The George RR Martin quote I posted yesterday has struck a nerve and garnered some very, very thoughtful and intelligent comments on both sides of the debate. Please check it out.

Additionally, Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist (where that Martin quote came from) points to this article in the online edition of a North Carolina newspaper, which expounds upon a point that some in the comments thread on my Martin post were making:

In the past 50 years, one form of fiction — mimetic fiction — has tried to pass itself off as the only serious way to write a novel. I use the term “mimetic fiction” — fiction that creates the illusion of reality — because it is a more accurate term than “mainstream fiction” or “literary fiction.” It is important to recognize that mimetic fiction is itself a genre, because if we only value this particular type of writing, what happens to Melville’s white whale, or Kafka’s cockroach, or Garcia Marquez’s village of Macondo?

He promises much more on the topic–keep checking my Google Reader Shared Items near the top of the far right sidebar, which is where you’ll find links as they come in.