Reading Jordan’s blog and found a link to this site.
Several of the comments jumped out at me… the typical ewwww….romance…. made a showing. A couple of the comments seemed to be a little tired of the swing seen in SF getting a little more romantic. Hey, that’s cool. I love a good SF book and when I’m in the mood for one, I don’t necessarily want the romance dominating the story. One with a romantic sub-plot well-woven into the story, oh, love that, but taking the story over? Nah. Not if I’m in the mood for SF.
There’s one commenter, Goldfarb, now I really did like his/her viewpoint.
I don’t mind more ‘romance’ in my sci-fi…the best stories are, after all, about relationships…
In my opinion, absolutely right. Now I’m a romance junkie, both I’m also a SF reader, although admittedly I’m more drawn to urban fantasy lately, and I don’t see that changing. But I do love SF. However, I’m picky. I want my SF to be about more about the people than anything else.
And what else is a romance except a story about a couple of people falling in love? Shoot, even most guys get to the point to where they do want to have somebody there with them in the morning, night. Somebody to call for good news, and bad. Or even just to call, so you can hear their voice. Now guys don’t talk about it as much. It’s that ‘relationship’ thing. Or maybe the ’emotion’ thing. But most people, male and female, have an innate desire for that connection to somebody special.
That’s what a romance is about. It’s not about hearts, flowers, lace, white-picket fences and 2.2 kids. Although definitely, if that’s the kind of romance a reader wants, it can certainly be found. But all romances?
It would be like me saying all SF books are nothing but Star Trek or Dune rip-offs, or that every fantasy book every written is just like Lord of the Rings. (I may never get accepted in to the die-hard SF club, because I hated Dune.)
It’s not even about sex, although yes, I expect some of the comments have sprung from the idea that romance is nothing but sex and smut for the bored housewife. (Although daggone it, I’m still trying to find that stereotypical bored housewife that supposedly is the sole buyer of romance according to a lot of non-romance readers).
If it’s the sex and the love that a reader is looking for, it can be found-(waving hand, erotic romance writer here, and quite happy to admit it). But if the sex isn’t something that matters as much to the reader, there’s also plenty of that to choose from.
One of the commenters, Dangrgirl, also had some very well thought out responses.
Ms. Linnea Sinclair chimed in with
I also find it interesting that it’s not emotions that are most objected to in the books. It’s the positive emotion of love. SF books that detail rape, murder, torture, greed, avarice and other fun things are accepted. “Buddy books” are fine. But love…
🙂 Well said. Love-falls into one of those areas where a lot of guys aren’t really comfortable. It’s a softer emotion, no matter who’s feeling the love-male or female.
But guys, they aren’t supposed to have ‘soft’ emotions, right? Except if you think about it, if they didn’t feel that soft emotion, then men really wouldn’t be ‘protectors’, would they? If a man didn’t love his child, would he risk his own life to run into a burning house when he knows the odds are the child is dead, and if he goes in there so is he? If a man didn’t love his wife, would he stand in front of her when a mugger pulls out a knife? That’s strength there, that’s power, it’s bravery. And it arises from love.
There might be other emotions that drive some men to do such things, like honor, or just a need to protect, but most of the time, love is going to be the driving force.
Love will drive a person to do the extraordinary. There is only one other emotion as powerful as love, and that’s hate. Hate shows up in books all the time. I don’t think the actions rising from hate make a guy as uncomfortable. Why? IMO, because it isn’t a ‘soft’ emotion.
I’m all over the place here, I know. 😉 But the general consensus by non-romance readers is that romance is about a) the sex b) mushy love c) both.
But that doesn’t even touch on what a good romance is. If romance boiled down to sex and declarations of love, then I wouldn’t read it either.
It’s more than that. Much more. Try Seraphim by Shelby Reed. Try I See You by Holly Lisle. If you read those and come away with the idea that they are nothing more than smutty sex and mushy love, that’s fine…romance isn’t for you. But don’t make the decision that’s all romance is unless you’ve read a couple.
Romance is slowly becoming more widely read by those who never, ever, ever would have looked at a romance (even though a lot of them have read romances…they were just called something else, like westerns, SF, fantasy…). Yet I often wonder if we’ll ever get to the point to where people stop looking down on the romance genre.
Then I read comments from people like Dangrgirl & Goldfarb and think, hey, it could happen.