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7.
AOTW: In talking to readers about what kinds of books they like, we often hear: "I'll read anything...except fantasy and sci-fiction". Why do you think readers are so reluctant to read fantasy? By the same token, do you think that fantasy is for everyone, or just a select few?
Meredith Ann Pierce: Fantasy is like opera. Good opera is sublime. Bad opera will utterly gag you. The same goes for fantasy. Like any genre, there's lots of good and lots of bad fantasy out there waiting to be read. People who have read one or two works of fantasy and don't want to read any more probably read some bad fantasy and got turned off. People who have never read any fantasy and don't want to read any may have seen some of those excrutiating spoofs of the fantasy genre (in movies, on TV) and mistaken those parodies for the real thing. If all fantasy were like some of the sketches I've seen on comedy anthology shows, who wouldn't be embarrassed to read it? And no, I don't think fantasy is for everyone. Some folks are much more comfortable dealing with stories set in the so-called real world with nothing overtly mythical or magical happening. There is nothing wrong with this. If you're not someone who delights in spinning what-if scenarios endlessly in your head, all the world-building that goes on in a fantasy novel can get very confusing and exhausting. Reading should be fun. Why read what gives you no pleasure? There's a great variety of genres out there to choose from. Find what you like and read it!
Mark L. Williams: Well, again, it may come down to the imagination question. The collective imagination is in grave disrepair right now --- plus, actual reality is scary/overwhelming enough for people, or hard enough for them to make sense of. Perhaps surreal times scare them away from entering fantasy worlds...
Carol Hughes: For the same reason that some refuse to read romance or war stories, some people just don't like fantasy stories. Perhaps they don't like reading about worlds, characters and events that they can't 'recognize' or relate to. Maybe they don't like names that they find difficult to pronounce. But by the same token I reckon the dissenters would, if persuaded to try one, enjoy reading the fantasy classics. I think they would recognize much in those other worlds because the classics are peopled with characters who are very familiar to us. Bilbo Baggins may be a hobbit but his fear of new situations and his longing for a quiet life, are instantly recognizable to all of us.
Tamora Pierce: I'll just say what teachers, librarians, booksellers, and kids' writers already know: sometimes it takes just the right book coming to the right reader at the right time to set her/him on fire for a writer or a genre, whatever the reader's age. Look at the vast numbers who never read fantasy before the advent of Harry Potter.
Patrice Kindl: As I just said, all fiction is fantasy. And the reason why I think readers are often reluctant to read fantasy, the genre, is precisely the concern I voiced above. All too often fantasy can become this cozy little world where life, rather than being strange and eccentric, is mind-numbingly predictable. Events in some fantasies run on well-worn tracks and set characters and situations appear at the expected time. This is because fantasy novels often feed on other fantasy novels, rather than on life.
Many readers like the security of this world, and there is nothing wrong with that. Eventually, however, they are going to require something more intellectually bracing, or else their heads will rot and snap off at the neck.
Sherwood Smith: Well, many think it's simply for kids. Others have read bad ones (there are more bad ones out than good ones, but then that's true of any genre). Also, there are some science fiction books that are good, but require a completely different set of reading protocols than mainstream reading requires: you have to have already mastered lots of concepts that the writer assumes on your part.
Then, there are those who really dislike tales of the never-could-happen. Edmund Wilson was one.
Nancy Springer: I think fantasy and science fiction are frightening to many readers because they are not just entertainment, not like a comfortable mystery novel, for instance, in which the detective is sure to catch the murderer, or a formula romance, in which the couple is sure to get married. Fantasy and science fiction challenge readers' ideas of 'the way things are' by taking them into imaginary worlds where things are very different. Readers who are complacently mainstream may find such speculative fiction upsetting. Readers who like to think, however, are likely to love it.
Nancy Farmer: People don't read fantasy because (a) they don't think adults should play, and (b) because so many fantasy books are clones of each other.
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