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I remember when I was in a college English lit class, we read a short story about a woman walking through a garden. I'm not going to remember any details here - it was too long ago. But I remember that I read the story at face value. It was a pretty story abut a garden. When it came time for the class to discuss the story, the professor told us the story was about a woman's sexual awakening, cloaked in metaphor or allegory. (Everything he assigned for reading ended up being about sex one way or another - so I left the class thinking the guy was a bit of a pervert, to be honest.)
But I can see a bunch of college kids reading a simple-seeming story labeled as "literary fiction" about a waitress and looking for the symbolism or metaphor or something "more" than "just a story about a waitress". Give them the same basic story but call it science fiction, and they probably figure "Whew, I can just enjoy the story and not have to work so hard!"
I also agree with others here that have said part of the problem could be what they saw as the type of story (military SF). I like some science fiction, but military SF is not usually high on my favorites list.
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