Neal Stephenson, this blog’s patron saint, talks about SF culture and mundane culture, and what it means for a book to be genre:

Via Wet Asphalt, who adds that it’s pointless to try to define SF as a certain kind of story. SF is a set of shared cultural traditions.

As Neal Stephenson says, the people who read science fiction overlap with the people who read fantasy, despite these being different kinds of stories. Asking what exactly makes a novel SF is to miss the point – it’s the culture of the readers that matters. Geek culture.

Stephenson says that in a way we’re all geeks now, but that is to water out the word. SF is influential, but geek is still a separate culture. It’s not a narrowly defined culture. There’s no uniform or canon. Anyone who calls themselves a geek is one, and also many who don’t. But there’s still a difference.

There are also geek snobs, people so fed up with being looked down on by cultural snobs that they look down in return. I’m more relaxed. But I still think you’re the poorer for not knowing who Neal Stephenson is.

That reminds me, I should read his newer novels soon. Some day. (Neal Stephenson fans can be recognized by their ambivalence towards him. Anyone who says they love everything he’s ever written is an impostor.)