Are Fantasy and Sci-fi now mainstream?

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Gambit37
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Are Fantasy and Sci-fi now mainstream?

Post by Gambit37 »

I had a very strange drunken argument last night with a friend, which included me making a comparative observation about Tolkien & Shakespeare. Well that didn't go down well with my friend who laughed me out of town, but that's not important. ;) What intrigued me was the fact that one point I said "Tolkien directly influenced fantasy fiction becoming mainstream." which she said was rubbish and that it was still a geek niche.

So who's right? (Not that I want to score point over her or anything like that, I'm genuinely interested in other perspectives.)
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Re: Are Fantasy and Sci-fi now mainstream?

Post by beowuuf »

The trouble with our electronic world is that it seems to big, and mainstream, and we can connect to more geeks, and yet it is still not fully accepted.

I think sci-fi and fantasy are far more accepted, because people don't really define some thigns as fantasy.

One of my collegues at work, who has no interest in geeky things, has just bought the LOTR trilogy to watch. Not saying he'll like it, just saying he's actually goign to watch it.

The new Star Trek film, I think, was more accepted.

I don't know, you can still just atlk football or other sports and almost be guaranteed to hit up a conversation i na mixed crowd, whereas it's rarer to be able to to that with certain sci-fi and fantasy shows.

However, I do think that the gap is getting smaller. Certainly, to a degree you can talk computer games and social computers with many, many more people. It's far easier to consume tv and film. I think sci fi and fantasy, genres that have been strong and have expanded in scope (as opposed to say period drama, westerns, swashbucklers, etc that have clung on but not exploded and stayed in the conscious) are definitely wormign their way in. Both are about expanding the mind, instead of simply exploring the 'what is'.
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Re: Are Fantasy and Sci-fi now mainstream?

Post by Roquen »

What media are talking about? If books, then I'd say that reading is the "niche" market. Going by shelf space in large bookstores, both seem to command a respectable volume of space. Jules Verne is the second most translated fiction (after Christie) and when the originals were released in serial, many countries had people waiting at the docks for the next installment to come.

As an aside: The real problem (IMHO) with fantasy fiction is that virtually all of it is written to pre to early teens.
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Re: Are Fantasy and Sci-fi now mainstream?

Post by Gambit37 »

I'm referring to both books and film. I'd agree that there is a perception problem with many people thinking it's all for kids.
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Jan
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Re: Are Fantasy and Sci-fi now mainstream?

Post by Jan »

I've been thinking about this a lot, but it seems that I need to get drunk too to find a solid argument, I mean opinion. :wink:

In the Czech Republic, sci-fi and fantasy was really a small and special genre before 1989, only a few classical books were translated and published. Now, it's definitely more popular and more mainstream. Another interesting feature of our sci-fi and fantasy market is the radical decline in sci-fi and a huge rise of fantasy (and this is not connected only with the LOTR movies, although the films influenced it a lot). Before 1989 it was almost impossible to find a good fantasy book here (except The Hobbit - as far as I remember, even the LOTR was not officialy translated to Czech and published here before 1989, so all the editions were unofficial and kind of illegal), whereas there were much more very good Czech, British, American, Polish and Russian sci-fi books here. Now, the situation is totally different, fantasy occupies the market - and, as Roquen mentioned this is not only Tolkien, Pratchett or CS Lewis etc., but also a lot of crap.
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Re: Are Fantasy and Sci-fi now mainstream?

Post by Hajo »

Sci fi also changed a lot during the years. Initially it's been technical fiction, and nowadays it's more social fiction. Evolution of society, and problems if it develops in bad ways, are of interest for many people, while the technological fiction was (and I believe still is), only of interest to a few.

The genre of sci fi definitely widened and opened up to themes that more people are interested in, and therefore it became more mainstream.

Sometimes I see the technical old-style sci fi now labeled as "hardcore", which might indicate that tere are still parts of sci fi which only appeal to small groups, and definitely are not mainstream.

Having said that, my personal impression is that Star Trek is not very sci fi, it's just the traditional adventure novel put a few years ahead, and the Star Wars universe is much the same, even with a bigger touch of fairy tale elements. But people call those sci fi, too, and so definitely it became more mainstream.

