RARA-AVIS: Genre Fiction Will Die!

From: DJ-Anonyme@webtv.net
Date: 30 Jun 2008


In yesterday's Washington Post, Jonathan Karp wrote (from "Turning the Page on the Disposable Book": www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ article/2008/06/27/AR2008062702868_pf.html):

"Readers of old-fashioned genre fiction will die off, and the next generation will have so many different entertainment options that it's hard to envision the same level of loyalty to brand-name formula fiction coming off the conveyor belt every year. The novelists who are truly novel will thrive; the rest will struggle."

Genre fiction will die? Say what? Is that why most book stores I know of (all the chains) display genre fiction (mystery, scifi and romance) most prominently? Is that why the places that don't carry many books, like grocery stores, airports, etc, carry almost exclusively genre fiction, mostly romances and thrillers? And the majority of the books in the fiction bestsellers lists in the same day's Post's Book World were genre fiction, featuring such authors as James Patterson, Nora Roberts, Clive Cussler, Janet Evanovich, Lee Child, Jeffery Deaver, etc.

This is not to say some genres might not die (and others might not relace them) or mutate, but genre fiction overall will die? Am I the only one who finds this asertion ridiculous?

And that's not even addressing the assertion that it's the "truly novel" novels that thrive.

Mark



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