Eatsrawfish, interesting note about Roddenberry pitching Star Trek via Wagon Train — I never knew that. That series (ST, not WT) explored every core issue of morality I can think of, and I remain in awe of it and its creator. And when I saw it, it was in reruns every day after school — talk about a massive daily dose of thought-provoking philosphical questions.

Back on subject, sometimes I do find all the genre classifications tiresome. Why do we feel compelled to put art in little boxes? (other than for pure marketing convenience, of course, which, it seems to me, was kind of what Gaboldon’s quote meant — Julie, was it that quote or something else that bugged you, because it didn’t come across to me as a slam on romance. I’ve never read her stuff tho, so can’t comment at all on what “box” it does belong in.)

Sorry to ramble on so long, Diana.

Though Lucas did borrow a good bit from Kurosawa, and if he was making “Japanese Westerns” then it makes sense that they are westerns.

But I do recall when Firefly was coming out and everyone was going on and on about Whedon’s revolutionary “Western in space” I thought to myself that most space sagas were actually Western. They had that same American exploratory kind of vibe. I didn’t even know about Roddenberry and I felt that way about Star Trek.

But then again, when I say “structure” I’m usually talking about plot progression, as opposed tot eh idea of the architectural elements that make up a book. When I call Alien a haunted house story, ti’s because if I left out the details about the nature of the monster and the setting, it has the exact same plot as a haunted house story, right down to the plucky girl in her skivvies who eventually kills the monster.

Julie – I agree with you on Gabaldon. Completely.

Been a while since I looked at the whole Hero w/ a 1,000 Faces stuff though.

I’m stunned by the fact that people didn’t know Dune was a book long before it was that creepy movie (which, btw, I loved, but only because I’d read the book first.) Of course, the book has a character named Leto, so you can see why I’d be attracted. I never read any of the others.

Re: Star Wars. I think it was very much influenced by the western genre, but George Lucas also says he used Campbell and WWII movies as an inspiration. Regardless of the influences the first three movies changed my life.

“When we sold Outlander, the publisher held onto the book for 18 months, trying to figure out what to sell it as. They finally decided that–of all the different classifications the books could fit in–”Romance” was by far the largest single market.”

I’m not fond of labels. But they are a necessary evil. I just try to take them with a grain of salt. But I am only a reader, and not a very deligent one, at that, nothing anywhere near an industry professional