Fantasy ... you know there always have been fairy tales. There always have beens sagas and myths. Fantasy is just the modern way to take these a step further. So I'd almost say, these were mainstream all the time and still are ;)
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Re: Are Fantasy and Sci-fi now mainstream?

Post by Jan »

Oh, you're most definitely absolutely right, Hajo! And - yeah, I prefer the "hard-core" sci-fi! I've always prefered it! :)
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Re: Are Fantasy and Sci-fi now mainstream?

Post by zoom »

It is a geek niche. Elves dancing on meadows in green tights come to mind.
you get the picture...not real stuff with a slight tint of "stupidness/naivity" put in - compared to sci fi which has a tint/flavour of physics and reasoning in general.
..and it is not if the perspective is this:
you take into account all the parts in films that -for themselves- are constituting fantasy.

x-men, avatar(maybe,not yet seen it), pirates of the carribean, king kong etc.. this increase of convincing fantasy parts in movies is partly due to the greatly improved cgi over the years.(they can and therefore they do).

before the "new" james bond came to theaters, it was getting more and more sci fi influenced (korean ice man=bad guy in a palace built out of ice starring pierce brosnan).
That was a bad move back then in my opinion, since I considered it to be too much fantasy stuff not belonging there.
Sci fi changed a great deal in the past decades, as Hajo noted. to stay with the example, the old james bond fantasy was ok with me, I guess it was more sci fi... the then newer weird extraordinary stuff in the brosnan ones not any more(too fantasy like).

You could say fantasy is being widely known nowadays, sure. Who knows whether it is being really accepted ?
People need some form of dream, often the movies give that and fantasy can provide good (exciting stuff, like dr. jeckyll-or is that sci fi?)
oh well, hope it made some sense..
you could say that Tolkien made fantasy mainstream in a sense that he created a niche maybe.
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Re: Are Fantasy and Sci-fi now mainstream?

Post by Sophia »

Gambit37 wrote:very strange drunken argument
This probably says all that needs to be said. ;)
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Re: Are Fantasy and Sci-fi now mainstream?

Post by Gambit37 »

Quite possibly! The question still stands though -- what's your view on it?
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Re: Are Fantasy and Sci-fi now mainstream?

Post by Sophia »

Gambit37 wrote:Quite possibly! The question still stands though -- what's your view on it?
My view is the not-too-useful statement that it's probably more mainstream than it once was, but not as much as some people might hope. It might still be seen as something for kids because with kids is where it has its most mainstream appeal-- as people get older, a lot of them lose interest.
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Re: Are Fantasy and Sci-fi now mainstream?

Post by Adamo »

Jan wrote:
In the Czech Republic, sci-fi and fantasy was really a small and special genre before 1989, only a few classical books were translated and published.
In Poland we were always strong with fantasy and SF (especially SF). It was quite popular here in 70s or 80s. Today it is otherwise! - there are few good authors, but people doesn`t read them (at least I think so)! Unlike in Czech, in Poland ordinary people doesn`t read almost anything, except hand-book guides like "how to find a (wo)man/become rich in 2 weeks", "The stars are talking - the ultimate horoscope for 2010" or a biography of Princess Diana.
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Re: Are Fantasy and Sci-fi now mainstream?

Post by cowsmanaut »

http://www.keepingthedoor.com/2009/08/2 ... am-or-not/

edit:
http://www.sff.net/people/Amy.sheldon/listcont.htm

also a list of fantasy authors which this person has compiled.. that are reccomended.. so likely not cover all fantasy writers.. but take a moment to absorb just how many there are already here, and then think about the number of people who read each of their books? certainly there would be overlap there, but for me as a fantasy reader, there are many authors I've never read, or even heard of.. so I think you are looking at a VERY large Niche.. I mean come on, as was said in my first link, when you walk into a book store, what are some of the first books you see? Fantasy books. Then when you move to fantasy movies.. look at this list of 10 most expensive movies ever made.. and most of them are fantasy or sci-fi.. tell me who it is that throws that much money at just a "niche" ?

http://thefilmreview.com/featured/ten-e ... 71596.html

and now look at highest grossing films.. harry potter is number 2! only about 2 of these films is not Fantasy or Sci-fi..

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Highest_revenue_films

seriously.. if it's just a nerd niche.. then that niche rules the world and she might want to watch out ;)
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