Mad Genius Club– highly recommended in general, especially for writers, especially especially for indie writers- had a post recently featuring an old interview with the esteemed Terry Pratchett. He made some excellent points about what’s termed ‘genre fiction’ in circles I’ve been in vicinity of- that is, fantasy and sci-fi.
Fantasy is often the target of elitist dismissal but sci-fi gets it plenty, too, though less because science fiction bleeds into modern life so often. You can also pretend it’s grounded in hard fact and real trends and therefore get your Serious Literary Writer cred if you approach it with Serious Writer Voice by way of some current pet cause of the Great and Good.
Elitist approval is an interesting thing to go chasing. I get liking something and getting your hackles up when someone unfairly criticizes it; morons who dismiss Tolkien as a cute, happy fairytale (in the modern sense of that noun) certainly anger me for as long as I care to dwell upon their wrongness. But I don’t understand getting outraged about it as if they’ve kicked your dog’s ribs in.
