I second Paul Constant’s plea.
At the Coop, “fiction” was on the mezzanine/2nd floor with the cafe and the magazines. Sci-fi, fantasy, romance, graphic novels, and mystery were (are, I presume, though I haven’t been by in a few years now) in the basement with the kids’ books, cooking, humor, and other smallish and oddball categories. The system (Heil B&N!) told us books belonged in Sci-fi/Fantasy, but didn’t tell us which.
As I would explain to new folks, you could usually guess by the cover illustration: Robots or outer space? Sci-fi! Dragons or fancy serif lettering? Fantasy! Serifs in outer space? Fuck if I know. Use it to hit the kid in the corner pilfering comic books. And while you’re at it, see if you can convince him to steal a chess book instead. We have too many of them. It’s becoming a problem.
But the convenient appropriation of “good” SF is such bullshit! I agree with the opinion that adding SF to the general pool of Fiction is the ideal, not only because it would encourage “genre” readers to try “normal” books, but it would help “normal” readers get out of their own rut, usually only interrupted by Oprah-approved (not bad, just publicized in her way) books like The Road. There are just as many, if not more “bad” literary books out there, churned out by misguided English students and the otherwise well-meaning, and I think it’s unfair to ghettoize SF. So until “Literary” loses its normative status, I think it’s perfectly fair to keep SF with the SF, instead of just what the New York Review of Books decides to let into the club.
That all said, the reshelving thing is still sort of an asshole move. But it would make up for the many times I’ve combed the SF section only to find that the book I’m looking for has been appropriated.
