Target Audience?
So I read an article in the New York Times on 8/29/06 about a publisher (Hyperion?) starting a new imprint designed specifically for women in their 30's and 40's. Seeing as how I am I am part of this target demographic, I should be looking forward to this, right? Instead, I was offended by it and I've been thinking about why. Part of it is that I think no matter who you are, you can find a book that suits you (unless you just don't like to read, in which case you're hopeless. What are you doing here?). I have never read what I was "supposed to". When I was a child, I did read Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden-but I liked that they were both fairly strong characters who were not waiting for some guy to help them-they got themselves into jams and they got themselves out of them as well. And I read the Hardy Boys too-I read whatever was in the house, and as I have an older brother and sister and my parents, all of whom liked to read as much as I did...well, there was always plenty of reading material. But my point is that I NEVER read what practically every other girl my age was reading. I read a romance novel once and was bored silly by it-I admit to reading two other romance-style books when I was 13 and while they were somewhat interesting (but certainly not for the plot), they were not my usual choice of reading material. This pretty much set me apart from the people with whom I went to middle school and high school. while the girls were reading Harlequin romances and Seventeen, I was reading John D. MacDonald, Alastair MacLean and Vogue. Needless to say, they thought I was a little strange-but my friends knew my taste in books and they really didn't care. My point is that from a young age, I never read what people "thought" I should be reading. My parents didn't care as long as I was reading what they thought was "appropriate" and to this day I'm not sure what that meant to them. Being the youngest meant that they were too tired to police my reading material and as long as I did well in class and didn't seem to have abnormal tendencies, it was okay with them-although Mom was less than thrilled to find me reading Klute when I was 11-I didn't understand what all the fuss was about.
I think college was really where I let myself read science fiction and horror. These are two genres that really have not been that welcoming to women (and I don't want to hear anything about fantasy. Yes, fantasy has been welcoming to women, especially if they write about fairies and dragons and such. I mean hard science fiction which is a world away from fantasy). College was where I could read about vampires in historical settings (Chelsea Quinn Yarbro), Space Opera (C.S Friedman, who I would like to point out is the rare woman writing this stuff and In Conquest Born was great but The Wilding, as a friend of mine said was good up until the last part when it turned into a train wreck of epic proportions. But I would still recommend the Coldfire Trilogy-I loved it) and a book that is still dear to me-Neuromancer. When I first read Neuromancer, I thought it was the coolest book I had ever read. William Gibson's vision of the internet in 1986 is prescient, fascinating, noir-cool and slightly depressing-things that have my name all over them. And imagine today's internet as a cyberspace you could jack your mind into-how cool is that? Gibson has written some (to me) not very good books since, although I really liked Pattern Recognition, but I will always love him and cut him all sorts of slack for Neuromancer and the X-Files episode he wrote. (as an aside, Gawker has had two X-Files references in the past two days. What's up with that?). College is also when I started reading horror-and for me, horror has to have a supernatural element, otherwise it's just a creepy story. Yes, I read Steven King, and I wasn't impressed. His plots are interesting (and I admit The Shining scared the bejeezus out of me so much that I had to give the book away to my sister because I wanted it out of the house and I did find Gerald's Game very scary) but on the whole his writing is pedestria-so much so that I have hard time overlooking it.
But F. Paul Wilson-there's a storyteller who can really write. The Keep is masterpiece of supernatural horror and is just incredibly, amazingly scary. The Repairman Jack series just gets better and better as it started off as more a thriller and now heads off into the supernatural-great tight writing, strong characterization and a heck of a story.
I do read other books besides science fiction and horror, really! Mysteries and thrillers and memoirs and history-it's all fair game as far as I'm concerned.
The new imprint's target audience for women in their 30's and 40's? It's probably not me.
And I hate chick lit unless there's a vampire or something supernatural in it, in case you can't tell.
More to come about Cold War Noir-if you haven't read Funeral in Berlin you should go do it right now.
I think college was really where I let myself read science fiction and horror. These are two genres that really have not been that welcoming to women (and I don't want to hear anything about fantasy. Yes, fantasy has been welcoming to women, especially if they write about fairies and dragons and such. I mean hard science fiction which is a world away from fantasy). College was where I could read about vampires in historical settings (Chelsea Quinn Yarbro), Space Opera (C.S Friedman, who I would like to point out is the rare woman writing this stuff and In Conquest Born was great but The Wilding, as a friend of mine said was good up until the last part when it turned into a train wreck of epic proportions. But I would still recommend the Coldfire Trilogy-I loved it) and a book that is still dear to me-Neuromancer. When I first read Neuromancer, I thought it was the coolest book I had ever read. William Gibson's vision of the internet in 1986 is prescient, fascinating, noir-cool and slightly depressing-things that have my name all over them. And imagine today's internet as a cyberspace you could jack your mind into-how cool is that? Gibson has written some (to me) not very good books since, although I really liked Pattern Recognition, but I will always love him and cut him all sorts of slack for Neuromancer and the X-Files episode he wrote. (as an aside, Gawker has had two X-Files references in the past two days. What's up with that?). College is also when I started reading horror-and for me, horror has to have a supernatural element, otherwise it's just a creepy story. Yes, I read Steven King, and I wasn't impressed. His plots are interesting (and I admit The Shining scared the bejeezus out of me so much that I had to give the book away to my sister because I wanted it out of the house and I did find Gerald's Game very scary) but on the whole his writing is pedestria-so much so that I have hard time overlooking it.
But F. Paul Wilson-there's a storyteller who can really write. The Keep is masterpiece of supernatural horror and is just incredibly, amazingly scary. The Repairman Jack series just gets better and better as it started off as more a thriller and now heads off into the supernatural-great tight writing, strong characterization and a heck of a story.
I do read other books besides science fiction and horror, really! Mysteries and thrillers and memoirs and history-it's all fair game as far as I'm concerned.
The new imprint's target audience for women in their 30's and 40's? It's probably not me.
And I hate chick lit unless there's a vampire or something supernatural in it, in case you can't tell.
More to come about Cold War Noir-if you haven't read Funeral in Berlin you should go do it right now.
posted by SHbookworm at 8:30 AM
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