Thread: Is SF dying?
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Old 02-20-2015, 04:52 AM   #360
Rev. Bob
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Geralt View Post
Maybe my viewpoint is skewed because as a fantasy reader my number one interest is in characters, then comes the world building, and then the plot. But from what I've heard from my fellow fantasy readers a lot of them have the same problem, where SF is too dry, sterile and cold. I tend to agree in general.
Funny thing is, as someone who reads a lot of modern/urban fantasy but still considers himself mainly an SF reader, I feel the same way about epic/high/"traditional" fantasy. Tolkien bores me to tears, even though I was fine watching the movies - just too much poetry and description, plus all the medieval courtly stuff. Same goes for a lot of his spiritual heirs; it just seems like cut-and-paste with the same parties, quests, and murky prophecies.

On the other hand, give me something a little more grounded and I'm all over it. Simon Green's Haven books, Alex Bledsoe's Sword-Edged Blonde, practically any "modern world meets traditional fantasy" book, urban fantasy, comic fantasy... practically anything but capital-F Fantasy.

I've read some dry explore-an-idea SF, but there's some good character-driven stuff out there as well. If you like mil-SF, David Weber's got a big cast in his Honor Harrington books, and I've never found them to be interchangeable faces. Peter David's Star Trek: Excalibur series scratches some of the same itch Joss Whedon's Firefly does: a crew of quirky misfits that manages to get the job done despite all the odds.

If I had to guess, I'd say we're both seeing Sturgeon's Law in action: 90% of everything is crap. (Or more; I think he was an optimist.) The trick is finding that other sliver.
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