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<blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 1538549" data-attributes="member: 177">First of all, I think that's not the case.&nbsp; Having become bigger business, the publishing houses have had the resources to go farther afield, and so have dug up a great many fine authors.&nbsp; YMMV.Second - the genre does not have &quot;integrity&quot;.&nbsp; The genre is merely a collection of stories that share in a very vaguely defined set of thematic elements.&nbsp; There is no promise of any integrity in that.&nbsp; This is even more clear when you look at the history of the genre.&nbsp; These days we only read Howard and Leiber, but they had a great many shlock contemporaries, who just don't get reprinted today.&nbsp; The end result is a skewed perception that of old the genre was a fine body of work, and today it is crud.&nbsp; But instead, the reality is that the genre was always crud, on the whole.&nbsp; In any age, if one picked a book at random, oen was liely to be disappointed.&nbsp; That's the integrity of the genre - a promise of mediocrity.Third, if you want to turn things around, is the fact that the old saw, &quot;90% of everything is crud,&quot; is self-fulfilling prophecy.&nbsp; Whatever 10% of the work out there best fits your personal tastes will raise the bar of your personal estimation so that everything else looks weak by comparison.&nbsp; So long as you have personal tastes at all, some large portion of the genre will not meet those tastes.&nbsp; From this perspective, the &quot;integrity of the genre&quot; is merely a confabulation of what aspects of the stories you personally prefer.&nbsp; It has no existence outside your own head.&nbsp; What you find maintains integrity others may find incredibly dull.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Umbran, post: 1538549, member: 177"] First of all, I think that's not the case. Having become bigger business, the publishing houses have had the resources to go farther afield, and so have dug up a great many fine authors. YMMV. Second - the genre does not have "integrity". The genre is merely a collection of stories that share in a very vaguely defined set of thematic elements. There is no promise of any integrity in that. This is even more clear when you look at the history of the genre. These days we only read Howard and Leiber, but they had a great many shlock contemporaries, who just don't get reprinted today. The end result is a skewed perception that of old the genre was a fine body of work, and today it is crud. But instead, the reality is that the genre was always crud, on the whole. In any age, if one picked a book at random, oen was liely to be disappointed. That's the integrity of the genre - a promise of mediocrity. Third, if you want to turn things around, is the fact that the old saw, "90% of everything is crud," is self-fulfilling prophecy. Whatever 10% of the work out there best fits your personal tastes will raise the bar of your personal estimation so that everything else looks weak by comparison. So long as you have personal tastes at all, some large portion of the genre will not meet those tastes. From this perspective, the "integrity of the genre" is merely a confabulation of what aspects of the stories you personally prefer. It has no existence outside your own head. What you find maintains integrity others may find incredibly dull. [/QUOTE]

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