What's with all the damn vampires?

[morriss003]

Originally Posted by Dimwit

My biggest beef is the overwhelming amount of titles stuck in the SF&F genre which I don't think belongs and it really pisses me off how many good titles of non vampire/werewolf/fantasy tropes aren't being published because of this crap.

What annoys me is the mixing of SF and Fantasy. I know that Heinlein wrote Glory Road, but really, I think that he and Campbell and Asimov and Clarke would be appalled at way SF and Fantasy are thrown together nowadays. Personally, I love the Twilight books, but I keep them mentally separated from The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

[carpetmojo]

Originally Posted by carpetmojo

Look, it's either the vampires, the Christians, or the self-improvers - which one would you rather have?

I now note the damn cooks and lovers are ganging up on us............

[MrsJoseph]

Originally Posted by morriss003

What annoys me is the mixing of SF and Fantasy. I know that Heinlein wrote Glory Road, but really, I think that he and Campbell and Asimov and Clarke would be appalled at way SF and Fantasy are thrown together nowadays. Personally, I love the Twilight books, but I keep them mentally separated from The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

I agree 100% - except the twilight part - genre mixing between SF & fantasy drive me bonkers. If you regularly read the genres there is an obvious and huge difference between the two.

[Dimwit]

Not to turn this into a library thread but this is the main criticism I have about libraries and particularily the Overdrive service. The main point of a library isn't the volumes, it's the organization. Lumping everything into a catchall category is doing everyone a disservice. Being able to find what you are looking for is the prime reason we need libraries. Otherwise you get what we have now, a ton of books, all marked for the same category and a massive disappointment.
I'm quite sure that there's very confused people out there where you go into the stacks and come back saying there's nothing to read but damn vampire novels and all they can see are miles of books.

[Kevin8or]

Originally Posted by Todd Young

I've just finished Justin Cronin's "The Passage" and though the infected seem to have more in common with zombies, they are also related to vampires. They're also very confused about who they are, but are incapable of philosophical debates.

I finished this a couple of days ago. Loved the return to old-fashioned monsters. These vampires don't want to date you; they're driven to rip you apart and drink you.

Originally Posted by morriss003

What annoys me is the mixing of SF and Fantasy.

This is the most bothersome aspect of The Passage. Oh well.

[fjtorres]

Well, there's three kinds of mixing:
1- marketing/organizational which can lead to one picking up or buying a book expecting something entirely different. Bad, very bad.

2- confused writing and/or editing. Stories that start out as one and meander into the other or that just can't make up their mind. That's just bad writing.

3- Then there's intentional genre mixing. For, Larry Niven's Svetz stories (Flight of the horse, etc) proposes, quite reasonably, that if Time Travel is impossible by known physics, then any time travel story is by definition fantasy. Of course, his time traveller doesn't know this. So his "past-time" encounters with witches and unicorns, ghosts and assorted monsters keep biting him in the rear.

Me, I tend to think of crossovers/mashes as outright fantasy. Period. Want to pit vampires against alien invaders (as David Weber tried and failed to pull off?) no problem. Want to mix space adventurers against alien vampires (as C.L. Moore's Shambleau successfully did?) fine by me.

Each genre has its conventions and its rules. Good writers honor them.

In fantasy anything goes; sparkly vamps or blood-curdling Lovecraftian horrors. I'll cheerfully buy anything that's well-enough written. I don't mind SF elements in my fantasy. Just don't put fantasy elements into a story and try to pass it as SF. Because that suggests you don't know what SF is or you don't know what is science and what is urban legend. And at that point it just becomes bad writing.

[AuthorJethroFord]

I think it's because they have a lot of sex.

[morriss003]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Each genre has its conventions and its rules. Good writers honor them.

In fantasy anything goes; sparkly vamps or blood-curdling Lovecraftian horrors. I'll cheerfully buy anything that's well-enough written. I don't mind SF elements in my fantasy. Just don't put fantasy elements into a story and try to pass it as SF. Because that suggests you don't know what SF is or you don't know what is science and what is urban legend. And at that point it just becomes bad writing.

I think that mixing is one of the problems bookstores bring on themselves. After a while, I got tired of searching through the Borders stacks, trying to find a hard SF in the midst of all the fantasy. It made things especially hard for new, true SF writers.

[sabredog]

Yep. Just got the real reason why my fantasy genre loving 18 year old daughter went to see the new Twilight movie last night.

Taylor Lautner's six pack.

So now the truth is revealed...

[covingtoncat73]

Originally Posted by MrsJoseph

I agree 100% - except the twilight part - genre mixing between SF & fantasy drive me bonkers. If you regularly read the genres there is an obvious and huge difference between the two.

The late Anne McCaffrey mixed them a bit in her Pern books.

I blame another Ann, Rice, for starting the emo vampire thing and Stephanie Meyer, of course, for fueling that fad.

The British Being Human is much better than Twilight, IMHO. A hot Irish vampire with black hair? Yes, please.