# Fiction genre that doesn't get enough respect?



## Daniel Harvell (Jun 21, 2013)

I'm curious how certain genres are viewed. Romance, for example, seems to receive a fair amount of disdain, but it's also extremely popular. What genres do you love but don't get the respect they deserve?


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## bhazelgrove (Jul 16, 2013)

Well romance and erotica are the whipping boys. Literary gets all the respect but does not sell nearly as well. So...I guess it is how you want your medicine. I try and keep an open mind about all genres as I don't really read romance or erotica...but a lot of people do.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

bhazelgrove said:


> Well romance and erotica are the whipping boys. Literary gets all the respect but does not sell nearly as well. So...I guess it is how you want your medicine. I try and keep an open mind about all genres as I don't really read romance or erotica...but a lot of people do.


There is whipping involved in some erotica. I think the problem with these two genres is some people get their panties in a twist just knowing that someone said or did the s word.


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## history_lover (Aug 9, 2010)

You mean, what's my guilty pleasure? I don't read them so much anymore but occasionally still enjoy the thrillers that involve history/archaeology Da-Vinci Code style. This sub-genre often gets panned as poorly written fantastical history but I find it entertaining.


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## a_g (Aug 9, 2013)

Westerns. They always seem to be the last child chosen in dodge ball.


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## lmroth12 (Nov 15, 2012)

anderson_gray said:


> Westerns. They always seem to be the last child chosen in dodge ball.


Ah, yes! My dad loved reading Louis L'Amour but also ate the encyclopedia for breakfast in the morning just because he loved to learn new things. Westerns were a way to relax and bring out the adventurous little boy in him. He talked me into reading a few and I actually liked them. They aren't truly one of my favorite genres (although I love visiting the West) but I think they deserve more respect than they get. After all, they are as much a part of our heritage as the works of Mark Twain. Where would America be without the development of the railroad, the hard work of the cowboys and their cattle drives, and the young women who left the comforts of the East to travel to a wild land to teach children how to read and write? And let's not forget the Native Americans and their love of the land and sense of oneness with it. Can you read about two cowboys unwinding over a campfire amid the pine trees and not wish you were there, sprawled on a log and watching the flames crackle? Can you read about the howl of the wolf under a moon so full it hangs above you and not get a shiver down your spine? Can you read of the Sioux or the Apache galloping across the Plains on their magnificent horses or chasing the buffalo and not feel the ground vibrate under your feet as you imagine the impact the earth felt under the pounding of those great beasts? Sigh. Makes me want to go West again!


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## Daniel Harvell (Jun 21, 2013)

I haven't thought about Louis L'Amour novels in years. I used to work at a library in college, and LL was the favorite of one particular older patron. But I think he was the only one!


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

I think the general answer is any genre you like that is not so-called "literary fiction".


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## Hasbeen (Aug 13, 2013)

lmroth12 said:


> Ah, yes! My dad loved reading Louis L'Amour but also ate the encyclopedia for breakfast in the morning just because he loved to learn new things. Westerns were a way to relax and bring out the adventurous little boy in him. He talked me into reading a few and I actually liked them. They aren't truly one of my favorite genres (although I love visiting the West) but I think they deserve more respect than they get. After all, they are as much a part of our heritage as the works of Mark Twain. Where would America be without the development of the railroad, the hard work of the cowboys and their cattle drives, and the young women who left the comforts of the East to travel to a wild land to teach children how to read and write? And let's not forget the Native Americans and their love of the land and sense of oneness with it. Can you read about two cowboys unwinding over a campfire amid the pine trees and not wish you were there, sprawled on a log and watching the flames crackle? Can you read about the howl of the wolf under a moon so full it hangs above you and not get a shiver down your spine? Can you read of the Sioux or the Apache galloping across the Plains on their magnificent horses or chasing the buffalo and not feel the ground vibrate under your feet as you imagine the impact the earth felt under the pounding of those great beasts? Sigh. Makes me want to go West again!


I was an avid reader but never read a Western until one day I was desperate and started a Louis L'Amour. I couldn't put it down. I ended up reading them all and enjoying every one of them. He was a fanatic about research and used old maps and well as trips to sites to assure the accuracy of his scenes. He also collected old letters and books for research so L'Amour was not only entertaining but accurate. I have to agree Westerns were the quick enjoyable reads back in the day. They seem to have been pushed off the radar by sci fi and fantasy for easy and enjoyable reads. They deserve a more respect especially those like L'Amours who tried to make them as accurate as possible.


