We have a whole thread on whether/why SF is pessimistic floating round these parts. I'm commented-out on that side of it.
The Grossman article I like and I have no big beef with (Except the supermarket quip. Supermarkets don't carry *my* kind of fiction).
Now, SF is my go-to reading; 90% or more. I'll sample anything good that hits me on the head but SF I'll ferret out no matter where it may try to hide.
Picking on Harlan Ellison and the New Wave? A bit dated, I think; that's, what?, three paradigms back? Literally the 60's. Two full generations, for sure. Not what I would consider cutting edge SF. (shrug)
More importantly, SF is too broad a field too be encapsulated by any "movement" or literary fad.
Go back to the height of the New Wave lyrical SF fad and you'll still find Harry Harrison's STAINLESS STEEL RAT and BILL, THE GALACTIC HERO. Or Keith Laumer's RETIEF. The 70's gave us a zillion Tolkien wannabe's but they also gave us Brian Daley's CORAMONDE duo. And the first of the many MYTH-ADVENTURES.
At any point in time you can find hard SF, soft SF, (a bit of) Space Opera, (lots of) Adventure SF. Fantasy, Horror, hybrids. And new variants; cyberpunk, steampunk, alternate histories, superheroes... with more to come.
The good stuff is not hard to find; not least because SF has *always* been about the backlist as much as the new releases.
So, on that front I'll have to beg to differ with the estimable Ms Bear.
From a reader's point of view, the field is doing fine.
And ebooks are just the icing on the cake, opening up the backlist and making it easier to track down neglected jewels from the likes of Chad Oliver, Ward Moore, Zenna Henderson, and all the less-than-highly prolific practitioners of decades past.
We're entering a golden age of availability for the serious student of SF&F.
