Counterpoint: Why Do People Not Read Science Fiction?

Link: Why Do People Not Read Science Fiction? Reading from only one side of the brain by Carol Pinchefsky - Intergalactic Medicine Show
Thanks to SF Signal’s SF Tidbits for 12/27, I was linked to Carol Pinchefsky’s article at The Intergalactic Medicine Show titled Why Do People Not Read Science Fiction? Reading from only one side of the brain. You may think from the title that she somehow lambastes non-SF readers. This is far from the case. It’s a very intelligent, well thought out, and well-researched look into why SF accounts for a miniscule 6% (her numbers rounded from 6.4% per the Romance Writers of America - others say 5%) of the book market. But since this is the blogosphere I would like to add some counterpoint to her assertions.

First, Carol gave a handful of non-SF readers short stories to try to entice them to read a science fiction novel. Short stories are tough...and they’re short. When trying to introduce big concepts that are otherwise foreign to a new reader it’s hard to give them something of 4,000 or so words. Even in the best short reads it’s difficult to fully develop a concept in a way that would be accessible to new genre initiates. To be really honest, I don’t read all that many short stories -- novellas, okay, but a short story has to be really darn good to take the reader somewhere in just a few words. And please don’t get me started on “Flash Fiction.”

I would retry the experiment and give a few avid readers a short SF novella to enjoy -- don’t ask me which one. A novella has a better time pulling in the reader, developing characters, and allowing immersion through a familiarity that grows over dozens of pages. To Carol’s point further down in the article, SF takes a certain kind of concentration and introduction that I don’t think any short story can accomplish. In order to enjoy a genre short story you must be a genre fan. There are certain assumptions made within the subtext in order to get the word count way down. I do agree with Carol that readers do need context when diving into a new genre. That’s exactly why I believe short stories are terrible for converting new SF followers. Short stories may be fine little vignettes for the hard-core fan, but not a newbie.

I also don’t agree that readers run screaming away from challenging material -- and it depends on the definition of “challenging.” Let’s take the case of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. (Yeah, I read it...okay.) It’s not challenging from a strange literary standpoint, but the entire concept of the book challenges much of the religious and social conventions of the western world that were born out of Christianity. The novel caused an uproar that continues to this day. It also sold umpteen million copies all around the globe and made Dan Brown a household name. If it’s challenging and controversial readers will buy, publishers will market, and the media talking heads will flap their jowls until every last copy disappears from the shelves -- then they print more and do it all again.

This then goes to the argument that modern SF is challenging in all the wrong ways -- that it only speaks to 6% of the market and will never go beyond that because it has found it’s comfortable little niche. Avid SF readers, reviewers, magazines, and SF organizations, whether they say it or not, all expect the same thing. They look back to Dangerous Visions and compare all modern faire to that benchmark, scoffing at flavors that harken back to an earlier, brighter time when science and technology were considered marvelous achievements of the human experience. Now both, along with their human stewards, are seen as a plague upon the earth. It’s the apocalypse, global warming, corporate engineered super-plagues, and oversexed robots with swords all the time. Maybe 94% of the population doesn’t want to read that. Maybe they want some hope. Maybe they want to look at the future with some sort of optimism that it will be around for their children and grandchildren. Maybe the SF world has lost the hope and faith in itself. Maybe it’s time for a new Dangerous Visions...like Powerful Future Visions.

The rest of what Carol speaks of, besides the social aspects (that’s another show), I fully agree with. SF is a taste acquired in youth, sports fans don’t understand why genetic mutation can’t make their cheesy popcorn last longer, and that people are reading SF now anyway without actually knowing it (I mention this fact in my article SF Should Take It’s Cue From Drug Dealers and Terrorists...here’s the link).

Yet this all leaves us just where we started. 94% of the book world will pass us by in favor of just about anything else, and that just burns my shorts. We talk, blog, have panels, talk some more, blog violently, and sometimes drown our sorrows in an episode of Battlestar Galactica (or Dr. Who), but at the end of the day we have moved nowhere. As you read this post another SF leaning independent bookstore has closed, a magazine has reduced its print run or shut down, and a school has turned another potential SF reader away from books by requiring such glorious classics as The Scarlet Letter and The Jungle, leaving him or her with a learned distaste for the printed page.

So what do we do? Instead of ending on a sour note, I want to offer some ideas. By doing just a few of these things, I think we can increase our percentage of readers.