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## KayL.Wetter (Aug 8, 2013)

I own 5 of my own Louis L'Amour novels and would own more if it weren't for the fact that my uncle has all of them on a book shelf in his old room at my grandparent's house. I grew up with a childhood that seems to be very unique to only a few in my generation. I would go to school talking about some old song or black and white movie I loved and all my friends would give me weird looks. I grew up on old cowboy songs, John Wayne movies, and Louis L'Amour novels. My parents and grandparents are still shocked that I know so much about the generations that came before me. I guess they expected me to grow up being a text happy technical crazed kid, instead they got me. I tell them all the time "You gatta love and appreciate the classics and "old stuff" to really appreciate what we have today in books and media. If it weren't for the one's that came before, we wouldn't have what we do today." 

I guess what I'm trying to say is I agree that Westerns are one of the book groups down at the bottom of the totem pole. Regardless I still love them and some of today's best authors were inspired by the greats that came before them including Louis L'Amour and his westerns.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

I am on either book 16 or 17 of the Louis L'Amour Sackett books.


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## lmroth12 (Nov 15, 2012)

kayL.Wetter said:


> I own 5 of my own Louis L'Amour novels and would own more if it weren't for the fact that my uncle has all of them on a book shelf in his old room at my grandparent's house. I grew up with a childhood that seems to be very unique to only a few in my generation. I would go to school talking about some old song or black and white movie I loved and all my friends would give me weird looks. I grew up on old cowboy songs, John Wayne movies, and Louis L'Amour novels. My parents and grandparents are still shocked that I know so much about the generations that came before me. I guess they expected me to grow up being a text happy technical crazed kid, instead they got me. I tell them all the time "You gatta love and appreciate the classics and "old stuff" to really appreciate what we have today in books and media. If it weren't for the one's that came before, we wouldn't have what we do today."
> 
> I guess what I'm trying to say is I agree that Westerns are one of the book groups down at the bottom of the totem pole. Regardless I still love them and some of today's best authors were inspired by the greats that came before them including Louis L'Amour and his westerns.


Hear, hear. I also love old songs and black and white movies and did even as a teenager. And my mom loved John Wayne movies just as much as my dad loved Louis L'Amour novels. It would be great if someone in today's generation would pick up the pen and write some great Westerns for people to enjoy. But alas! I think the real cause of their demise is not so much that they have been taken over by fantasy and sci-fi as it is that they are very difficult to write about these days with all of the emphasis on being politically correct. After all, what we did to the Native Americans was horrible. I've been to Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and visited Wounded Knee: the scars are still there. Now if someone could write from the perspective of the Native Americans or portray them in a kinder way than perhaps we would see the revival of the Western.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

lmroth12 said:


> Hear, hear. I also love old songs and black and white movies and did even as a teenager. And my mom loved John Wayne movies just as much as my dad loved Louis L'Amour novels. It would be great if someone in today's generation would pick up the pen and write some great Westerns for people to enjoy. But alas! I think the real cause of their demise is not so much that they have been taken over by fantasy and sci-fi as it is that they are very difficult to write about these days with all of the emphasis on being politically correct. After all, what we did to the Native Americans was horrible. I've been to Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and visited Wounded Knee: the scars are still there. Now if someone could write from the perspective of the Native Americans or portray them in a kinder way than perhaps we would see the revival of the Western.


Let me recommend Larry Hill. His Will Cannon series is reminicent of Louis L'Amour. He is on Amazon.


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## DaveinJapan (Jun 20, 2013)

Well, I'd say the genre that I'm focused on seems to be a bit limited, technothriller, in the sense that whenever I mention it to anyone they say "oh, you mean Michael Crighton right?". Well, sure, but that's not the end-all of the genre as far as I'm concerned. I suppose the problem is it's tough to integrate technology into a story without delving into Science Fiction, but that's quite different in my mind somehow (perhaps it's the distance between ourselves and the tech in question that draws the line).


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## lmroth12 (Nov 15, 2012)

cinisajoy said:


> Let me recommend Larry Hill. His Will Cannon series is reminicent of Louis L'Amour. He is on Amazon.


Thanks for the info!


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

lmroth12 said:


> Thanks for the info!


I found him with his Tex Waco series. Tex is a rich guy that goes after bad guys.
It was Oilfield, TX that caught my eye. I live in the oilfield area of Texas so the book caught my eye.
Turns out it was set in the town I do live in.


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## gljones (Nov 6, 2012)

I'm a huge "Sword and Sorcery" fan.  My wife makes fun of me when i read it. How's that for a lack of respect.


