God Bless Michael Chabon! When I read his interview in this week’s Entertainment Weekly, I almost wept for joy. (Not that I’m being dramatic or anything…) Here’s just a taste of the good stuff:
Right around the time he was polishing up The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon had a conversion moment. … Chabon suddenly realized he too loved comics (as well as science fiction, detective novels, adventure stories, fantasy, and horror). … “I loved this stuff, and I didn’t have to be ashamed. The world is full of great literature that’s also genre. “
Finally! Authors who want to sell books to people who enjoy reading books are realising that reading for pleasure isn’t a sin and that genre fiction doesn’t have to be synonymous with bad fiction.
It’s taken them long enough to come around to my world of King, Stephenson, Dick and Isaacs.
What, no Womack?
Never heard of her until now. Not a huge fan of most Romance lit, but I do like some Jenny Cruisie and mid-list Tami Hoag.
amen! i have a library of over 600 paper-back novels (the majority of which is sci-fi) that i get “the look” from visitors to my home about on a regular basis. every one of them goes home with a borrowed book if at all possible, to prove that very point… genre fiction doesn’t equate to crappy writing! i’m usually pretty persuasive… with that large of a collection, there’s always something for everyone.
if anyone needs to borrow a book, the lending library is open!
If you look through my bookcases, you’ll find Neil Gaiman’s “Sandman” books right where they belong— Alphabetically between Faulkner and Hemingway.
I tried doing the rest of my comics trade paperbacks alpha by author, but it didn’t work out so hot. Spider-Man in the L for “Lee, Stan” and B for “Bendis, Brian Michael” didn’t make much sense, so I had to set up a section for those. But Gaiman’s “Sandman” and James Robinson’s “Starman” deserve their place among literature.
I was quite an Alan Moore fan (Miracleman and Watchmen, with less love for V for Vendetta and Swamp Thing) because of his experimentations with literary form and his skill at emplotment. After a while, though, I lost the pulse of where the innovation was happening and I had other things on my mind.