Guest Post: Simon Litten & June Young Discuss Their Approach to Reading & Nominating for the Sir Julius Vogel Awards
The Sir Julius Vogel Awards—given by SFFANZ, the Science Fiction & Fantasy Association of New Zealand for achievement in Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror by New Zealanders—are currently open for nomination for works published or released in 2011.
On Thursday, I featured a little about the awards and “how to nominate” here on the blog, including providing links to lists of eligible works in several of the categories, here, and here. And I encouraged all of you to nominate.
But there are people out there, particularly in the SFFANZ community, who do not need any encouragement—they are committed to reading eligible works and nominating those they enjoy, or believe exemplify the genre, in order to ensure a high standard of entrants every year.
Two of those dedicated readers are Simon Litten and June Young, and today I have invited them to guest post here on their personal approach to reading and nominating for the Sir Julius Vogel Awards. In particular, Simon and June have focused their comments around what, in their view as longtime readers and nominaters, makes for good science fiction and fantasy genre, i.e. what they are looking for if they are going to nominate a work.
So without further ado, please welcome Simon and June.
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What Makes For Good Science Fiction and Fantasy Genre?
We are readers of the science fiction and fantasy genre, which is our main choice of literary style. We don’t write fiction and have no desire to do so. We also watch it. Therefore we are end-consumers of the product and consider ourselves fans. As fans we look out for certain things about the genre – what, in our opinions, are the positives that we like in a book? For the purposes of this post, we will restrict our introspection to literary science fiction and fantasy.
One of us is an avid short story reader (anything under novel length) and the other seldom reads short fiction – but we both have similar criteria. For an author new to us that we wish to consider we will attempt to seek out a stand-alone novel, and preferably one that is under 400 pages long, as this should be a good sampler of her or his writing. Neither of us skim read. We both remember what we have read, can process the information content in the writing and relate it to other information in the story. Neither of us has the inclination to reread a book: time is a significant factor, reading something new is much more fun.
We expect to be entertained when reading. A book that has good solid entertainment value can be excused a few faults up to a point. In a novel we want a well imagined world with characters we can empathise if not identify with. We would have said something about “in situations that don’t strain the imagination” and suddenly remembered that as this is science fiction and fantasy that is under discussion! We do expect the story to ring true. The story does not need to be factual, this is after all [science] fiction, but it does need to be internally consistent. If we wanted factual, we’d be reading textbooks.
We will consider trilogies after having tried a single novel, but they had better not be fat books. Most fat books from our reading experience have some sort of short-coming associated with them, whether it is general padding, too much description, too complex a plot, too many characters or too much detail about something – making them boring, meandering stories badly in need of an edit for being oversize.
For short fiction the bar is a lot lower as the world-building, character development and plotting requirements are so much less. For science fiction and fantasy the story just has to be big enough to satisfactorily explore the idea.
We expect the book to be worth the time and money spent. Time (or waste of) is the more important factor as we value our reading time, which is done in our spare time. In New Zealand, a mass market paperback usually costs between NZ$20 to $30. That translates as four to six regular sized lattés or another book.
Even science fiction and fantasy need a basic sort of reality. People and animals need to sleep, eat and take a break. If there is an injury, we would expect it to be mentioned again. If the injury was important enough to make it into the story in the first place then it needs to continue as a bit player for the affected character or exit gracefully. Now we don’t expect full medical details, but we would expect at the minimum some complaints of minor pain or inconvenience. If there is sex, then mention of birth control or potential consequences is not an unreasonable expectation. Characters need to act within the reality of that character or situation. Writing something because it suits the plot but is out of character or does not make sense in the context of the story signals poor imagination or an over-done plot. For both of us the adage “less is more” is almost a truism. We don’t need every scene painted to the last detail, or told how the maguffin works: we have active imaginations to fill in those bits. We believe shorter books do indicate confidence of style and storytelling ability.
An upbeat story helps, though downbeat can have its place. One character should have a chance of making it, even if there are fatalities along the way. People borne into a world gone to pot regard their lives as normal and usually take enjoyment from those lives. For them the world isn’t bleak, it’s as it always is. “Bleak” does not necessarily equal “serious quality literature”. A reader should want to read a book. We feel bleak stories may not have that appeal, especially for teenagers.
Continuity is important. It’s not just characters, it can be animals or objects they are carrying, or not carrying. Where did that “oh-so-convenient something” come from? People do get lucky, but it should not be over-used. We sometimes wonder if some writers forget they have created a society that doesn’t have modern facilities.
