My wife and I got talking the other day about the things within my genre that are cool. This led to me trying to explain to her that the Sci-fi and Fantasy worlds were complex, featuring any number of different sub-genres and, as a result, what may be cool for some readers may well not be for others. The title of this blog was uttered by me at some point within the chat and it’s a statement that I stand by, though with a smile on my face.

I feel quite strongly that the fantasy/sci-fi/horror genre within the world of books is still looked down upon by the rest of the literary community. The word novel, as described by the Oxford English Dictionary clearly fits many a contemporary fantasy, or epic piece of Sci-Fi, yet when we look at the Man Booker prize (contemporary fiction), the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and many others, no fantasy appears. Once again, the dictionary suggests that to be fiction, a story simply needs to be imagined, not factual. I’m fairly certain that A Game of Thrones has come out of G.R.R. Martin’s head, yet his books so far remain well removed from these lists.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am in no way devaluing the awards like Locus, Nebula or Hugo. I love that the genre has it’s own awards and, based on the depth and breadth of the field, they’re much needed. However, almost by having those awards, the Sci-Fi and Fantasy field are sidelined from what you could call mainstream literature.

Any thoughts?