The 2005 World Science Fiction Convention, Interaction, starts later today in Glasgow, Scotland, and "The Scotsman" has a piece by way of introduction. They interview Vince Docherty, co-chair of the event, and the quotes sound like they could have come from me six years ago: "We're very much about the genre as a whole; most of the focus is on books but you can't separate that from films and TV and gaming. There's still a stigma attached to science fiction or any genre, but science fiction was here long before that and will outlast it." At the start of the article the writer, Andrea Mullaney, states: "Fantasy and sci-fi - or SF, as the touchier fans prefer to describe it - has taken over the mainstream."
Not touchier, Andrea, just more accurate. The term "sci-fi", or "skiffy" as we pronounce it, is used as a derogatory term for the crappy end of the market. The preferred term is "sf" or even "SF" if you're feeling a bit more up-market. And no, I'm not splitting hairs here. "Sci-fi" is a media-generated term. The "sf" abbreviation was around long before the other one came along. Whoever coined it must have thought it sounded a bit like
"hi-fi" or something. And who calls their sound system a "hi-fi" these days anyway? Journos, probably.
[Thanks to Bookslut for "The Scotsman" link.]
