Pieces on Speculative Fiction

The subject is a pet peeve of mine. Andrew Wheeler commented in his blog pretty well on the mixing of romance and fantasy as genres recently. There is an amusing beginning of a paragraph:

Saying that fantasy is still “overwhelmingly dominated by male authors” is true only if you define fantasy very narrowly. Yes, Robert Jordan is the single best-selling recent fantasy writer.

Robert Jordan isn’t even remotely close to being best-selling recent fantasy writer. That title goes to J.K. Rowling. According to Wikipedia, Harry Potter books have sold over 512 million copies.

Is the whole Harry Potter phenomenon moved outside the scope of fantasy? Has it sold too much to be considered fantasy? It seems just so silly that in nearly every discussion about the how fantasy sells, all the talk is about Robert Jordan, Terry Brooks & Goodkind and the kin.

I’m really sorry that I haven’t been able to post that often this week, I’ve been a bit feverish, so haven’t got the energy to write. Also was away for the weekend, so no writing done there either.

Sad news this week for some, Robert Jordan passed away. Apparently the last part of Wheel of Time is still going to be published posthumously. I’m really curious whether some hack picks up the WoT franchise. Haven’t been fan of all that tugging and smoothing in a while.

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J.K. Rowling. It is simply a question of penetration. Seventh Harry Potter book sold over 11 million copies in UK and US in first 24 hours. That is just sick. I understand the appeal that those books have and all the very very clever marketing and full blown merchandising can only be admired or watched with growing horror. Rowling is probably the most important fantasy author of all-time and I there isn’t a rising star in sight who could challenge her.

Reason why Rowling is so important:

Generation of readers looking for more fantasy. This leads to more books published, ie. more good books published.

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