Is SF dying?

[pdurrant]

I'm surprised no-one's mentioned it already, but clearly the decline in SF all the fault of Lightspeed Magazine and women.

Women Destroy Science Fiction.

And SF is going to continue to decline, because in 2015, Queers Destroy Science Fiction.


Alas, poor Science Fiction.


(For those who don't follow links, the links are to two kickstarter campaigns by Lightspeed magazine for special issues edited and written exclusively by women (2014) and 'queers' (2015). The titles are, of course, tongue-in-cheek. The 2014 issue was very good, and they offer great perks for funding the 2015 kickstarter.)

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Rizla

The detective in The Caves of Steel is human. So it's not sci-fi? It's a detective story incidentally set in a world with robots? The same with the Naked Sun.

CAVES OF STEEL isn't *about* the life of Lije Bailey, it is about the *world* he lives in, its customs, its phobias, its politics. Lije is our viewpoint and entry into that society. The murder mystery is the mechanism he uses to guide us through thst world.

Note how the rest of the books in that "trilogy" focus on other worlds and societies and the detective is again the guide. It's all about the world building.

Nora Roberts' JD ROBB books are focused primarily on the personal life of the detective and on the cases. The setting is just a stage and not the story. Take out the setting and you still have a story and a pretty good one.

Contrast it to Bujold's MOUNTAINS OF MOURNING, where the focus isn't so much on the whodunnit but on the history and culture of the villagers. The setting *is* the heart of the story. Take out the setting and nothing remains.

It's not that hard to figure out.

Edit: BTW, romance SF (as in being about both the ideas and the relationship) is hard to do right but it has been done; Philip Jose Farmer's THE LOVERS, Lois Bujold's A CIVIL CAMPAIGN, and an old obscure book by Donald Barr SPACE RELATIONS. SF mysteries are more common but can be tricky, often the mystery side gets short shrift.

[fjtorres]

Unlike YA or Urban Fantasy or (snicker) "New Adult", SF (like mystery and romance and, yes, erotica) aren't fuzzy marketing labels but rather structurally and thematically defined fields with clear borders. (Fantasy is a whole different creature, though.)

The borders are flexible and mixing and matching is fine but they all have clear guidelines based on what the story is about. A romance might have hot steamy sex or the starcrossed lovers might never touch, but if the story is a romance it has to be about the relationship first and foremost. Action, adventure, even rockets are just stage props around the relationship dance.

Firefly is a great example of SF flexibility: the form of a western melded beautifully with the world building and philosophical a analysis of a well thought out SF story. Individualism vs collectivism playing out in the fringes of an evolving society? Yeah, that's SF. Train robberies and bank jobs were the means of exploring the times and the ethics of the world. And in the end, Whedon made it crystal clear in the movie: "We don't want to tell people what to think, just hie to think." That is what FIREFLY is about. An ideological difference. Ideas front and center, wrapped in good storytelling.

That is what SF is about.
Battling space fleets, robot detectives, plagues and dictatorships, those are just tools to explore the ideas. Take out the ideas or, worse, substitute something else and you end up with a watered down counterfeit.

I'm not talking about new themes, approaches, or protagonists or SF stories that play up non-traditional elements like, say alternate history, or some of the less extreme steampunk, most of those are still explorations of ideas. Well within bounds if executed properly. At worst they might be fantasy (another abused genre) rather than SF.

What I'm concerned with is the outright coopting of SF forms to hide non-SF material in the (misguided) belief it will improve marketability. Heh! SF is one of the smaller genres to start with and many people avoid it like the plague to start with. Flood it with wooden decoys and it'll just send the audience hunting for the backlist.

And that is something we are seeing more and more, especially in tradpub SF. Look to the tradpub SF sellers and they are dominated by long-established authors. Newcomers aren't doing all that well despite the genre's tradition of welcoming new voices and new forms. Some of it is newcomers wisely avoiding the corporate imprints and going indie but there is more going on.

There's a lot of good new SF but it's not all finding an audience...

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by murg

All of Interstellar...

I'll see your Interstellar and raise you a Luc Besson:

LUCY.

I knew it was bad but...
...wow...
I had to see for myself:
Bad science, bad direction, weird cinematography, no characterization...
Even the car chase fell flat.
(Who screws up a car chase?)

And there wasn't even enough action to make it into Michael Bay mindless amusement territory.

Mindless and emotionless; a whole new category.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by pegasi&prefects

I am not a huge Honor Harrington fan, I'm afraid.

I did use to read Women's Press SF books thanks to the local Women's Studies Resource Centre. But I maintain that there is more diversity out there than before, and far more accessibly, which is exactly why Day and his minions are shrieking about the sky falling and SF being killed by women and people of colour.

There is more diversity out there--in every genre and some of that is technology. Some of that is gains made by diversity.

Ursula Le Guin

Octavia Butler

(I would have listed Andre Norton, but she's mostly fantasy so I left her out earlier. I loved her books when I was growing up). I left off Mercedes Lackey and Holly Lisle for the same reason.

