular books for women were Mills & Boon romances and for men it was probably pulp Westerns paperbacks. That was almost 40 years ago. No one would try to claim that in the last 40 years the biggest influence on popular culture has been Mills & Boon romances and Westerns.

Of course, one must look at the age of the reader being influenced. Those books were primarily being taken out by people of a certain age. Younger readers no longer read that material. Younger minds are generally more open to new ideas. If you apply your hypothesis only to those people that marketeers call "early adopters" then it will probably be true.

However, I would hypothesise that what they are reading still has much more to do with "fashion" than with "quality." The initial question of "why some authors are 'fashionable' while others have fallen out of favour" is still not adequately answered by this discussion. Maybe it is too complex to ascribe to a single thing. People have said quality, the publishing industry, Hollywood and I'm sure all those are involved. Maybe the question is like asking why the length of ladies skirts go up and down each year?

Disagree very much on at least on count, romance has had a huge impact. Just because you, perhaps, don't read it or take into account all the various other forms of content it has morphed into. Plus, I believe, it is still going very strong.

I could also possibly make a case for Westerns. Yes, the western novels and films of 50 years ago are no longer made, but there's plenty of western content being made now and you can see it clearly in the roots of a lot of content, that on the face of it has nothing to do with 1870's America, but are being made now. And there's little things like Red Dead Redemption, to give one example.

Yes being influential has nothing to do with quality. So being forced to read Shakespeare at school for me has been influential, so despite a general bad experience (should have been experienced with trained actors that could actually speak the words, not a bunch of 13 year olds who were struggling through it like trying to walk through a tar pit), I'd be foolish to claim that it hasn't has some impact on my reading/viewing etc...

But trying to equate fashionable with influential? Nah, that's changing what I was talking about, that's another question altogether.

 

[Dave]

Well, yes, you could make a case for "blue-collar workers" replacing 1870's cowboys, and books such as Jack Reacher, but Mills and Boons "romance" is an entirely different entity to Jane Austen, or even to H. E. Bates. Mills and Boon is the 'swooning nurse swept away by doctor' - actually, I'll have to accept that you are right - isn't one of the highest selling books 50 Shades of Grey?

Still, it proves the point that "quality" is not the main determinant of lending or sales of books. That a book can have a wider influence not dependent upon its sales, well I never disagreed with that, although some others were. The original question was not what has been discussed in the last few pages on influence, but why are "great" writers falling into "neglect." That is surely a question of fashion rather than of influence. Someone said that cycles are involved. That may be, but what causes those cycles if not for a changing fashion in taste?

 

[Venusian Broon]

Still, it proves the point that "quality" is not the main determinant of lending or sales of books. That a book can have a wider influence not dependent upon its sales, well I never disagreed with that, although some others were. The original question was not what has been discussed in the last few pages on influence, but why are "great" writers falling into "neglect." That is surely a question of fashion rather than of influence. Someone said that cycles are involved. That may be, but what causes those cycles if not for a changing fashion in taste?

Yes, I wouldn't argue otherwise - I have plenty of guilty pleasures (and others that I'm pretty much brazen about ) - of stuff that I really enjoy, but clearly isn't 'quality'.

I'm not sure I buy the cycles thing. Keeping it with books, I can't think of any author that was big 'way back then', dropped off into obscurity, was then rediscovered and became big again. Sure some authors became much bigger after their death, that happens a lot, but I think there gets to a moment of 'peak interest' then the normal rules of half-life come into play. So not cycles, just a big hill. Can you think of any example that does?

 

[Dave]

Can you think of any example that does?

I don't have access to book sales figures that could prove that one way or another, but I'd never heard of HP Lovecraft until I joined this forum. Now it seems like everyone loves him, but maybe that is just the circles I now frequent. Bram Stoker? - the whole 'Goth' subculture that began in the 1980's revived him. I've just recently been to Whitby, North Yorkshire, and Bram Stoker is huge there. Obviously, there were many Hollywood Dracula movies loosely based upon his work, but did people actually read the book? Do they even now? I don't know that. Speaking of Hollywood - PK Dick? I'm sure that I was the only person taking out his books from the library in the 1980's. Some hadn't been lent out for years and years. Now everyone loves him as if he was always popular but he hardly made any money.