First, there needs to be many many more gateway and young-adult titles. Hard and Mundane SF may be nice for the 6%ers, but Space Opera, Science Fantasy, and good old SF Adventure novels that appeal to a wide audience (especially kids) is imperative to get readers from media tie-in novels to other science fiction offerings. HALO: Ghosts of the Onyx by Eric Nylund is a media tie-in novel from a video game series. The book was the #2 paperback in the country a few weeks ago. The readership is there. We just need to bring them over, and if that means giving away YA and gateway titles to schools we need to do that. The investment will go a long way to increasing SF readership for the future. This could also mean that media tie-in publishers team with boutique SF houses to bundle books together, creating the glorious two-for-one that budget strapped readers love.

Second, the Media SF and Literary SF worlds need to band together. Science fiction is dominant in video games, TV, and at the movies. Literary SF imprints could work with upcoming movie releases to distribute free or advanced copies of titles at movie premiers. These books should have similar subject matter to the film, allowing the audience to transition to a similar world and thus get their “fix” after a supposed successful screening. Novellas would be best, as they are cheaper to print and also quicker to read. But a progressive SF house could team with Hollywood to coordinate say a book about time travel with a big time travel movie release. The same could be done in a modified way with TV...and there are a bunch of SF shows on TV now or in development.

Third, and most important, we need more triumphant and empowering novels that look toward the future with hope. We need novels that make you cheer filled with heroic characters that make you want to buy a ticket on Virgin Galactic. We need to stop looking at the future as this dark black hole of doom and celebrate our achievements and what is to come. We need to get people excited about science and all its wonder. People want hope -- the hope for a brighter tomorrow. Let’s give them that hope. We can do it. We did it before and we can do it again.

I have said it before: SF is a genre that teaches, inspires, and entertains like none else. The media world has proven this, but they also sell the vision of a bright tomorrow. Maybe if we seed the shelves of our bookstores with SF titles that do the same, we may begin to see a renaissance -- a renaissance that goes beyond the New Wave and Dangerous Visions. For if we wish to get the other 94% of readers to pick up a science fiction novel, we need to give them a reason to do so. People look to many different things to give them hope for a better tomorrow. Maybe if we show through SF that, if we work together, we can create a bright future and bring about that better tomorrow. Humanity has the power to do this, and science is one of the major implements to help take us there. If we give them hope, give them heroes, and make them cheer, I bet we could change the face of science fiction publishing and grow SF readership to a point where 6% becomes a distant memory. And I think that’s a future we all hope for.

Comments

[mwb]

First of all a minor correction: "...a miniscule 6% (her numbers - others say 5%) of the book market."

Actually, not her numbers. She specifically cites a study by the Romance Writers of America with footnote and a link to the study. And, BTW, she rounds the number since the study says 6.4%. (Same number and study quoted in Kristine Kathryn Rusch's Asimov's article.

Now main points. The 800 lb gorilla not mentioned is that there is a vast decline in reading fiction in general, that a genre like SF has to work within.

The NEA's Reading at Risk report - both interesting and depressing reading in itself, pointed to shockingly declining numbers back in 2002, that are probably only worse now. With not even half of adults reading a novel, short story, play or poetry for a year as a leisure activity.

And your point on short stories is dead on for another reason, when people do read it is rarely short stories. Novels are still the form (genre or otherwise) that actually sell.

I'd also say that much SF does not in fact challenge convention it just operates within its own conventions which are often just as binding.

And as you say people do read things that challenge. Heck looking beyond fiction (and your example of the Da Vinci code) books like "Brief History of Time", "Inconvenient Truth" etc. are quite challenging for most people AND bestsellers.

And I totally agree with your point about books that uplift, to share one of my favorite Steinbeck quotes: "It is the duty of the writer to lift up, to extend, to encourage."

When I want to be down beaten and cynical, I have only to watch the news or read a paper. When I want to inspired, expanded, reminded about hope for the future and, yes, entertained - I look toward Science Fiction.

I don't expect all Science Fiction to be like that, but there should always be a core of works offered that speak to the heart of what gave birth to the genre in the first place.

But I babble...

[Michael L. Wentz]

Correction noted. I made the adjustment.

Your point about the decline of the book world is spot on! The whole industry is completely dysfunctional. They still operate on business practices that haven’t changed in over fifty years -- but things have changed: B&N and Borders Super Stores, Amazon.com, The Internet, e-Books. So now the juggernaut that is the book industry survives off big front list titles like Harry Potter. Mid- and backlist titles really don’t exist anymore except for a brief 90-day shelf life. Ah, but I can go on for days about all this, but for now...coffee.

[Rick Novy]

In speculative fiction, the short story is used more as a proving ground than as a route to readers. It's the place to hone skills and get noticed by industry insiders.

The thing I noticed is that you bemoan the prevelance of sci-fi (term carefully chosen) in non-print media. If you think about it, that means we won. Most of the blockbuster movies are sci-fi. Many of the video games are, too. And, the Star Trek, Star Wars, etc. hired gun novels do very well. Media and print do work hand-in-hand inside those small arenas.