There is no need to be really clever. The standard fantasy quest is still a good story if it is well-executed. There is no need to over-dramatise an incident. It may read well at the time, but it can make the follow on scenes later on in the book very hard work in regards credibility, plausibility or believability.
While writing what one knows in science fiction and fantasy can be a tad difficult – who among us has piloted a faster than light craft or can control the weather? – as readers we can spot when an author has no experience with what he or she is writing about: for example, action scenes written by couch potatoes.
Correct spelling and grammar are important. The reading of a story should flow smoothly and not be interrupted by the reader having to decode typographical errors present in the text. Similarly, grammatical errors or ambiguity in a sentence forces a reader to stop, re-read and think about what the author really means. All these are distracting to the delivery of the story.
For us it is the degree and relative impact of these factors that means a book can range from being merely diverting, to worthy of a nomination for an award and maybe sufficiently entertaining to getting the winning vote on the day.
By: June Young and Simon Litten.
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Although as a writer of more Ruben-esque style fiction and a lover of complex plots I am of course quailing before June and Simon’s exacting critique— 🙂 —I think it is clear that they take both the genre and the nominaton process very seriously and as such, like those involved with administration of the Sir Julius Vogel Awards, do both the award and New Zealand created SFF considerable service. I would like to thank both June and Simon very much for sharing their reading preferences and their process here today.
Some really interesting thoughts there. I can’t say I necessarily agree with them all – I’ve read some fabulous fat fantasy that felt as pacy and exciting as shorter books – but as the same time, agree that the things Simon and June mentioned definitely make for good reads.
Am fascinated by the idea of reading a stand-alone book by an author before committing to a trilogy – not a lot of publishers are looking at stand-alones, so I wonder how Simon and June feel about that.
Thanks Helen.
Hi Nicole,
Thanks for taking the time to comment.
I am quite prepare to shop around for a stand-alone book. I will also read books that are a part of a series with the same characters, but are essentially stand-alone stories. If I like one book, I will try to get other books in the same series.
The selection for the end-consumer is pretty good, so there is something for everyone.
I try to trace standalone books by an author, and find the current practice of new author trilogies quite vexing. Have recently read the sixth book in a two trilogy sequence and found that a satisfying way to skip all the dross of the other five books.
As lomg as the author doesn’t rush the idea inherent in the book, and can pare out the padding, then series can work. But the idea and plot story has to be there for it to happen.
Hey, thanks for these thoughts, Simon and June. As a writer of galloping trilogies with complex and occasionally downbeat plotlines, I quail along with Helen, of course… Nevertheless, thank you.
From my perspective, speaking as a fan, what I look for most in SFF is a certain haunting quality of originality, excellent prose and evidence of a high-flying imagination. I really do prefer a slightly flawed book with wonderful characters and an interesting premise to a well-executed but ultimately by-the-numbers potboiler.
A good example of this, if we step outside the world of books, is Battlestar Gallactica. That series had a truly frustrating end and a number of dangling plot threads that made me scream. BUT it was great tv. I’d vote for it anyday over smoother, safer productions.
That’s my two cents! 🙂
An excellent two cents, Mary–thank you for contributing your thoughts. The very best of course is a book with wonderful characters and an interesting premise that is also unflawed and well executed: ‘to the gods, that they may be kind’—& we get to read many such books!
*jingles change* I have plenty of cheap opinions, should you desire more. 😀
Yes, isn’t it a nugget when you find both originality and perfect execution in one package?
Hi Mary,
Thanks for stopping by and making a comment.
Yes – entertaining, original and good execution in the one package would be wonderful.
Two years ago, “The Windup Girl” was one of those books for me in the Hugo Awards lineup–I thought it was ‘one out of the box.’ But of course Paolo Bacigalupi is not a Kiwi author and so ineligible for the Sir Julius Vogel Awards!:)
I find myself very much in agreement with Simon and June. I’ve almost completely given up on reading contemporary SF and fantasy because pretty much everything I pick up seems to be part of an interminable series. When I find SF and fantasy books that *are* stand alone, I fall on them with glad cries of glee. I spend a lot of money on books (I probably spend about $400 a month), but none of it, not a single cent, gets spent on trilogies.
I am perfectly happy to read books in a series if each book is stand alone and if the books can be read in any order with no more than minor spoilers. But if each builds upon the other in 500 page door stopping chunks, then I’m afraid the writer has lost me.
I won’t reiterate the points that Simon and June made. Suffice it to say that I agree with all of them, particularly their plea for verisimilitude. I’d like to thank Simon and June for articulating my own feelings so well.
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-Alan