The real reason why science fiction is dying
February 5, 2010 14 Comments
It’s fans too obsessed with the past, too obsessed with a perceived golden age. Every time I’m in the bookstore, I randomly see groups of men wandering the SF/F aisles, ignoring the urban fantasy (and plain old fantasy) and looking for science fiction. What are they looking for? Well, I should be ashamed for eavesdropping, but I’m not. Almost every time I hear them talk, they’re looking for classics.
Heinlien. Asimov. At the latest, Orson Scott Card (but mostly just for Ender’s Game). I don’t see anyone ever looking for something new. Something released in the last 10 or 20 years or so. I would think this was maybe an isolated incident to the city I live in, but I don’t think so. I keep hearing talk of looking for a list of classics to give to newcomers- and you know what? That’s not what we need. We don’t need an SF scholarship. We don’t need newcomers to go to our backlist and read all that crap. We need people buying new stuff, because that’s what keeps the genre going.
This is why SF is spiraling downward in sales. It’s fans just aren’t buying it anymore. I’ve got mixed feelings about this. I love Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, etc. so I don’t mind that it’s popular and selling. But some part of me wonders- is SF meant to be kept in the past? Is that why Steampunk is so popular right now, because it’s an emulation of the past? I’m not sure. But this is a problem.
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Do you think perhaps that is more a reaction to familiar names than to classicism? Sort of how people gravitate towards items that hold mental recognition, and there are certain names in classic SF which are highly recognizable. Perhaps what we need is more fronting placement of SF titles and more advertising to the customer base…
…or more post-apocalyptic bunny ninjas with laser guns.
This is true of comics, literary fiction, poetry, drama, etc.
I suspect the death of all books is happening because of the nationalizing of distribution channels. How are these random folks in bookstores supposed to know they aren’t looking for Heinlein, when there’s no realistic way for a marketing guru a thousand miles away to figure out what kind of book should be pushed as a national blockbuster, for everyone, everywhere?
” Sort of how people gravitate towards items that hold mental recognition, and there are certain names in classic SF which are highly recognizable. Perhaps what we need is more fronting placement of SF titles and more advertising to the customer base…”
Well, from my experience, I don’t think this is the case. I think, just from talking about people who consider themselves SF fans (but not part of the online communities), it’s like they stopped reading new stuff after a certain period. Not on purpose, I don’t think. I just think they stopped looking.
Maybe it’s a zeitgeist of some sort? Certain types of books speak to certain ages, generations, lives? Science Fiction spoke to one crowd, Fantasy (epic) to another, Cyberpunk to another, Urban Fantasy now to another yet new crowd/generation of readers?
It’s an interesting thought.
I think it would be an interesting experiment at some point for you to interrupt these guys and ask something like, “Oh, hey, I heard you talking about SF writers! Have you read the latest Scalzi?” and see how they react. As an experiment. I like experiments.
Excellent idea! I like the cut of you jib, you got moxy!
I wonder, too, if it isn’t because Science Fiction is very rarely radical anymore. There’s room for a new name to make the mark that will put them in the position of Heinlein and Asimov, but who is stepping up to that plate?
I’ll admit to the same folly that you mention here. I typically steer towards older SF authors, but a wider range in other genres. It’s just harder for me to find new SF that I like, without sticking to the big names.
The slow death of the print magazines may be part of the problem too. Most people aren’t getting the solid, in-depth reviews delivered to their mailbox anymore. How many people click on a review online? Is their attention more on the opinions and fiction?
I must be the weird freak of the SF/F community, then. I hardly read any of the classics (with exception to Philip K. Dick and a handful of individual titles thrust upon me in school, in a good way). I’m almost entirely focused on the present…
I think what might help is if more bookstores took up the role of playing recommendation shuffle. “If you like Asimov, you might like X.” That would be a good way of getting folks obsessed with the past to try something from the present. I suppose that’s an incredibly limited method, though, and most stores (the chains) won’t do it because they’re lazy bastards.
I spend a fair amount of time at midwestern SF conventions as part of my job (I’m a special collections librarian that archives SF). I often serve on panels about “what’s new, what’s good, what to read,” and I read widely in prep for those panels as a result.
My experience (which is one set of anecdota, not data): I can rattle off tons of current SF authors doing really interesting things. People don’t perk up (ask for author name spelling, etc.) until they hear something that sounds *just like what they already enjoy reading*.
e.g. I can push Elizabeth Bear’s wonderful SF until I’m blue in the face. No interest. Tobias Buckell. No interest. I can mention John Scalzi. No interest. …until I note that _Old Man’s War_ is Heinlein pastiche. Then they all write it down.
The same holds true for Fantasy, urban fantasy, steampunk, mythpunk, paranormal romance, etc. Only the names of the authors change.
It’s a fine line, but lots of readers seem to want “more of the same, only slightly different,” in my experience.
PS: Most public libraries have “readalike” lists (if you like X, you’ll like Y) if you ask for them.
I think saying its the same thing with Urban Fantasy right now is a bit off…maybe in a year or two, yes, but right now there are so many writers doing so many interesting things with it.
Sure, it has staples and furniture, but all genre does. It’s no more “just like X” than all space opera having space ships and heroes tanned by the light a thousand suns
“e.g. I can push Elizabeth Bear’s wonderful SF until I’m blue in the face. No interest. Tobias Buckell. No interest. I can mention John Scalzi. No interest. …until I note that _Old Man’s War_ is Heinlein pastiche. Then they all write it down.”
Well, that’s a con, and cons are different kinds of readers than I’m talking about. Con go-ers are dyed in the wool fans of genre, and they have no excuse to be ignoring what hot and new.
What I was talking about were casual readers who enjoyed the genre, and have pretty much given up on anything new, and stuck with the past. I guess part of it is nostalgia. And not wanting to go out and discover.
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Science fiction is “dying” for one reason: it is hard. No, I’m not talking about “hard SF” here. I’m talking about fiction where a large part of the story revolves around the idea that things will be different in the future. People don’t like change, and they don’t like to think about change either: it makes them uncomfortable. Combine this with an anti-intellectual culture (that is, contemporary American culture), and it is easy to see why science fiction is “dying.”
Well, Chip, let me sk you somethings….when was the last time you read a current science fiction novel? One by a modern writer, not one from 20, 40, whatever years ago? How active are you in the SF fan community? Are you even aware of it?
Look, this is bullshit, plain and simple. It has nothing to do with the dumbing down of culture. Culture’s been stupid for long time. Science Fiction has never really been about the future or change anyway, has it? If it had, it wouldn’t keep getting it’s perdictions wrong. Science Fiction is all about the present. And it really doesn’t have much to say about that anymore. It’s not “hard”. Never has been “hard”. As a genre of ideas it’s bankrupt, ideas slim and small. Want to read a real genre of ideas? Read beat poets. Read existentialist literature. Read anything but Science Fiction.