Robot Overlord with laser pirate sword

I read an interesting article in Guardian about authors who pretty much wrote science-fiction, but refused to acknowledge that what they wrote was, in fact, science-fiction. The story might take place in the future, might explore the effects of apocalyptic events… but there are no lasers or robots. Therefore not sci-fi, right? In a way it’s understandable to refuse to be categorized and keep your doors open to a wider audience, but on the other hand it seems crazy to alienate the readership that is most likely to pick your book up. It reminds me a little of when the Sci Fi Channel changed its name to SyFy to become “less geeky.”

We categorize books to help us go to the right shelf and find the kind of books we like, and it also helps publishers who can market their books to the right audience. Without properly categorized books I would probably have my mom buy me Twilight for Christmas with the explanation “it stood between that George Martin and Elizabeth Moon that you like…”

But there certainly is a negative side to categories as well. For example, you wouldn’t get me to pick up a book from the “Vampire Romance” section even if the author had won the Nobel-price in literature. I shy away from some categories like vampires to garlic (sorry, I’ll stop picking on Twilight now), and I can only expect that normal people do the same. How many readers have George R.R. Martin lost at first glance because it’s filed as “fantasy” and seems to be about dragons?

The very same author also has a view of categories that I read in Dreamsongs: A RRetrospective some time ago. He calls it “the furniture rule”, and it basically boils down to that a work is categorized based on the furniture around it. If your hero is surrounded by dragons, knights and wizards then it’s going to be filed under fantasy. If there are space ships, aliens and lasers then it’s going under science-fiction. Of course nothing is never this clear, because where do you file a book about time travelling knights armed with lasers riding on dragons*? Or a detective wizard in our modern world? Or a western gunslinger in a post-apocalyptic world with strange portals?

I’m getting a magazine from my local fantasy/sci-fi bookstore a few times per year, and at first I was a bit surprised when I saw books there like Conn Iggulden’s historical fiction (I love that genre-name) books about Julius Caesar and Genghis Khan. Yes, it’s certainly not fantasy, but I have read them and I enjoyed them very much. In fact, if you like fantasy this is the kind of books you should also like.

No, let a story be just a story. Instead of only reading books from a certain genre search across the boundaries of categorization and sometimes heed the “if you liked this one…”-advice. Who knows, it just might stand in the Vampire Romance shelf.

* Sadly there is no such story yet. But admit, you would read it.