Maybe you are right and those have always been popular, they certainly didn't fall into complete obscurity, just a little less popular.

@BAYLOR Can you give examples of any of the "great writers" that you were thinking of.

Are they falling into neglect?

@BAYLOR You never answered this question.

 

[Venusian Broon]

I don't have access to book sales figures that could prove that one way or another, but I'd never heard of HP Lovecraft until I joined this forum. Now it seems like everyone loves him, but maybe that is just the circles I now frequent. Bram Stoker? - the whole 'Goth' subculture that began in the 1980's revived him. I've just recently been to Whitby, North Yorkshire, and Bram Stoker is huge there. Obviously, there were many Hollywood Dracula movies loosely based upon his work, but did people actually read the book? Do they even now? I don't know that. Speaking of Hollywood - PK Dick? I'm sure that I was the only person taking out his books from the library in the 1980's. Some hadn't been lent out for years and years. Now everyone loves him as if he was always popular but he hardly made any money.

Maybe you are right and those have always been popular, they certainly didn't fall into complete obscurity, just a little less popular.

I think HP Lovecraft wasn't massive at the time he was publishing - he was pretty poor on his sales! - but it's his mythos that has still grown since then and really brought him up with regards to others reading him. I'd argue we probably haven't seen the zenith of his popularity. So I'd say it's always been growing from a small base.

Stoker....tough one. I'd argue that the popularity of the book has probably remained constant-ish, but it created a monster giggle and that has really taken off, first with the stage, then with the movies. So his idea endures, but the work... I personally didn't like the book, I found it pretty tedious and it really does not age well. I think you might be right, he always be remembered for creating it, but perhaps his actual work will not be read by 'fans' of Dracula!

And PKD. Again like HP Lovecraft he came from a small base of devoted fans in the SF world and it's been rising all the time since then. He definitely was not massive as he was churning out book after book in the 50s and 60s just to keep his head above water. Also like Lovecraft I think he will continue to rise - possibly he'll have a longer 'half-life' given how prescient he was about a lot of the modern world.

 

[BAYLOR]

I don't have access to book sales figures that could prove that one way or another, but I'd never heard of HP Lovecraft until I joined this forum. Now it seems like everyone loves him, but maybe that is just the circles I now frequent. Bram Stoker? - the whole 'Goth' subculture that began in the 1980's revived him. I've just recently been to Whitby, North Yorkshire, and Bram Stoker is huge there. Obviously, there were many Hollywood Dracula movies loosely based upon his work, but did people actually read the book? Do they even now? I don't know that. Speaking of Hollywood - PK Dick? I'm sure that I was the only person taking out his books from the library in the 1980's. Some hadn't been lent out for years and years. Now everyone loves him as if he was always popular but he hardly made any money.

Maybe you are right and those have always been popular, they certainly didn't fall into complete obscurity, just a little less popular.

@BAYLOR Can you give examples of any of the "great writers" that you were thinking of.


@BAYLOR You never answered this question.

James Branch Cabell

 

[Extollager]

Cabell is in print in paper and on Kindle here in the US. There's still some unclarity about what "neglected" means; at any rate Cabell is available. If he's not much read, well, perhaps he's not great. I didn't think the one Cabell novel I read was great... He doesn't have a category here at Chrons the way Tolkien and Lovecraft & so on do; does that shoe "neglect" or does it indicate that Chrons people who have read him don't think he is great? So, Baylor, would you make the case for Cabell being great? Hint: to be convincing, you will need to do more than argue that he influenced Jack Vance and Clark Ashton Smith or whomever. Just a suggestion!

My impression is that Cabell is seriously dated. But if J. D. Worthington were still on board here at Chrons, he'd be willing to take up the challenge, I think.