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## Ben Finn (Mar 4, 2013)

I agree Westerns...maybe Historical fiction and splatterpunk...the last seems to get allot of traction on movies but not allot of readers? Maybe I am wrong


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

gljones said:


> I'm a huge "Sword and Sorcery" fan. My wife makes fun of me when i read it. How's that for a lack of respect.


You need a new wife that appreciates a good book.


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## gljones (Nov 6, 2012)

cinisajoy said:


> You need a new wife that appreciates a good book.


Yeah but she reads incredibly dry/boring English Mysteries. If I suffered from Insomnia, they would do just the trick. I make fun of her for it, so it's an even trade


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## lmroth12 (Nov 15, 2012)

gljones said:


> Yeah but she reads incredibly dry/boring English Mysteries. If I suffered from Insomnia, they would do just the trick. I make fun of her for it, so it's an even trade


Maybe you could each try the other's genres but with authors who are a little different from the typical. If she like English mysteries she may actually like Mary Stewart's *Legacy* series on King Arthur. It's the deepest Arthurian re-telling that I know of with a lot of actual historical tidbits about the Dark Ages thrown in as well as highly developed characters that the reader wants to know more about. And you may want to try M. M. Kaye, an English author who wrote both mysteries and historical fiction in two _very_ different styles. Her historical fiction is compelling and intense (*The Far Pavilions*, *Dark Side of the Moon*, etc.) but her mysteries were written in her younger days when her husband was in the British Army and they both had quite the adventurous spirit. Every place where he was stationed she diligently researched and then placed a mystery there. They are loaded with humor as she gently pokes fun at the stuffy and snobbish army people she encountered, as well as writes engaging characters who can't help seeing the ridiculous side of just about anything. ("I don't know which was funnier, the crack in the jaw he got from Ruby or the poke in the eye from Amabel!" On describing someone's bizarre sense of dress: "How do you suppose she does it?" "Does what?" "Puts her clothes on. I have a theory that she first covers herself with glue and then crawls under the bed, gathering up fluff as she goes.") There are also overtones of horror in some of her mysteries that you may enjoy as a sword and sorcery fan. Such as the dead man who returned after he was murdered...


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## JGR (May 11, 2013)

Chick Lit gets little or none.


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## Tony Rabig (Oct 11, 2010)

Never got heavily into westerns, but I've read some by Matheson, Parker, McMurtry, and of course Louis L'Amour -- agree that the genre doesn't get much respect and certainly not nearly the amount that the best of it deserves. (And now and then when I'm having delusions of adequacy, I look over the log L'Amour kept of his reading over a year or two -- included at the end of his autobiographical Education of a Wandering Man.)

But then, it often seems to me that genre work doesn't really get "respect" that goes beyond "Well, this isn't really as bad as I thought it would be." And somehow the cream of genre work in almost any category eventually gets the "This really isn't _just_ science fiction, or _just_ horror, or _just_ western, or _just_ mystery, or _just_ romance" treatment, so that the people doling out helpings of respect don't have to admit to liking that kind of thing. Just my impression of things, for what it's worth.


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## MariaESchneider (Aug 1, 2009)

When I worked at the library, those who liked L'Amour also liked Zane Grey.  Dad said L'Amour was better, but he liked them both.  I think most people read Westerns as an afterthought, although a lot of people actually enjoy them.


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## balaspa (Dec 27, 2009)

I agree with almost all of these, but still feel horror does not get the respect that it should. Of course, these days, it's all zombies and sparkly vampires...which doesn't help.


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## Chad Winters (Oct 28, 2008)

balaspa said:


> I agree with almost all of these, but still feel horror does not get the respect that it should. Of course, these days, it's all zombies and sparkly vampires...which doesn't help.


Yeah, at that point it may be getting more respect than it deserves


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## Daniel Harvell (Jun 21, 2013)

Tony Rabig said:


> Never got heavily into westerns, but I've read some by Matheson, Parker, McMurtry, and of course Louis L'Amour -- agree that the genre doesn't get much respect and certainly not nearly the amount that the best of it deserves. (And now and then when I'm having delusions of adequacy, I look over the log L'Amour kept of his reading over a year or two -- included at the end of his autobiographical Education of a Wandering Man.)
> 
> But then, it often seems to me that genre work doesn't really get "respect" that goes beyond "Well, this isn't really as bad as I thought it would be." And somehow the cream of genre work in almost any category eventually gets the "This really isn't _just_ science fiction, or _just_ horror, or _just_ western, or _just_ mystery, or _just_ romance" treatment, so that the people doling out helpings of respect don't have to admit to liking that kind of thing. Just my impression of things, for what it's worth.


