Goodreads Authors/Readers discussion

Wired has a great article about Kazuo Ishiguro and his genre-crossing novels, namely The Buried Giant and Never Let Me Go. The article points out that many Nobel laureates have written sci-fi and fantasy, but are afraid to talk about it, for fear of getting pegged as, ew, "genre" writers. What do you think? Should
we care as readers?

Kinsuo Ishiguro, best known for his two best-selling novels The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go, both of which were converted into very successful movies of the same titles, has been awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize for Literature.

Mr. Ishiguro was born in Japan, but moved to Great Britain when he was 5-years-old.

Jim wrote: "Kinsuo Ishiguro, best known for his two best-selling novels The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go, both of which were converted into very successful movies of the same titles, has been awarded..."

Thanks for the backgrounder! :)

I speak as a writer of different genres, but I don't care if an author doesn't stick to a genre. As long as the story, characters and writing is good, I'll still enjoy it.

As a reader, I don't care how the genre is labelled, if I think it's sci-fi, then I'm going to openly call it sci-fi.

I do find it a wee bit ridiculous, though, when an author insists that 'no, my novel is not sci-fi/fantasy/romance/whatever (meaning: It's True Literature instead)', but it's painfully obvious that their novel does exhibits enough traits of the reviled genre. If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, smells like a duck, odds are it's not a horse.

Yzabel wrote: "If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, smells like a duck, odds are it's not a horse...."

I would like to point out that the Ugly Duckling was a swan.

I think it’s in the way the book is written. Books that are easily classified by genre, or authors, tend to write in a straightforward, expected manner. Books, or authors, that don’t can be classified as much by genre as by their own merits. Basically, if you think of the book, or author, first, it’s classification doesn’t really matter.