Fantasy is alive and well, SF is dying... why?

[Sparrow]

The Fantasy Genre has been on quite a roll and for some time now, while Science Fiction is all but dead. I can rattle off a dozen great books I've read in the last ten years, from Neverwhere to Abarat to The Diamond Age(mostly fantasy) to etc... where is the readership for the new Science Fiction?

YA saved Fantasy, will it save Science Fiction?

 

[clovis-man]

We're still here. And in some cases those of us who read "the new Science Fiction" are the same chaps who have been reading "the old Science Fiction" all along. There are good as well as poor efforts in both SF & F today. And that has always been the case lo these many years. You pays your money and takes your choice.

 

[j d worthington]

I've not read enough of the new sf to be able to judge current quality overall, but I've seen a few things which seemed rather good. And it isn't the first time sf has been said to be dying, or that it has been seen as stagnating, only to have a new movement sweep through and revivify it entirely. The same has been true of fantasy, horror, the mystery and detective fields, etc., etc., etc. All genre fiction, in fact, have such periods of lull and growth. It's in the nature of the beast. I've a strong hunch that this (at worst) is what we're seeing with sf now....

 

[iansales]

If SF is dying, someone should tell Gollancz as they just paid 1 millions Pounds Sterling to Alastair Reynolds to write ten sf novels.

 

[Rodders]

SF isn't dying, if anything i'd argue that it was getting more mainstream.

 

[mygoditsraining]

Tor Editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden On the Future of SF Books - Publishing - io9

io9: Thinking science fictionally, what do you see happening to SF publishing over the next few decades? Will we still have novels? How will we read them?

PNH: In 1991 or 92, I registered tor.com, and it was originally a gopher server. So I don't know what the technologies will be - I didn't know what 2009 would be like in 1989. I could have vaguely predicted io9, but not 4Chan or internet memes.


One thing I'm sure of is that we're going to be in linear immersive narratives that produce the reading trance. We won't be moving towards a "choose your own adventure" thing. People will do those things, but those are different art forms. There's something about immersive text that you can read in order - it's persisted through many technological changes. This fiction stuff works pretty well. It's been around a long time.


I do think immersive fictional texts will continue but it's obvious already that there's competition for people's time. Our competition at Tor Books is BoingBoing or Salon. There's more text online in a week than you could ever process in your life. It puts people into a hyperconsumptive, hungry-for-text state.

 

[Sparrow]

I definitely agree that sf has become more common and "mainstream", thanks to big budget movies, and of course, those dreaded video games. I'm not talking about mainstream entertainment. We can argue that sf has never been more accepted and more available than it is today. But folks aren't buying it in written form, readership is and has been dwindling to almost nothing.

This essay appeared May of 2001, and since then things have only gotten worse.

judithberman.net/sffuture



When was it you last strolled down the sf row at your local Barnes&Noble or Borders? To find dozens of StarWars and StarTrek variants! Two creations which made their debut before many readers were even born are still around, one must think, still making money. When can we call it incest? No, SF has become the crazy uncle you invite to Thanksgiving Dinner only because you feel guilty, and because you have fond memories of him from a very long time ago.

 

[Fried Egg]

Fans of modern SF could quite easiliy rattle off a list of great books they've read in the last ten years I'm sure. Indeed, some say that SF is in a new golden age.

Readership may be falling but is that indicative of a lack of good books? Not necessarilly. All that really tells us is that SF is exploring themes outside of mainstream interest. Perhaps it is going through an innovative phase?

Personally, I can't comment, but I would hesitate to declare that SF is dying unless I had read enough recent SF to judge one way or the other.

 

[Memnoch]

SF literary boom late 70's/80's = Star Wars.

Fantasy boom last decade = Lord of the Rings films and Harry Potter (The 10 year olds that read them originally are 18-20 now and are looking for a more grown up read)

It's the movie trends nowadays that dictate alot of new authors direction, so alot the creative talent is being channelled into the fantasy genre, to jump on the band wagon/cash cow.

Talking of cluttered bookshop shelves. WARHAMMER!!! Sheesh, you can't get to any other books in the Fantasy section without a bookcase full of these. Don't get me wrong I loved Games Workshop in my youth and have a serious soft spot for them, but the saturation level of the books is unreal. I haven't read alot of them, only a handful, yet if it goes down the line of Forgotten Realms for quality then it's a poor representation of the genre we all love.

 

[Fried Egg]

SF literary boom late 70's/80's = Star Wars.

Fantasy boom last decade = Lord of the Rings films and Harry Potter (The 10 year olds that read them originally are 18-20 now and are looking for a more grown up read)

It's the movie trends nowadays that dictate alot of new authors direction, so alot the creative talent is being channelled into the fantasy genre, to jump on the band wagon/cash cow.

I disagree with this view. The SF film industry is doing quite well at the moment with many block busters and have been for a while. That isn't translating into large numbers of literary SF. Nor do I think that the current success of literary fantasy has much to do with the LOTR and Harry Potter movies. I know many people who have read both series merely because they liked the films but haven't read anything else in the genre. They simply assume that these are probably the best the genre has to offer.

