Science Fiction and Literature

I'm sure I've made it clear that I love science fiction. If you were to meet me, I think you'd be surprised, because I don't think I look like a science fiction geek as I have a good haircut and care far too much about my clothes. My friend D told me once that he couldn't believe I liked science fiction as much as did-and how did I reconcile that with the love of clothes? I told him that I loved a well-made objects and that I loved both a well written book and a beautiful piece of clothing. he made fun of me for that but the truth is just don't know. I love them both-I just do and there's no way around it. Maybe it's because both appeal to my imagination-fashion sells a fantasy and ideas just as much as a good science fiction (or indeed any really good book) does and maybe that's what I like about both of them. But what has been irritating me lately (although it's a positive thing) is science fiction's move into the mainstream. Everyone is writing a science fiction lately-even Cormac McCarthy just won a Pulitzer Prize for Literature and Oprah picked that same book (The Road) for her book club..so what bothers me? It can;t be called science fiction, because that's apparently the kiss of death and means it's slated only for an audience of teenage boys. So instead it's called "Post-Apocalyptic" or " vision after a nuclear war" or " a fable of the future (this is from a review of The Handmaid's Tale). And what's in the top sellers at Amazon? An Harry Potter book (I keep trying to tell my sister who doesn't like science fiction that this IS science fiction, but she doesn't really listen) and a novel by Michael Chabon about a lost colony of Jews living way out in Alaska. Science fiction has joined the mainstream, but alas, it is the fiction that dare not speak its name.