Why Do You Read This Crazy Stuff?

[sleigh]

I'm teaching a Lit class looking at SF & Fantasy. How would you explain to those students (most of whom don't actually seem to read the genre) why you read this weird stuff? What is it about sf&f that you love? (Warning: I'm likely to relay your answers to the class -- anonymously, of course!)

Comments

[fireun.livejournal.com]

So many people will wave fantasy reading away as escapism- but honestly many of the times and situations the characters find themselves in I would rather not encounter myself, thank you very much. So it is definitely not that for me.

I think some of what draws me to fantasy and science fiction is seeing how people react to and survive the odds. I read mostly very character driven books, so I am always more interested in how the people make out than the grand plot in general. I read the dark stuff, the stuff that skitters around the edge of horror and flirts with the macab, and I honestly enjoy cheering for the victories even as I twitch and sweat my way through the harder stuff.

I also really enjoy anything where culture meets culture and get to explore each other, and you get a lot of that in both well done science fiction and fantasy.

Hope that helps! I don't think I have ever had to try and determine what it is about the genre as a whole that I enjoy before.

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

I _love_ culture vs. culture!

Love exploring the differences

[slweippert.livejournal.com]

I read Sci-Fi/fantasy for a look at a different world that the characters take as normal. A world where magic is everyday is so different than ours. The restrictions on what you can and can't do when traveling through space compared to my hum-drum drive to the grocery store. The characters have to think and act differently than we do.

[maiac.livejournal.com]

Your comment reminds me of J.R.R. Tolkien's response to critics who derided fairy stories and fantasy as escapism: "Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if, when he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls?"