It means we won. Sci-fi (as opposed to SF) is now mainstream. so why doesn't it translate to print?

These things go in cycles. Sf was big a few decades ago. Romance is big now. Even inside spec fic, fantasy dominates. What happens when all the Harry Potter kids grow up, get jobs, have kids, and want someplace to escape? After reflecting on how much fun thay had reading HP, many will turn back to spec fic. I suspect many will cross over from fantasy to SF to expand their experiences.

SF isn't dying, it just isn't our turn right now.

[Michael L. Wentz]

Rick, I totally agree! SF isn't on its way out, and thank goodness. I just believe SF can do a lot more to be a welcoming "big tent" sort of genre on the print side. But there are other dynamics across the book world that are hurting SF as much as every other form of fiction. Hmm... I feel a new post coming on.

[FishDreamer]

A few years ago, I attended a bookfest which included a panel of science fiction writers discussing how to keep science fiction alive. The one thing I've never forgotten is what John Varley said: If we want people to read science fiction, and more people to write it, we need to have better education in math and science. I tend to agree with him, particularly on the writing side. But I also know you don't have to be tremendously educated in those areas (I'm not, particularly) to enjoy well-written science fiction.

I love science fiction. I've been reading it since I was in elementary school. I don't remember if I read any before Star Wars came out, but I think so (I was ten that year). Isaac Asimov was one of my favorite writers then (still is).

But more to your point, I am a dedicated genre reader. Science fiction, fantasy, murder mysteries, romance, espionage - I read them all. I prefer any of those to most standard modern fiction - the voices are generally better and I always find a lot more to think about.

Connie Willis said she embraces the title of science fiction writer, and (I'm paraphrasing from memory) that writers need to stop fussing about it. A lot of what's popular is science fiction, the readers just don't know it. (Audrey Niffeneger's The Time Traveller's Wife springs to mind.) The more writers declare that what they write isn't science fiction, the more confused the reader gets and the harder it is for us to find what we're looking for at book stores.

I really hope the book industry can figure this out; I'm worried about the future of books. Reading on the computer is just not the same as holding a book in your hand and re-reading the same well-loved pages of a favorite book.

[Michael L. Wentz]

I've always thought that the only requirement to either read or enjoy science fiction is a sense of wonder. We've lost that sense of wonder as a society and instead try to scare the hell out of people. It's all about shock. Sure, shock sells, but so does beer on Saturday night. Who cares.

The book industry has fallen into the same corporate hell as Hollywood. It's all about the shareholders and moving truckloads of books, no matter what the content. Celebrity trumps storytelling, and writing for writings sake...well...

If you ever get a chance to wander around the floor of Book Expo America it's easy to see all this. For such a large trade show, it's amazing to see all the differing shades of gray.

So as genre fans we need to be diligent and trumpet those stories that we love. Most books are recommended by word of mouth. We need to run ours so people try SF. But we must also make sure that there are plenty of titles out there for the new soft SF fans to break into. In the 1950s there were plenty of these gateway titles. Today -- not so much.

I think the book world will continue to eat itself alive, but we can't worry too much about it. The best we can do is continue to preach the word of science fiction and be confident in our love for it. Then it will always survive.

[BittooM]

I am a voracoius reader of SF - or SciFi - or whatever name to assign to it. (I do, however, dislike fantasy!)

While it may be easy to throw about 7 bucks a month at books in the U.S., it is not so easy for me to throw 500 of mine (in Indian currency) at SF every month! Compare that with just about 250-300 Indian Rupees needed for good Management or regular fiction titles and you know what I read more.

So, if the SF publishers were to just make the books more affordable they'd get many more readers.

[Michael L. Wentz]

I don't know why SF books would be more in India. Here in the U.S. it's the other way around. Non-Fiction, mostly published in trade paperback, is a lot more than a $6.99 mass market paperback. Most of the management and tech books from my corporate days run anywhere between $15 to $19, while all my mass-market SF books slide in at less than half that.

One of the other issues regarding retail pricing is the increasing cost to print books, along with the unavoidable fact that ALL the publishing houses are owned by five major corporations. These corporations are charged with delivering their shareholders increasing profits year over year. And with book sales declining, they do it by slashing or eliminating their publicity departments, reducing titles, and short changing authors (royalty pay rates, lousy advances, etc.). So now you end up in a situation where authors, the ultimate creators of the work, get the short end of the stick.

E-Books will reduce the cost both to publishers and the consumer once they catch on, but that will depend on a consistent format, an affordable reader, etc. With E-Books there are no printing, shipping, and warehousing costs. Distribution around the globe is almost instantaneous. If only the Sony Reader were better...