I was looking around in Barnes and Noble lately and the Science Fiction / Fantasy section is looking a little sad. Spacewise, it was alright. It took up a roughly 30 foot corridor with books on both sides, but there were a few things that were a little off…
The new book section took up about over a third of that space. That doesn’t sound like a bad thing, but New Books are Displayed, so you get less than half as many books on a shelf. For me, personally, a third of that space was completely wasted as well. At least a third (it might have been more) was devoted to “Trade Paperbacks”. I don’t buy Trade Paperback books. I don’t even know what that means. I buy hard cover books and paperback books. If anyone knows why trade paperbacks exist, please let me know.
Of the remaining space, there were 5 full shelves of Game of Thrones* books. I understand that they are good books, and I would have read them by now except my Brother-in-law stole them from me at our Christmas gift exchange last year. But that’s a lot of shelf space for 5 books. Knock out 4 more shelves for J.R.R Tolkien’s 6 books and you’re really starting to eat into the shelf space.
Books by Frank Herbert: 2. Books by Brian Herbert: 4. If you don’t understand what a travesty this is, ask me when you’re looking to kill a lot of time. Books by Robert Heinlein: 3; Isaac Asimov: 4 (fun fact about the name Isaac: I know that one of the letters is doubled, but I will try all of the other letters before “a”); Gene Wolfe: 1
Those were the ones I checked before I was too depressed to bo on. Those guys have won over 35 Hugo and Nebula awards between them. You’d think maybe they could sell a few books.
On the plus side (I guess), the comic books are off in their own section now, and there’s a new section of the book store called Teen Fantasy/Adventure or Young Adult Fantasy/Adventure or something like that.
*I’m intentionally calling them that in hopes of enraging fans.