While one can point to any number of cheesy sci-fi, fantasy or horror stories and make snide remarks, these same remarks can be made about any number of cheesy pieces of literary fiction.
Obviously, there’s no reason that speculative fiction should be snubbed. This attitude leads to bizarre developments, such as how Kurt Vonnegut-who is clearly a science fiction author, considering all his writings about Tralfamadorians, timequakes, and more-is not generally regarded by the literary establishment as a writer of science fiction, mainly because the cultural importance of his work means that if they were to admit such a thing, they would also have to acknowledge that sci-fi can be just as significant as literary fiction. There’s this even stranger idea that speculative fiction-call it genre fiction, sci-fi, horror, fantasy, you get the gist-is somehow “lesser” than literary fiction, and thus that it must be looked down upon, and put on a lower shelf.
There’s this strange idea that literary fiction and speculative fiction are in fierce opposition to each other, but in reality, both forms of literature are nothing but different techniques in which to tell a story.
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