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Science Fiction by Scientists: An Anthology of Short Stories

Science Fiction by Scientists: An Anthology of Short Stories

When it comes to authenticity, probability, and believability, nothing gets by the purists of Science Fiction fandom. The gray area between Fantasy and Science Fiction more often than not lies in the details. So when a collection of works comes out that is penned by those most familiar to the sciences behind these ideas, the authenticity, probability, and believability increases tenfold. Springer…

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Your body is simply a living expression of your point of view about the world.

Carl Frederick

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Fantasy (Fiction) Forward. A truly worthy genre.

The other day, I nonchalantly asked a friend what he was reading (as I often do). He grinned sheepishly and replied, "I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, but I'm reading [A] Game of Thrones." I was a little sad that he felt the need to respond with a cautionary caveat.

It seems that the genre of Fantasy has always struggled to defend itself as worthy of serious literary consideration, and therefore, Fantasy readers and writers often feel a need to distance themselves from the "genre that will not be named." The Mad Magpie had a recent, poignant post about her coming-out-of-the-closet as a Fantasy writer. "My name is Emily and I'm a fantasy writer...You never know who will support it enthusiastically, and who will just smile politely and then privately judge you." The world is full of stereotypes, but it sure seems like Fantasy fans get an exceptionally rough deal, branded as anti-social Dungeons and Dragons-gaming, Klingon-speaking, never-been-kissed computer geeks. 

But for all its hush-hush, dirty-little-secret existence, Fantasy, as a genre, is a proverbial industry GIANT. TheBookSeller.com asserts that mainstream publishers can no longer afford to ignore sci-fi/fantasy projects. Authors are seeing six-figure book deals and selling 30,000 copies in one week. The sales figures are staggering: Twilight series, 116; Chronicles of Narnia, 120 million; Star Wars 160 million; Lord of the Rings (including The Hobbit), 250 million; and, of course, the Harry Potter series tops all the charts with approximately 450 million and growing. Remember The Game of Thrones? A Dance with Dragons--the fifth installment in George R. R. Martin's series A Song of Ice and Fire, of which GoT is the first--sold 298,000 copies (110,000 of which were e-books) in the first few days it was released, making it the fastest selling work of fiction in 2011, and Martin the 10th person to sell 1 million Kindle books. Nothing embarrassing about that.

And it's not just the astronomical demand for Fantasy fiction that's so admirable: Fantasy readers and writers continually blaze the trail and lead the way in publishing trends. They were among the earliest adapters to e-books and predominantly consume literature through e-readers. The 2010 sales for Sci-fi/Fantasy e-books more than tripled those of print. And the genre is the most popular with e-reader users, second only to Crime and Thriller [TheBookSeller.com] George R. R. Martin isn't the only Fantasy author to hit 1 million Kindle books sold: Charlaine Harris, whose series was the basis for "True Blood" also claims that distinction. As the publishing industry races to supply the ever-increasing e-book demand, Fantasy remains at the forefront of that demand: Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series was one of the most requested series for e-book format, until its e-conversion in late 2009.

So now that the rest of the literary pack is catching onto e-books, what's next on Fantasy's horizon? How about interactive e-books? Carl Frederick, theoretical physicist and award-winning writer, has been writing work that can only be appreciated on an e-reader, where readers can click to read the story from either perspective of the main characters. It reminds me of a digital version of the Choose Your Own Adventure series, which grossed 250 million, btw. 

"My hope is that one day it will all just be a question of good strong writing, and not a question of...genre," said The Mad Magpie, looking toward her Fantasy future. I say, given the facts, it's Fantasy fiction forward, baby.