Today science fiction and fantasy books are no longer the reading material of choice for geeks, or people who read White Dwarf or role-players at the weekend. Hollywood productions have focused on this genre and have turned it around.
Since Tolkein wrote Lord of the Rings in the 1940s many works have been constantly influenced by it and produced prolifically. It is only since films like Northern Lights, Harry Potter, and Lord of the Rings, were produced that people have turned to this genre.
The same can be said about SF, which is also tainted by nerds and geeks. It is associated with conventions, such as the Star Trek or comic conventions of old, and can make many people want to avoid the genre. But films like i-Robot the Matrix, i-Robot, inception and Avatar, suddenly science fiction seems a lot more interesting.
The books themselves may be the reason that the genre has a bad or rather sad reputation. Although a literary masterpiece, Tolkein's trilogy is unreadable to a lot of people. It contains excessively detailed and lengthy descriptions, and myriad characters. This means it can be a slow read and not one you would stay up all night to read.
There are also many non-literary offerings which are written very badly with totally unbelievable and bizarre plot lines.
Science fiction books could be described in a similar way; some can have so much scientific detail (for example the electricity descriptions in Frankenstein) that the plot is easily lost, or again they can be poorly written and not believable.
However in this new era new types of science fiction and fantasy books are being introduced so you don't have to read about wizards and goblins or robots and aliens. For example horror has relinquished vampires to the fantasy genre, and writers like Haruki Murakami whilst seemingly writing quite ordinary stories give them a fantastic twist. There are many new worlds to explore, between pages of one of these novels.
Since Tolkein wrote Lord of the Rings in the 1940s many works have been constantly influenced by it and produced prolifically. It is only since films like Northern Lights, Harry Potter, and Lord of the Rings, were produced that people have turned to this genre.
The same can be said about SF, which is also tainted by nerds and geeks. It is associated with conventions, such as the Star Trek or comic conventions of old, and can make many people want to avoid the genre. But films like i-Robot the Matrix, i-Robot, inception and Avatar, suddenly science fiction seems a lot more interesting.
The books themselves may be the reason that the genre has a bad or rather sad reputation. Although a literary masterpiece, Tolkein's trilogy is unreadable to a lot of people. It contains excessively detailed and lengthy descriptions, and myriad characters. This means it can be a slow read and not one you would stay up all night to read.
There are also many non-literary offerings which are written very badly with totally unbelievable and bizarre plot lines.
Science fiction books could be described in a similar way; some can have so much scientific detail (for example the electricity descriptions in Frankenstein) that the plot is easily lost, or again they can be poorly written and not believable.
However in this new era new types of science fiction and fantasy books are being introduced so you don't have to read about wizards and goblins or robots and aliens. For example horror has relinquished vampires to the fantasy genre, and writers like Haruki Murakami whilst seemingly writing quite ordinary stories give them a fantastic twist. There are many new worlds to explore, between pages of one of these novels.
About the Author:
Do you want to get your children away from the television for a time? Maybe you can get them into reading for fun. Books aimed at young adults are numerous as are the quality authors, with the genres of young adult fantasy novels, science fiction and dystopian novels leading the way. One upcoming work like this is the first of the "Save the Pearls" young adult series, "Revealing Eden" written by Victoria Foyt.