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Thursday, October 29, 2009

Books / Retail / Nerd Please Don't Do This, Nerds

Posted by Paul Constant on Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 12:28 PM

I am begging you on behalf of all the booksellers in the whole wide world, nerds. Please don't do this:

November 18th is International Science Fiction Reshelving Day

Join us this November in a new and unique celebration of science fiction and fantasy literature. Many books from our fine genre are regularly placed in the wrong section of bookstores. This not only hides the books from us, but it prevents readers of those books from discovering the rich tradition to which they belong.

On November 18th that changes. We will go to bookstores around the world and move science fiction and fantasy books from wherever they might be to their proper place in the “Science Fiction” section. We hope that this quiet act of protest will raise awareness of this problem and inspire new readers to explore our thought-provoking genre.

(Apparently, they chose November 18th because it's Margaret Atwood's birthday and Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale is considered to be a classic of science fiction that has been hijacked by literary fiction, along with a lot of Kurt Vonnegut's fiction and plenty of Haruki Murakami's novels. You can find their list of such works here.)

Holy shit, this is an asshole move. Nobody cares about your "quiet act of protest," first of all. You're just making more work for bookstore employees and you're making it much harder for paying bookstore customers to actually find the books they're looking for. Second of all, didn't genre geeks used to want their fiction to be folded into "regular" fiction anyway? I think a large fiction section that encompasses everything would be a much healthier fiction section than a literary fiction section with segregated genre books. It makes the genre books look cheap and it keeps the geeks from broadening their reading experience to some—gasp!—non-genre work.

(Via SF Signal.)

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Wait, seriously? If it were the other way around I could understand -- it'd still be obnoxious, but at least it'd be coherent. Are they upset that they're not being ghettoized enough?

As an aside, the fact that Aimee Bender and Kelly Link are segregated by genre baffles and enrages me.

Posted by Andrew Cole

on October 29, 2009 at 12:43 PM

Wow. Stunning assholery. Might not want to do this in any one-bookstore towns, lest you find yourself 86ed from it.

Posted by Fnarf

on October 29, 2009 at 12:43 PM

I'm with Cole. You'd think the protest move would be to put science fiction in with the other fiction. It's all just fiction. That's what libraries do and what I do in my home shelving.

Posted by David Wright on October 29, 2009 at 12:48 PM

It would be a lot more fun to put the Christianity books in with the general fiction.

Posted by smade on October 29, 2009 at 12:52 PM

@3- Depends on the library. University libraries usually avoid the genre issue, but public libraries usually embrace genre sections because it makes the browsing public happy. SPL libraries all have a SF section, but of course lots of stuff bleeds over into the regular fiction or mystery. And where are you supposed to put near-future-werewolf-vampire-elf-erotica? It's all over the place.

Posted by dwight moody on October 29, 2009 at 12:54 PM

Even better -- put the Bible in with the fantasy section.

Posted by Roscoe on October 29, 2009 at 1:02 PM

@4: No, it would be a lot more fun to toss the Bibles into the SF section.

Posted by supergp on October 29, 2009 at 1:05 PM

Argh! Beat to the punch!

Posted by supergp on October 29, 2009 at 1:06 PM

they try to hide the true size of our movement by dispersing us in general fiction and gloss over our innate geekness. to the bookshelves!

Posted by jiberish on October 29, 2009 at 1:10 PM

This reminds me of Adrian Mole moving Jane Austen's books into the Romance section of a library "where they belonged."

What if there were sci-fi nerds warring with each other over whether Kurt Vonnegut's works got moved?

Posted by Keister Button on October 29, 2009 at 1:14 PM

@5, goddammit, Anita Blake.

Posted by Andrew Cole

on October 29, 2009 at 1:18 PM

"I think a large fiction section that encompasses everything would be a much healthier fiction section than a literary fiction section with segregated genre books."

Not necessarily for me, at least. A huge-ass fiction section like that would probably discourage me from browsing more often. When I browse, I like the bookstore to be compartmentalized so it's easier to manage an aimless search.

I kind of see the appeal of being given more of an opportunity to randomly stumble on interesting-looking books, but right now, I don't find it difficult to just jump to another section if I feel like broadening my horizons.

Posted by Gloria on October 29, 2009 at 1:21 PM

Most of these fantasy books aren't even remotely "science" fiction. Tolkien? The Jungle Book?