You make a good point - there are very few TRUE genre books these days. But hopefully that gives fans of one genre a tastes of another so they have the opportunity to experience a little something different!


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

anderson_gray said:


> Westerns. They always seem to be the last child chosen in dodge ball.


I remember discovering with shock that my London publishers of record, Secker & Warburg, at the time the top literary publishers in London, had a liking for westerns. Actually, some of them were superb novels. Glendon Swarthout, who also wrote excellent thrillers set nearer our time like The eagle and the iron cross, knew how to do his research and integrate and relate it well. These were, besides being superior westerns, superior historical novels, and superior thrillers.

The Shootist was famously filmed with John Wayne, Lauren Bacall and Ron Howard as the boy. Not all superior novels make superior movies, but this was one hell of a superior movie, superbly dignified performances from the stars drawing deep on the good literature of the book. There's a lot more to Swarthout, but you can look him up. Thanks for the reminder.


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

Also, some really fine writers have dabbled in Westerns, or written one or two because the style suited something they wanted to convey. Richard Condon's A Talent for Loving is a tall-tale western story. It's subtitled The Great Cowboy Race. The negative review at the URL is funny: what did that fellow expect from Condon, a very sophisticated but dark American satirist?

Condon looked and dressed, in Savile Row three piece suits, like a senior civil servant or a banker, but he could drop a large table of cynical journalists off their chairs with laughter in only a few phrases. This was odd, as most witty writers in person are rather gloomy.


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## AmishAuthorSicilyYoder (Jun 27, 2013)

I think Westerns don't get as much respect as they used to get. My father watched John Wayne a lot, and the books used to be like the shows, but they have thinned out over the past five years.


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## Tony Richards (Jul 6, 2011)

Horror frequently gets a very bad rap, mostly because when people think of the genre they have in mind 20,000,000 very bad and cheaply-made movies, rather than the written books and stories. Actually, there are some terrific writers in that genre. And they're not all gore and guts either ... more usually, they're psychological.


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## Geoffrey (Jun 20, 2009)

I think that, in general, every genre gets a bad rap from somewhere. We've all seen, heard and/or agreed with the stereotypes. Science Fiction and Fantasy are looked down upon as ray gun and sword fights to thrill 10yo boys. Romance is looked down upon as nothing but bodice rippers to give housewives a thrill - and don't even think about giving respect to things like _50 Shades_ or gay romances .... Westerns are also shoot 'em ups for 10yo boys. Horror is nothing but slasher books for 15yo boys. YA novels are often looked upon as Romance Lite. Literary novels are boring, pretentious and unreadable but the only acceptable thing to read in certain circles. Chick Lit is just silly stuff for women obsessed with their weight and getting a guy - and don't get me started on Lad Lit...

Somewhere there is someone to pooh pooh any genre. There are some genres I prefer over others and in those genres, there are exactly the type of books that others complain about. And, there are brilliant novels that are anything but the stereotype. The same has to hold true for all genres since I've read novels from all of the major genres that were fantastic; I've seen zombie fiction that was cheap and derivative and I've seen some that was brilliantly done.


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## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

Geoffrey said:


> I think that, in general, every genre gets a bad rap from somewhere. .... Somewhere there is someone to pooh pooh any genre.


Good writers write novels, regardless of the genre the novels fits into. One of the reasons I'm so contemptuous of the modern "rule" that writer should pick a genre and stick rigidly to it is examples coming forward from classic times of quality writers writing in more than one genre (Conan Doyle, Buchan and Rider Haggard, spring immediately to mind from my boyhood reading, and nearer our own time Dunnett, Condon, King, even Rowling -- in fact an endless array). Far from not reading these novelists because they genre-hop, I value them for introducing me to new genre. For instance, despite the fact that I shared publishers with them, I would never have read westerns by Glendon Swarthout and Louis L'Amour if I hadn't been introduced to the western as a proper subject for a real novel by Richard Condon.

To Geoffrey's list should be added, "Many people are conditioned by snobbish educations to disdain a large number of genre, but to prefer others." As an example, the novel of suspense or the thriller, once a despised genre in the Age of Leavis at British universities, is today the preferred reading of many dons, and some have even given up the pseudonyms when they write them, so in the last forty years it has become increasingly respectable, further helped by the fact that so many leading critics are in fact thriller writers.


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## Geoffrey (Jun 20, 2009)

"a proper subject for a real novel" .... Thank you, I left that off my list ....


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