Fessing up

Ok, so recently I discussed “what” should I write as it relates to genre, and I did some thinkin’ today and realized that I may have been wrong.  A little.

I DO love to read literary fiction, true.  But it is true that I also love to read sf/fantasy.  Problem is, I’m a snob about it. It has to be amazing.  And that doesn’t necessarily mean Hugo winning or anything, Dune for example was pure torture for me.   Anything with time travel that’s GOOD and NOT romance is excellent, but let’s face it, time travel is tricky at best and ugly at it’s worst.  I surely won’t write it!

I can count the books that fall into this category that I love on 2 hands: The Sparrow (not its sequel) and Time Travellers Wife - neither written by sf/f authors.  Solitaire.  Kim Stanley Robinson’s first 2 Mars books (Red and I think Blue).  Neil Gaiman (oh hell anything by Neil).  Harry Potter series.  Used to love Diana Gabaldon but it became too romancy and too historical.  Loved Mysts of Avalon, but much of her books are depressing.  The Historian was fabulous, but it took me forever to read.  (Really I guess that’s horror though, hm more like Goth.)  Hm, what else?  Contact.  Cloud Atlas (not sure of genre with that one.)   Oh yea, and Jack Finney.  Former Anne Rice fan too,

That pretty  much covers it.  I haven’t much liked the other stuff, even the stuff I’m “supposed” to.  But let me give you a list of my ideas for novels:

-my work in progress, which has a 3 novel future, about a people who have race/class conflict over using mind powers - or as they see, them “magic” (fantasy)
-a woman doctor who falls in love with a killer (drama)
-a group of people who keep returning to life throughout the ages (fantasy)
-a woman who finds a ring that grants her the power to save lives (fantasy)

Add to that a few random ideas based on superhero themes (used to be a huge Xmen/Spiderman fan). So there. That’s it, that’s me.  Fantasy with some goth thrown in.  The scales weigh in at 3 to 4.  And if you look at my film and teleision preferences, you’d see more of this same trend times 10.

I GUESS my biggest issue with the fantasy genre is NOT that I don’t like it, it’s just that I can’t find BOOKS in it that I do like, or only rarely.  I don’t really like books with dragons or elves, or dwarves or hobbits or lycanthropes or too much magic - but demons and vampires are sometimes ok.  I like books in there here & now, or something that closely resembles the here & now, and have some twist to them that is fantastical.   If you have any recommendations on this, throw them at me.  Help!  I’m stuck in a genre I don’t read and can’t get out!

(Just kidding)