And here's a list with some more:

http://flavorwire.com/302318/the-gre...rs-of-all-time

Lest we forget some of those who led the way.

It is true that many men won't read books written by women. It is also true that MANY of the women in my cozy group will NOT read books written by men. "They have tried." They are always "surprised" when they read a good cozy book and then find out it's written by a man. There are a couple of male authors I discovered recently who use initials--to keep the fact that they are men writing cozies a little more subtle.

[Rizla]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

CAVES OF STEEL isn't *about* the life of Lije Bailey, it is about the *world* he lives in, its customs, its phobias, its politics. Lije is our viewpoint and entry into that society. The murder mystery is the mechanism he uses to guide us through thst world.

Sure, but that's not what you said. You said the detective was an android.

And anyway, your above description could be applied to Nalini Singh's psi-changling books. The difference is that a romance is at its heart, though it contains all the other elements.

[Rizla]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

I'll see your Interstellar and raise you a Luc Besson:

LUCY.

Yea Gods. You went to see that? I saw the trailer and knew...

I didn't see Interstellar, but that's because my bladder recoils at three hour movies.

[Quexos]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Because I don't like SF.

Nobody forces you to read SF, even if you don't like it, there is no need to plan a party if/when SF dies. It would not be very nice to those who like SF don't you think?

So promise me NOT to plan a party if SF dies alright?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Rizla

Yea Gods. You went to see that? I saw the trailer and knew...

I didn't see Interstellar, but that's because my bladder recoils at three hour movies.

No, no, I didn't go to see it. Not at theater prices.
I rented it...
(My sister was curious... Scarlett Johansson, after all.)

Still a waste of $2 but I wanted to see the train wreck for myself.
Interstellar is next on that list, followed by Strange Magic.
Without MST around I gotta find bad movies to dissect wherever I can find them. No shortage.



There's stuff to learn from both the very bad and the very good.
Copycat mediocrity is what I don't bother with.

[Rizla]

In that case, I recommend Jupiter Rising. It's looks awful.

But still, we're seeing a lot more SFF movies. I don't think it can only be put down to improved cgi. There just seems to be an increased taste for it. No idea why.

[fjtorres]

It's not that I think the genre actually is dying...
But between the "the book is too good to be SF" and "SF is just a label" memes the genre *is* in danger of losing its limited but hard won respectability, especially with the increased proliferation of luddites and science illiterates in government and media.

I've had lots of good times in the worlds of SF and it... annoys me... to see the hard work of the good ones devalued by association with sloppy wannabes.

Sloppiness is a cardinal sin.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

There were always women writing sci-fi and some very good stuff at that. Elizabeth Moon comes to mind as one I read when I was young. David Webber was writing the Honor Harrington series with a clever female lead since way back when. Sure, there are dominant male names, but the type of fiction one prefers has always been hard to find. I even read sci/fi romance when I was growing up--it was out there. It just wasn't as common as the Harlequin standards. With the internet, it's easier to find the kind of books you like.

Well before that you had such writers and Andre Norton, Anne McCaffry, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Katherine Kurtz and Leigh Brackett, just to name a few and cover the 50's, 60's and 70's. SF&F has always had a strong group of women writers.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

It's not that I think the genre actually is dying...
But between the "the book is too good to be SF" and "SF is just a label" memes the genre *is* in danger of losing its limited but hard won respectability, especially with the increased proliferation of luddites and science illiterates in government and media.

I've had lots of good times in the worlds of SF and it... annoys me... to see the hard work of the good ones devalued by association with sloppy wannabes.

Sloppiness is a cardinal sin.

I think to a certain extent, SF itself has always been defined by a series of strong publishers. I'm using that term more from the stand point of a editorial/publisher, rather than the company behind the imprint. Some of those publishers had some strong, hard rules about what they would publish. You had John W. Campbell Jr, Judy-Lynn del Rey, Donald Wollheim to name a few. Part of the reason the SF&F is so scattered is because starting in the 80's and 90's, there hasn't been that strong editorial presence. Certainly, Jim Baen was a strong editorial presence with a strong influence. But Baen Books was never a big enough publisher to dominate SF&F.

It can be interesting to scan through the Locus Magazine best seller list from month to month to month.

http://www.locusmag.com/Magazine/201...lers-august-2/

[LadyKate]

When I first read Anne McCaffrey's tower and hive series it was Sci Fi... now it seems to be more fantasy/paranormal. I think that the split between SciFi and the sub genres has led to the "statistics" changing.

Perhaps it is the maturing of SciFi into mainstream that has it showing as a reduction... The definition of SciFi seems to have changed. I know that in my library I no longer label my fantasy, paranormal, d&d, steampunk, time travel etc as SciFi.

You know what they say about statistics.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

There is more diversity out there--in every genre and some of that is technology. Some of that is gains made by diversity.

Ursula Le Guin

I think Le Guin is a step backwards. I do not like her writing. Her descriptions are long, drawn out, and boring. Plus a lot of her stories have not a lot going for them.