Humans are imperfect creatures. For starters, our memories are faulty. Our brains are also limited in the amount of facts that can be quickly remembered. It is often convenient to make it easier to remember things by attaching labels to them. We might remember that someone is a bookworm or a gamer, for example, but thereafter we generalize other things about that person. The bookworm is probably anti-social and stays inside and reads a lot, we assume. Or, the gamer spends endless hours in front of their computers driving virtual cars or participating in virtual military missions, we guess. The problem with that sort of stereotyping is that it’s not only an inaccurate generalization, it’s unfair to the person we’re labeling and it limits our own perception of reality.

What does all of this have to do with science fiction and fantasy?

It’s this: the same kind of labeling is done with books in the science fiction and fantasy genres.

It starts on the publishing side. In order for booksellers to sell books, they need to know where to put them. So, publishers will label a book as science fiction, fantasy, mystery, romance, western, general fiction, or whatever other label matches the categorized shelves of bookstores. Genre classification in this case is good: it helps readers find books they’re looking for. If someone is in the mood for science fiction, they’ll walk right up the sf/f section of the bookstore, browse around, find something that strikes their fancy, and go home happy, mission accomplished. There’s no need to waste their time browsing through thousands of other books to satisfy their specific craving.

A potential downside of such labeling is the flip side of that category signpost. By passing up those thousands of other books, the reader is guaranteed to be passing up some outstanding reads. Maybe this is less of a downside for the reader looking for a specific flavor like fantasy, but for a reader looking to pass some time on vacation, the whole bookstore should be open game. Maybe the story they need to pass away the time is a hardboiled mystery or a good old-fashioned western. If they seek science fiction exclusively, those would be missed.

Categorization doesn’t end with the labels that publishers slap onto the backs of books. Readers—and particularly science fiction and fantasy readers—take book labeling to a whole new level in reviews and online discussions. Not content to merely categorize a book with a single label that may commit the crime of being too generalized, genre readers take a sometimes-unhealthy pride in labeling the bejesus out of science fiction and fantasy books. A simple label of “science fiction” of “fantasy” isn’t enough.

Science fiction, you say? Sure. Is it near future or far future? Does it contain space travel and include a spaceship? Great. Is it a space opera involving galactic empires, or a book about colonizing another planet, or does it take place on a generation starship? Colonization, you say? Fine. Is it about the division of that new society into the haves and have-nots, or is it about the hardships of the physical realities of terraforming a new planet with limited resources? The questions are seemingly never-ending. It’s as if you get points for attaching tags to a book to the point where it looks like an over-decorated Christmas tree. “It’s a steampunk space opera with magical vampires!”

Such discussions are fun, of course. Attend a book-centric science fiction convention and be regaled with how people describe the book they’re currently reading with a myriad of labels and unbridled enthusiasm. To be sure, overzealous tagging has its uses. By labeling a book with the tags “science fiction | space colonization | terraforming,” for example, it gives readers something to hold onto when assessing a newly discovered book. They can equate this new story with their experience reading similarly labelled stories. “If I liked that, then I’ll probably like this.” Labels are the beacons that exist between books and readers on their literary travels.

The danger comes when we use those beacons as warning lights. That is, when we use the labels to apply the stereotypes associated with them. Consider a mainstream fiction reader who thinks science fiction is only about rocket ships and ray guns and not worth their time. Someone who detested even the idea of science fiction would avoid Maragaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale even if it would have been one of the best books they’ve ever read. That’s one reason why publishers sometimes “cheat” by labeling a science fiction book as mainstream fiction: to help it find a new and wider audience. But publishers usually avoid specific labels altogether. For a reader who usually avoids science fiction but is still open to the idea of reading it, a specific label of “space colonization” is a death knell.

Thus, genre labeling is both a blessing and a trap. It’s good in that it helps match readers with books, but it’s dangerous in that it might also separate them. It’s good that it helps readers satisfy a specific appetite, but it also creates a division in the minds of readers less open to broadening their readerly horizons. The additional danger there is that it renders writers on the other side of that divide as invisible, even if they would otherwise turn out to be someone’s favorite author.

So, how do we avoid the genre labeling trap? Simple. Don’t stereotype books by their genre labels. Keep an open mind. Read far and wide in and outside any genres you may prefer. By reading from a more diverse set of stories, we squeeze that much more enjoyment out of reading. Isn’t that one of the main reasons we read fiction anyway?

Science Fiction/Fantasy correspondent John DeNardo is the founding editor of SF Signal, a Hugo Award-winning blog. Follow him on Twitter @sfsignal.