Pleasure Novels

I was flipping through a Jack McDevitt novel yesterday (Moonfall) and a friend of mine asked what I was reading. I showed him the front cover and he kind of chuckled.

"Pleasure novel?" he asked. It kinda pissed me off. A) because Jack McDevitt is so much more, and B) because the concept of a "pleasure novel" exists in the first place.

Is it a pleasure novel because it doesn't teach us anything about life? Because it doesn't have some societal or philosophical standpoint on which we can base our entire existence? Because it doesn't confront issues of race, gender, or class?

Don't you think that scholars find pleasure in unmasking those messages?

OH SNAP