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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