The term "sci-fi" is associated with Forest J. Ackerman,
creator of the magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland, who has
promoted the use of the term for the last six decades. In the
1950s, "sci-fi" became identified with bad quality as in the
grade-Z movies Ackerman often ballyhooed. Some top critics
(Damon Knight for one) only used the term sci-fi when
reviewing the most juvenile drek. Within the science fiction
professional world, sci-fi became synonymous with poor
quality.
If you Google "sci-fi + pejorative" you will get more than
30,000 hits and I imagine many more are out there under other
combinations.
I don't feel strongly about it myself but some do. I found a
fairly recent interview with writer Mike Resnick where he
corrected an interviewer's use of the term saying that he was
among the 90% of science fiction writers and editors who
considered it a pejorative.
Richard Moore
--- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, DJ-Anonyme@... wrote:
>
> Richard wrote:
>
> ". . . sorry but the term "Sci-fi" is considered by
some to be a
> pejorative . . ."
>
> I've heard this, but not being much of an SF reader,
I've never
> understood why. I do understand why some might
prefer the label
> Speculative Fiction because Sci Fi is too confining
a term,
leaving out
> many of the subgenres, in much the same way Crime
Fiction is
preferred
> by many over Mysteries (which seem from the inside
to describe
> whodunnits, but not so much whydunnits). However, I
don't
understand
> why it's seen as insulting. Is it thought of as
dismissive?
>
> Mark
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 26 Oct 2007 EDT