Posted by w7ngman

on October 29, 2009 at 1:31 PM

Reminds me of this scene in "Party Girl":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzbDdgWia…

Posted by Strath

on October 29, 2009 at 1:43 PM

there is a point of different libraries and bookstores doing it differently, and that point isn't to make some idiot genre-geek cry in outrage.

some places, usually university or professional libraries, focus on Where a Book Belongs. Others, like most public libraries, focus on Putting Readers and Books Together. bookstores focus on maximizing sales, by using a mix of The Obvious and The Confusing in the their organization and displays. and other options.

it's not a conspiracy against anyone or anything, it's about choosing the outcome you want and following a system that supports it.

Posted by cranky on October 29, 2009 at 1:47 PM

What's the point? They'll still be separated by the lit books having tasteful black-and-white photos on their covers and the SF books having garish paintings of babes in jumpsuits with laser weapons.

Posted by mint chocolate chip on October 29, 2009 at 1:50 PM

@16 - you need to read more SF. It's not all like that. It's like saying all fiction is Dan Brown and Stephanie Meyer.

But if you're just concerned about SF and Fantasy book covers - yeah, they generally do really suck.

Posted by Karla Canadian on October 29, 2009 at 2:08 PM

@13- That's why Speculative Fiction (SF) is a much better term.

Posted by dwight moody on October 29, 2009 at 2:13 PM

There is a "problem" with any popular and lasting works being removed from genres, both for SF and for other genres. You don't find The Yiddish Policeman's Union shelved with mysteries or Life of Pi shelved with religious fiction.

The implicit argument is that anything that has lasting appeal can't be SF, because people are reading it who "don't read science fiction."
The corollary is that anything that doesn't get moved isn't worthwhile. This is what the participants are objecting to.

Posted by dirge on October 29, 2009 at 2:22 PM

Yeah, this is stupid and dickish and petty. Us sci-fi fans are a lot better served by just not using the label at all. It's all fiction; why do we have to be all smug and tribal about it?

I mean, have these people not realized yet that it's 2009 and nerd chic is mainstream now? I realize maybe you got punched on the playground in 1989 for your Tom Swift books, guys - I did - but 20 years have passed and it is, in fact, the future now.

@16, 17

Actually, 16 kind of has a point, at least about some sci-fi. I am not normally a fan of, for example, David Weber or John Ringo, but their collaboration, the Prince Roger books that start with March Upcountry, are some really, truly excellent books, with lots of Shakespearean derivation, and some other stuff. Check them out.

However, they were published by Baen, and Baen has some of the worst cover art you'll see anywhere in the genre. It really is all shiny books with muscly men and lean, big-breasted women in skinsuits or uniforms doing weird balletic things with laser guns and sometimes big lizards. Holy crap, Baen, your sales would probably increase tenfold if you just paid a little bit for some cover art instead of having Cousin Lou do it. People - at least people who aren't grizzled, fifty-something chunky men who spend way too much time playing Axis & Allies - are embarrassed to carry your books around.

Posted by balderdash

on October 29, 2009 at 2:31 PM

I've already reshelved everything by Newt Gingrich, George Bush, and Dick and Martha Cheney in the Science Fiction section.

Although maybe i should have put it in the Horror section ...

Posted by Will in Seattle

on October 29, 2009 at 3:22 PM

@18: Nice to see an Harlan Ellison fan fighting a battle already lost.

Posted by Fool multitude on October 29, 2009 at 3:30 PM

I think the point is that if you really did this coherently, and moved any book in the regular "literature" section that had science fiction, fantasy, or horror elements into the appropriate "genre" section, then there would be very few books left in the rest of the bookstore. Sure it would be a pain in the ass if people actually did this, but as a statement about the idiocy of restrictive genres and ghettos, it makes a pretty good point. I don't see this as dickishness, pettiness, or assholery at all.

Posted by Djibril on October 29, 2009 at 3:31 PM

@21: I think you mean Lynn Cheney.

Posted by Fool multitude on October 29, 2009 at 3:33 PM

@22- I like Ellison's work just fine, but he's certainly not the only one to use the term.

Posted by dwight moody on October 29, 2009 at 4:04 PM

I am perplexed by the slighting of C.S. Lewis's The Space Trilogy, Till We Have Faces, and The Screwtape Letters, which makes me immediately suspicious of both the cause and its proponents' credibility.

Posted by The Ethnographer on October 29, 2009 at 5:16 PM

douchy but I have to admit I've reshelved books a time or two because I hate it when they ghettoize certain gay authors in the gay section like Maupin...and sometimes, the dumb clerks put books in the wrong section. Jonathan Ames is NOT gay, people!

Posted by michael strangeways