 

[BAYLOR]

Cabell is in print in paper and on Kindle here in the US. There's still some unclarity about what "neglected" means; at any rate Cabell is available. If he's not much read, well, perhaps he's not great. I didn't think the one Cabell novel I read was great... He doesn't have a category here at Chrons the way Tolkien and Lovecraft & so on do; does that shoe "neglect" or does it indicate that Chrons people who have read him don't think he is great? So, Baylor, would you make the case for Cabell being great? Hint: to be convincing, you will need to do more than argue that he influenced Jack Vance and Clark Ashton Smith or whomever. Just a suggestion!

My impression is that Cabell is seriously dated. But if J. D. Worthington were still on board here at Chrons, he'd be willing to take up the challenge, I think.

I miss J. D . Worthington and would like to see him come back to this board. Your right , he would take up the challenge and could definitely argue in favor of Cabell far better then I ever could.

 

[Extollager]

OK. Well, for the sake of discussion, we could even suppose that Cabell was "great." But your questions was about "so many." That does beg the question: are "many" great sff authors neglected? Would you still say that?

 

[BAYLOR]

OK. Well, for the sake of discussion, we could even suppose that Cabell was "great." But your questions was about "so many." That does beg the question: are "many" great sff authors neglected? Would you still say that?

I consider Cabell to be great and to be a significant figure in the genre of fantasy literature but this is just my layman's opinion which in final analysis carries no with at all. I like his story telling, his wit and humor . I wish more modern readers people could appreciate him as writer.

In retrospect , I didn't really think this one though. In the age of kindle no one is really lost or neglected.

 

[Christopher Lee]

I find it difficult to prescribe to phrases like “classic” or “guilty pleasure”. What the hell is the difference? People like certain books and some people don’t. I don’t see what the point of the original question even is. Who’s “neglected”? Is someone upset that their favorite author isn’t considered in the same light that he was considered in a hundred years ago?

Maybe I’m of too simple a mind to process this stuff and add anything to the discussion, but it all seems like fluff to me. Writers, subjectively good or bad, come and go with the times. I don’t see the point in dissecting why.

 

[Extollager]

Well, Baylor, in fairness I would have to concede that just because someone looks to make a buck by making some out-of-copyright author available on Kindle, that doesn't mean the author isn't "neglected." So you could say that there are such-and-such authors who, it seems, are not being read and discussed (even though their works are available, or because their works aren't). Then the issue would be: who are those authors? And then one could discuss whay a given author was neglected. And after that was done, if it turned out that there were quite a few authors thus neglected, I guess we could ask if there's something more going on than just the specific factors accounting for the neglect of specific authors -- that is, if there's something they have in common (like, to use an imaginary example, suppose we discovered that they all had reputations as being insensitive about race).

I guess "neglect" should mean something like this: not being read by people who, you'd think, should be reading them, even though the works are known to be available.

Let's suppose that William Hope Hodgson seemed to be a candidate for being a neglected author. (I don't think he is, not really, though somebody might make a case that he is.) Here's an author who has some degree of recognition -- I'll bet most people reading this paragraph could name at least one story by him. Here too is an author who has been praised by some very big names indeed (such as H. P. Lovecraft, C. S. Lewis, &c.). His major books are, I'm sure, available pretty readily, electronically, as used books, and certainly in new printings. But are people who like weird fiction neglecting him? If so, why? Is it that he's famous for having written a book (The Night Land) in a style almost nobody can stand -- vene though he didn't write his other books in that manner? Of course, that probably isn't something we could prove one way or the other...

And so on...

 

[Robert Zwilling]

Jules Verne, Wells, and Poe pushed on me at an early age in grade school, that was nice.
William Hope Hodgson, never heard of him.
Lovecraft, he was on the science fiction and horror library shelf in the 1960s. Easy to find.
PKD, not on the library shelf in the 60s, Had to wait till the 70s when Brunner, Aldiss, Silverberg, etc., were prominently displayed in book stores of the psychedelic free the Earth Age, right along with the original Bram Stoker's Dracula.

