genre shift
Oct. 2nd, 2011 11:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marycatelliI don't read as much fantasy and sf as I did when I was younger.
Which doesn't mean that I'm reading less. I branched out. History, for instance. But it's not just the desire to research in advance and trying to avoid being trapped by the contemporary scene. There's the little matter of books.
The less you have read in a given genre, the more likely it is that the next writer you happen to happen on will be an established author with half a dozen, or a dozen, or scores of books you have not read. It doesn't stop happening, if only because you do not happen on all new writers for their first book, but more and more often when you find a new good author, the only reaction you can have is: this is a good book; I will have to watch for more books by this author.
And even when you happen on a new author, the most likely reason why you haven't happen on him before is that the libraries in your area don't have the books, and the bookstores don't stock them. (Online helps but even there there is out-of-print. And shipping time.) So you want to read even while you are searching. . .
Which doesn't mean that I'm reading less. I branched out. History, for instance. But it's not just the desire to research in advance and trying to avoid being trapped by the contemporary scene. There's the little matter of books.
The less you have read in a given genre, the more likely it is that the next writer you happen to happen on will be an established author with half a dozen, or a dozen, or scores of books you have not read. It doesn't stop happening, if only because you do not happen on all new writers for their first book, but more and more often when you find a new good author, the only reaction you can have is: this is a good book; I will have to watch for more books by this author.
And even when you happen on a new author, the most likely reason why you haven't happen on him before is that the libraries in your area don't have the books, and the bookstores don't stock them. (Online helps but even there there is out-of-print. And shipping time.) So you want to read even while you are searching. . .