Brave New Readers

On my constant vigilant hunt for those precious copies of classic sci-fi books slathered with hand painted starscapes and eight legged Saturn Dragons, I am always bemused to find certain SF books filed in with the lit fiction. Notably, Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451. Hmmm. Isn’t Brave New World set in London in 2540 AD? Doesn’t it deal with the social implications of eugenics technology? And, hey, what about, Fahrenheit 451, described by Bradbury as “a story about how television destroys interest in reading literature.”
I’m sure by now there’s a chorus of dissenting comments, echoed remarks out there on the other side of the wire. I conducted a casual survey among friends and other SF heads to sound off on these books. And when asked, “Are they sci-fi?” The answer was a resounding, “Sort of.”
Now before I start making a pedestal case for why we, readers, must sneakily and rebelliously re-shelve these books, I think it would be better to gaze more closely into this rift. Is it because these books are old? Is it because teachers want to assign them to their high school students without fear of threats that they’re turning the minds of their students to mush with their pleasure reading drivel? Are general/lit fiction readers trying to reclaim what they believe is rightfully theirs? Perhaps these are the tokens of a war that is raging. There is that delicious tension in the frictional rifts between genre and “literary” fiction that stirs up in academic circles.
From my investigative survey, I found that many readers said, “Well, Brave New World veers towards general lit because it deals more with social issues than technology, and the same goes for that other one.” That seems like kind of a cheat. After all, what about Asimov’s Foundation series which contains some pretty incredible examples of human political power relationships, or Ender’s Game, which turns up on Air Force reading lists for its interpersonal tactical strategy.

Sure, hard sci-fi, along the lines of Arthur C. Clarke's, 2001: A Space Odyssey or The Forever War, written as Joe Haldemans thesis for the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, is going to give more explicit descriptions of technology, but what about near future SF, like Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash which is set in a future where the U.S. Federal government had been privatized (e.g. General Bob’s Army), and there’s Phillip K. Dick’s Man in the High Castle, which describes the near future if the Axis had won WWII.
Science fiction may have science in it, but ultimately it is fiction and its function leans on the successful development of plot and character. Is it so bold to say that SF readers are looking for great character and plot above scientific explication (or at the very least on par with it)? But maybe that’s the trick, a little closer to home. Genre is more defined by its readership, or its assumed readership. Is it considered more aristocratic to read, say, Lydia Davis than Issac Asimov? Yes. Maybe. Hmmm. That might be another article. Either way, a book isn’t fired out into the void to be discovered like a lucky penny. Readers are a specific set of people, and within that general set are many more specific groups, similar to music audiences. (Does that make J.K. Rowling the Beatles of published fiction??? Perhaps Hemmingway is a little more Indie, say Jack White or The Strokes.) Only a percentage of the population reads, statistically the number of Americans who buy ten or more books in a year is around forty six percent. When you take out cook books, how to’s, and The Secret, the number of fiction readers within that set begins to dwindle. Of this population of readers, the number who consistently purchase books (some might say compulsively, I’m not admitting anything here) is even less still.
There’s a reason most book stores give you thin, clear plastic bags. You’re showing off, you’re part of an elite subset of people who are, at least theoretically, bettering their minds and their vocabularies. Think about that at your next trip to Grissell and Junior’s Market when they wrap your tequila in a black plastic bag.
Here, I’m including the Wikpedia definition of genre fiction because I think it’s more telling than the definition of SF:

Genre fiction, also known as popular fiction, is a term for fictional works (novels, short stories) written with the intent of fitting into a specific literary genre in order to appeal to readers and fans already familiar with that genre.

I think this nails it. Whether a deliberate choice or an unconscious disposition, every author writes for an audience, be it themselves or the entire breadth of Stephen King’s readership. And, ultimately, authors who professionally publish must write for an audience of at least one reader, usually many, at the publishing house who separate the wheat from the chaff, and sometimes vice-versa.
The stages of publishing a book, including building up a catalog of published works and developing a relationship with editors and wider readership, largely defines a book’s genre. Or, more simply, a book’s genre is defined by where it’s shelved when it’s released, and if that shelving changes, along with the audience, then the book subserviently follows, because part of what makes the power of a written work is its reader.
BNW (1931) and Fahrenheit 451 (1951) are not so old that they precede audiences who sought out science and adventure stories. Amazing Stories, the Sci-Fi magazine, launched in 1926 and quickly saw a circulation of 100,000 readers. In fact, Fahrenheit 451 was first published in a shorter form as "The Fireman" in a SF magazine (Galaxy Science Fiction, Vol. 1 No. 5, February 1951). But times have changed, and with them, so has the reading of BNW and 451. One of the things that’s so exciting and frightening about classic SF is that now, many years since the original texts were composed, some of it’s machination have come to life (check out my first post for a nice taste). The harrowing threat of Eugenics supported by the Nazi party became more real and thus the impact of BNW became more powerful after it was published, not to mention its implications about mass production. And what about Fahrenheit 451, whose ominous warning toll still strikes a chord. (Remember when 1984 was automatically recalled from Kindles?)
The text remains the same, but the audiences have changed for these books. The meaning and flavor of these stories has transformed and deepened, daresay like a fine red wine. While Sci-fi is written, marketed, and published to reach an established audience (as all new professional writing must) of dedicated readers, BNW and 451 have a much further reach, appearing in high school reading lists and library recommendation lists. High school reading lists and other introductions to fiction are not replete with Sci-Fi because, let’s admit it, be it for time or interest or what have you, not all readers venture deep into the rich veins of published work. Lucky for them, and for us, SF fans, there is something to draw them there. BNW and 451 wait in the general/lit fiction section, bated hooks bobbing in the water, something to spin new minds and turn them on to the power and insight of great fiction, great Science Fiction.