That was all found by physically looking at books on shelves. Hearing what friends had to say. One thing that was true was that there were less books on the shelves back then, so easier to find things to read. Fashion had nothing to do with it. What the store owner liked had a big influence on what was stocked on the shelves. It was also hit or miss.

Free the Earth lost a lot of steam along the way until it became worthy of being on the news as ratings attractor.

Not being sensitive about race is only one step on the way towards realizing their are many worlds rotating on this planetary axis though I doubt anything that isn't human will include any kind of penalties towards being insensitive about that particular situation.

Now people have the prospect of being able to be able to find every book ever made by letting their fingers doing the walking. Or listen to what influencers have to say, what the advertisers have to say, what the blogs have to say, plus whatever they run across on line, such as this irreplaceable website. I would say a lot of it is now somehow pushed by money into a place where it is hoped it will be seen.

I would have to say that everything in the library I found by myself, after that, everything, including fashion, has a play in what I read.

 

[Dave]

That was all found by physically looking at books on shelves. Hearing what friends had to say. One thing that was true was that there were less books on the shelves back then, so easier to find things to read. Fashion had nothing to do with it. What the store owner liked had a big influence on what was stocked on the shelves. It was also hit or miss.

This is true. In regards to science fiction and fantasy, is it not still true today? In the UK, many independent bookshops have gone. Science fiction and fantasy competes for a few small shelves. However, I'm sure many browsing in Waterstones have picked up one of those books marked with a "Staff's Choice" label that explains why it is so good. I know I have. However, what is also true is that in the age of Kindle and Amazon and Abebooks, one can find almost any book they want, if they already know what it is they want.

 

[BAYLOR]

Well, Baylor, in fairness I would have to concede that just because someone looks to make a buck by making some out-of-copyright author available on Kindle, that doesn't mean the author isn't "neglected." So you could say that there are such-and-such authors who, it seems, are not being read and discussed (even though their works are available, or because their works aren't). Then the issue would be: who are those authors? And then one could discuss whay a given author was neglected. And after that was done, if it turned out that there were quite a few authors thus neglected, I guess we could ask if there's something more going on than just the specific factors accounting for the neglect of specific authors -- that is, if there's something they have in common (like, to use an imaginary example, suppose we discovered that they all had reputations as being insensitive about race).

I guess "neglect" should mean something like this: not being read by people who, you'd think, should be reading them, even though the works are known to be available.

Let's suppose that William Hope Hodgson seemed to be a candidate for being a neglected author. (I don't think he is, not really, though somebody might make a case that he is.) Here's an author who has some degree of recognition -- I'll bet most people reading this paragraph could name at least one story by him. Here too is an author who has been praised by some very big names indeed (such as H. P. Lovecraft, C. S. Lewis, &c.). His major books are, I'm sure, available pretty readily, electronically, as used books, and certainly in new printings. But are people who like weird fiction neglecting him? If so, why? Is it that he's famous for having written a book (The Night Land) in a style almost nobody can stand -- vene though he didn't write his other books in that manner? Of course, that probably isn't something we could prove one way or the other...

And so on...

In the case the The Night Land , I wish Hodgson's publisher had tossed the manuscript back to him and told him to rewrite it in a more modern style.

 

[Hugh]

For me a guideline re "falling into neglect" is how often a once-well-known writer gets discussed in specialist SFF forums such as this.

 

[Extollager]

In the case the The Night Land , I wish Hodgson's publisher had tossed the manuscript back to him and told him to rewrite it in a more modern style.

In fact, didn't Hodgson do as you suggest, and rewrite it as "The Dream of X"? Anyone know about this?

 

[BAYLOR]

In fact, didn't Hodgson do as you suggest, and rewrite it as "The Dream of X"? Anyone know about this?

Im not familiar with The Dream of X But there is The Night Land A Story Retold by James Stoddard

 

[Extollager]

Im not familiar with The Dream of X But there is The Night Land A Story Retold by James Stoddard

Which I just mentioned in a private message to you, before seeing this! Yes, I have the Stoddard-Hodgson book, but haven't yet read it.