I knew she'd written a crime series using the pen name J.D. Robb. I heard a pile of recommendations for them. And when I was stricken with fell plague a week ago, I had a pile of them by my bed to comfort me in my illness.
SARAH: And now for an intricate mystery, starring tough cop Eve Dallas.
EVE DALLAS: This woman has been murdered by an antique weapon. A GUN.
SARAH: Wait what.
EVE DALLAS: I hope none of my witnesses are off-planet.
SARAH: What is going on?
EVE DALLAS: Ah, robot cocker spaniels.
SARAH: Robot cocker spaniels, that tears it, this is sci-fi! Why did nobody ever tell me this series was sci-fi? This is so exciting! (reads them all)
Before I continue with my essay, I will say that I really like the In Death series! Eve Dallas's husband Roarke gets my goat a little, because he's very fetIrish. (This is a combination word of 'fetish' and 'Irish' I have just made up.) You know. Poetically handsome. Speaks the Gaelic. We speak Irish. I do not know how this myth got started. But this is a very common thing for American writers, so I do not blame Nora Roberts. (Call me, American writers! I will help you.) It is very nice to see a series that focuses on a married couple, though. And Eve herself, her sturdy assistant Delia Peabody, Peabody's fashionplate geek boyfriend McNab, Charles the gentleman of the night and Mavis the rock star are all extremely excellent. Plus there are mysteries that involve virtual reality, and clones, and all sorts of cool things!
Which leads me to my central point. I had no idea the In Death series had a sci-fi element. I do think they're in the right place in bookshops, where they are always under crime - they focus on crime solving! - but I do think it's weird I had no idea. I think it's weird I've never seen them put in the sci-fi/fantasy section, while Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden fantasy series (about a wizard PI) I've seen shelved in crime quite a bit.
And I think a reason may be the prejudice people hold against genre. I recently saw a dismissive reference to 'some sci-fi/fantasy/romance crap'. And those are the genres that do get the most contempt. People say they don't read that stuff proudly.
And yet, not only do people love that stuff (Harry Potter and Twilight, bestselling books of generation, and so forth) but people adore that stuff... when it's not called that stuff. The In Death books are just the tip of the iceberg.
Several Bestselling Literary Novels.
The Time-Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger - I don't wish to shock anybody. But it's got time travel in it.
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro - Everybody said unto me: it's like nothing you've ever read before! It's got- Me: Clones in it. Being harvested for parts. Like Michael Marshall Smith's Spares. Sure! (Which is not to say you can't tell a story a lot of different ways, and have it be awesome. Never Let Me Go is awesome. But I like Spares, too.)
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova - Academics v Dracula!
I remember being at a literary festival and seeing someone approach an author, who writes literary fiction under the name Iain Banks and sci-fi under the name Iain M. Banks.
LADY: When are you going to write another book?
MR BANKS: Er... holds up his new sci-fi novel
LADY: I mean a real book.
I don't really remember what happened after that, I think I had some sort of rage blackout...
Carrie Ryan's The Forest of Hands and Teeth is sold as teen fantasy in the US, adult fantasy in the UK and Ireland, and as adult literary fiction in Australia and New Zealand. It's always the same beautifully written book with zombies in it. But placing it is hard, because people might see fantasy and think it wasn't beautifully written. But it is, and it's something else as well.
There's a reason genre holds most of my favourite books. You can have all the wonderful things in other books, and then add extra awesome. Hating genre is like saying 'Oh, yes, I'd like a chocolate sundae. NO, WHY WOULD I WANT HOT FUDGE SAUCE AND SPRINKLES? CURSE YOUR SPRINKLES!'
More than that, genre seems to me to be a sign of what being human, and having an imagination, is all about. Speaking of a storyteller who heard a storm and thought of a thunder god, Tolkien said 'When the fairy-tale ceased, there would be just thunder, which no human ear had yet heard.' (J.R.R. Tolkien, On Fairy-Stories) We come up with explanations for things. We look at this world and see marvels.
I learned that things look different by the light of a dragon’s fire. Ordinary things become extraordinary; common problems change shape and become either unusually interesting or utterly insignificant... You really see things, sometimes for the first time. And you don’t forget them when you close the book. That, of course, is what makes fantasy dangerous. Patricia C. Wrede, Letting the Dragons In
That's why stories like that call to us, I think. They're an essential part of being human. We hear thunder, and through telling stories, we see gods.