Readers of SF were already in decline when Star Wars came out and I don't think the films had much impact on literary SF generally. What was it that J.D. once said? Something about Hollywood being 30 years behind written SF.

 

[mosaix]

...while Science Fiction is all but dead...

Can't agree.

 

[Rodders]

Does anyone have any sales figures? I read somewhere (back in the 90s) that SF and it's associated genres accounted for 14% of book sales.

 

[Sparrow]

Rodders, book sales are notoriously hard to find and when found, are very unreliable or just plain bogus. One thing is for certain, if this is a "golden age" of sf, then we wouldn't want to find out what the dark ages are like. Book sales have been way down across the board for ten years now, and we have to be honest, that trend is unlikely to change.
If not for the Fantasy part of SF & Fantasy I imagine Science Fiction would have been off the map altogether.

I know of nobody in my circle of friends who still reads science fiction, fantasy yes, sf no. It's not as if there isn't wonderfully done sf, it's out there all right, but it's not attracting a very big audience. I wish the current doldrums were part of the natural course of things, unfortunately I think this time around the doldrums are far more profound.

 

[clovis-man]

I know of nobody in my circle of friends who still reads science fiction, fantasy yes, sf no. It's not as if there isn't wonderfully done sf, it's out there all right, but it's not attracting a very big audience. I wish the current doldrums were part of the natural course of things, unfortunately I think this time around the doldrums are far more profound.

No disrespect intended here, but I don't think anecdotal information is the key to determining the viability of SF currently. As you point out, it's possible sales may not be either (although some figures would be interesting). However, just going on the quality of published work out there, I don't see reason for alarm. We have authors like Reynolds, Banks, Hamilton, Asher, Baxter, Bear, Cherryh (to name only a few) who have produced (and continue to produce) excellent work.

Sometimes I think we may fall victim to factionalism within our own fan base. It's the old "Hurray for our side" syndrome. Fantasy aficionados disdaining SF fans & vice versa. If you are a fantasy reader, you may see the universe just through that "filter". If you have no use for SF, you may not feel it really exists in any meaningful way.

I enjoy some fantasy, but readily admit that SF is first and foremost for me. This brings with it a real ignorance of a lot that is good in the fantasy world, I'm sure. But since I only have time to read so much, I tend not to be open to proseletyzing either. My loss, perhaps, but I do recognize that there is a viable genre out there.

 

[Connavar]

Hollywood doesnt prove anything, last year SF films dominated hollywood BO with Films like Wall-E,Transformers,superhero,Day Earth Stood Stil and many more. There was an article that said "Sci-fi" in Hollywood have never dominated as much as now.

Still that wont change the fact that fantasy,crime sell a couple times more than SF. Don't overrate Hollywood impact.

Still SF books can still do better than before in sales. There are certain types of SF that becomes best-sellers. The quality of books hasn't changed much either.

So the fact younger people read more fantasy cause of their fav fantasy movies don't mean anything but the fact SF in Hollywood are never based on famous SF books.

 

[clovis-man]

Not authoritative, but perhaps suggestive:

http://pimpmynovel.blogspot.com/2009/08/genre-specific-sales-part-1-of-8.html

Pimp My Novel: Genre-Specific Sales, Part 4 of 8: Science Fiction

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

I'd have to say almost the opposite is true. While SF may not have a large jump recently, true, old-fashioned fantasy is dying. When was LOTR originally written? Forty years ago or more?

I can't remember the last time I saw a new-as in, copyright of THIS DECADE, fantasy novel that didn't take place in the "real world". Incarnations of Immortality and things like that....I remember seeing one book that took place during WWII, and the only "fantasy" thing about it seemed to be gnomes helping out the Allied forces.

But no, now there's Harry Potter and stuff like that. Can't authors create their own worlds with their own laws and rules anymore?

 

[Ursa major]

I remember seeing one book that took place during WWII, and the only "fantasy" thing about it seemed to be gnomes helping out the Allied forces.

And they would be in the Gnome Guard....


I doubt, say, Bas-Lag could be considered to be a real-world setting, so there are at least three modern fantasy books written in the last decade: Perdido Street Station, The Scar, The Iron Council.


.

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

Well, apparenty those aren't available anywhere around here.

But honestly, taking a look at Harry Potter....a fantasy series that takes place in London?


At least Tolkein and other old time authors had their own worlds, pleasantly devoid of any technology beyond Medieval/Feudal ages.....

 

[Moggle]

The Fantasy Genre has been on quite a roll and for some time now, while Science Fiction is all but dead. I can rattle off a dozen great books I've read in the last ten years, from Neverwhere to Abarat to The Diamond Age(mostly fantasy) to etc... where is the readership for the new Science Fiction?

YA saved Fantasy, will it save Science Fiction?

Well first of all Fantasy encompasses a wide spectrum of storytelling and can reach a wider audience. Scifi is actually very narrow in comparison. It's really not even a fair comparison.