Paul Kincaid's final statement on whether SF is "exhausted."

[AE35Unit]

You can't really compare TV and film sci fi to SF in print- its a different media. More entertainment rather than enlightenment.

 

[Nerds_feather]

Some very interesting arguments in here. My own feeling is that SF/F is suffering from "institutional malaise" deriving from the "professionalization" of the short fiction market. Put another way, it's that the expectations of what a "good" short story should be are so ingrained among publishers, editors and authors that authors stop writing "inspired" fiction and instead write "formulaic" fiction, produced in the same way TV writers write episode teleplays or lawyers write legal briefs. The *wink wink, nudge nudge* type of insular, self-referential story that Kincaid complains about, and which has proliferated in recent years, is just one example of SF/F's current malaise.

I don't think this is permanent, and I don't think it's absolute. Instead, it's cyclical, temporary and certainly not true of all short fiction in the genre. Here's a list of 6 recent short stories that I think are really, really good. Another one that spring to mind include "After the Apocalypse" by Maureen Mc Hugh (and actually the whole collection).

 

[Connavar]

Oh, and there are small press anthologies that are good. But they don't get the distribution of the ones published by the major imprints. So very few people know about them.

Those are the SF anthologies i have been looking for because they are hard to find as library books but not too hard for SF reader that wants more than mainstream imprints,the same old SF anthologies. I'm interested in finding less known authors that might be real good.

 

[iansales]

Those are the SF anthologies i have been looking for because they are hard to find as library books but not too hard for SF reader that wants more than mainstream imprints,the same old SF anthologies. I'm interested in finding less known authors that might be real good.

Unfortunately, you're unlikely to find them as library books - especially in Sweden. But a lot of the small presses do publish them as ebooks, so you should be able to get hold of them that way. They're usually cheaper than the paperbacks and hardbacks too.

 

[Steve Jordan]

I agree that his personal boredom means he is the one who's exhausted, not the genre. True, there are exhausted tropes in SF, and at times SF clearly needs to work harder to move beyond those old tropes. But the same is true for most genres... in fact, that's what usually makes them genres.

I think basing his opinion on "best of" lists is his mistake, as those lists (in SF) tend to be pretty typical, trope-rich stuff. And they are typically from recognized names; not a lot of new authors in there. That's a recipe for same-old, same-old.

He... and most of the rest of the industry... needs to look further afield, for the new and unestablished talent that brings the new blood to SF. Innovation will come from tomorrow's authors, not yesterday's.