Breaking Genre Barriers

[alanajoli]

I just discovered yesterday that the blurring between genres that so mystifies marketing experts and so delights me as a reader can be credited to Philip José Farmer, who died back in February of this year. (I'm doing an obituary writing assignment this week, and among baseball players and actors is SFF writer Farmer.) According to his Los Angeles Times obituary, scholar Gene Wolfe said, "At the time he was writing, people either wrote science fiction, or they would write historical fiction, or they would write fantasy. He mixed everything up, tore down all the barriers."

So, Mr. Farmer, to you I raise a glass. Without you, there might not be urban fantasy. There might not be SF Noir or fantasy chick lit or space westerns. You were the first to get to the genre-crossroads and see that the paths were clear, and that your story could tread down any one of those roads. Here's to you, Mr. Farmer.

Thanks.

Quote: "Imagination is like a muscle. I found out that the more I wrote, the bigger it got." --Philip José Farmer

Comments

[lyster.livejournal.com]

I really need to track down his Riverworld books. He and his daughter also show up as time-traveling police officers in Spider Robinson's hilarious (and deeply felt) Callahan's Place short stories.

[lyster.livejournal.com]

Also, needless to say, Gene Wolf is not just a scholar but a great science fiction writer in his own right -- the man behind the Book of the New Sun, among others. I've never read him but he comes highly recommended.

[alanajoli.livejournal.com]

Oh, gosh, it hadn't occurred to me that that might be the same Gene Wolf! Totally appropriate, if these two Gene Wolfs are, indeed, one and t he same.