Warning: I rant about publishing stuff. Note: by SFR I mean ‘Science Fiction Romance’.
In 1992 a well-meaning relative (who knew I loved romantic science fiction and space opera) sent me a new romance novel. I won’t name it or its author: the book spawned a series and the author is still widely published. Fine. The author earned her retirement, but I’m not paying into it.
That book broke me. It was horrible as a romance. The heroine was a doormat, the hero a rapist, the plot cliche and cheesy as any of the other ‘New Romances’ of the early 1990s. As a ‘science-fiction romance’ it was even worse: the author had no concept of physics, chemistry, astronomy or cosmology…and no apparent interest in learning them.
Several other romances around that time convinced me that their authors were similarly clueless. I saw unbelievable differences between them and the contemporary science-fiction writers incorporating romance. The SFF writers knew more about science, and they assumed their audience did, too. Those works were sparkling, witty, swooningly romantic. The actual romances that I read – and I admit I might have missed the good ones – were terrible by comparison.
So I stopped reading original romance for nearly 20 years. I read fanfiction from authors I trusted, and kept to science-fiction and fantasy original commercial work. I didn’t get back to reading romance until I started researching the new M/M romance market in 2011.
Why am I ranting today?
Because romance publishers still haven’t apparently clued in that Science Fiction Romance readers like both science fiction and romance. They keep wanting to ‘dumb-down’ the worldbuilding and SF in SFR books. I’m grateful to Loose Id for their enthusiastic support of my Moro’s Price – I never had a hint of such treatment with my editors. Other publishers are not so bold.
Here’s Heather Massey at The Galaxy Express, giving the groundwork for the latest skirmish.
http://www.thegalaxyexpress.net/2015/05/its-2015-and-one-publisher-is-still.html
Greta van der Rol at Spacefreighters Lounge has her take on it:
http://spacefreighters.blogspot.com/2015/05/you-cant-have-science-fiction-romance.htm
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My snarky answer to this problem: readers need to ante up, too. Readers who love the science and worldbuilding in SFR books need to say that to their favorite publisher. They need to yell it at substandard publishers. They need to avoid authors who haven’t got a clue, instead of just buying more crap because it’s at least in the right genre.
Stop rewarding bad work.
Cate Baum has a wonderful quote from Henry Baum, founder of Self Publishing Review: “It’s not that only the writer has to be talented – the reader has to be talented too.”
I understand guilty pleasures. I’m not saying all romance authors need to pass a Masters course in STEM. But I want to have the choice, dammit.