I'm not saying stop categorising books. For one thing, I like being able to go to the sci-fi/fantasy section in a bookshop, and know that is my kind of thing. But dismissing something that by any other name you'd think was an amazingly fantastic read - well, Shakespeare, who wrote about ghosts and witches, knew that wasn't a good idea. So do I.
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Comments
I also had no idea that Nora Roberts was JD Robb.
Now what I actually hit 'reply' to say! For some strange reason, the people who teach Celticness and Irish Type Things in America (not counting, say, Harvard's Celtic Studies dept or something) are ABSOLUTELY CONVINCED that the language is called Gaelic. I was taught that it was called Gaelic when I was, oh, ten. I think it is because Gailge sounds a bit like 'Gaelic'? These days I sort of feign confusion like I'm not sure whether they mean Scots Gaelic, or the entire family of Q-Celtic languages in general. Oh yes, people just LOVE talking to me. :p
Ah, pen names. Some romance authors have like four, and that I admit I cannot keep up with, but I try!
Also, you.
:raises hand:
It's on the teen shelves in London ...
:lowers hand and flees:
When I flicked through it and saw the dragon was a girl, I was very puzzled but intrigued. When I actually read it, I loved it, but did feel a bit cheated of lesbian dragons. Later I wrote a story starring some! Happy ending for all. I still wonder what Point Fantasy were thinking, though.
Then somehow Anne Rice came up, and he got all excited. He loved Anne Rice! Both the vampire and the witch books. The Witching Hour is one of his favorite books. He also read a lot of crime/mystery novels that had pretty heavy fantasy overtones, in the way of Mayan curses or whatever.
He was very nice so I didn't point out anything, but I was thinking all along, how in the world are vampires and witches not fantasy?
I also see a lot of people dismiss YA fiction in this way. Apparently it's not good fantasy if it doesn't have purple prose in it. Not that YA fantasy is free of the purple, but it's much less common / toned down most of the time.
Ruby: The Adventures of a Galactic Gumshoe.
I've not read J D Robb, but your description above reminds me of Ruby.
If you go to Amazon and read some of the people's impressions, you may see what I mean. I think Ruby is broadcast over several internet radio stations.
http://www.amazon.com/Ruby-Adventures-Galactic-Gumshoe/dp/1881137929
What I am getting irritated about is Waterstone's obsession with dropping anything with a vampire in it onto their horror shelves. I picked up New Amsterdam by Elizabeth Bear (before the race debacle) in the horror section. It's crime set in an alternative history with magic and air balloons. But because one of the investigators is a vampire it was in Horror. What is that about?
I REALLY want to read the In Death series now because of your fantastic description, but I actually want to read it even more because I know it's written by Nora Roberts, who's awesome! I do understand that lovers of her romance novels may not find her sci-fi crime novels as riveting, but I happen to be a lover of both genres.
It's a tightrope balance between 'don't disgruntle old readers who want your name to mean what they already like, don't put off new readers who have already decided you're not their cuppa but will like this new stuff' and 'but backlist powers your sales - people wish to find you!'
I know the I Don't Read That Stuff kind of people. A lot of them There are even some among my best friends, which is rather shocking and sad and horrible to me! One even said to me, once, that she didn't read that stuff because it makes you lose your grip on reality. I felt a little insulted, because I consider myself as someone who has a rather good grip on reality. Fairies! Leprechauns! Unicorns! Schmendrick! They're all real!
Uh-hum.
I totally do not understand why people would think something like this. Because- fantasy, sci-fi, they explore every-day themes and problems all the time, and sometimes even in a more realistic way than a non-fantasy/non-sci-fi novel would. After I had explained this to said friend of mine, she said something along the lines of: "Yes, but these stories are set in another world!" (She went on for a bit, but I think I decided not to keep listening.) I did not try and explain to her the concept of urban fantasy.
But, I have made a decision. The next time someone tells me they don't read that stuff, I am going to ask them one thing. Namely if they enjoy reading fairytales. You know, the ones the Grimm's brothers have collected, or Andersen's. In a way, they are the pioneer fantasy stories; and I'm rather sure a lot of people like these. Those are probably the stories that have been read to them when they were small all the time, those are the stories Disney films are made of. Everybody loves them! And then they go and tell you they don't read this stuff. Ha! Like hell they don't.
And now I have to be off, to read some of that stuff.
Interesting that a store has started a section called that now. Wonder what they mean by it, exactly? Or do they actually have enough fluffier fantasy to fill out the original section.
Categories are puzzling and fascinating things.
(I also really love her Bride quartet, but that has no fantasy or SF elements, alas...)
This is why I almost exclusively read YA novels. o.o