Whither Science Fiction?

Books, comics, TV, music
1

I think this article is missing one HUGE demographic issue:

It looks at movies, but mostly ignores the explosion of video games as both a time competitor and an industry which has absorbed the imagination of the future.

Edit- a bigger time competitor is Social Media and Phones. Even kids who were heavy readers growing up were always on TikTok as they got older.

Qt3’ers? Thoughts on the decline of SF (and other genre readership, such as YA, which the article says is shrinking even faster than SF)?

2

If science fiction is in decline, and I have no idea if this is in fact true so I’ll accept the article’s premise on its face for discussion purposes, I would imagine it’s just a cyclical thing. Stuff moves in and out of public favor, maybe it’s time for westerns to get a resurgence, or Victorian bodice-rippers.

3

Heh, I loved the article author’s theory.

We are living in the world John Brunner predicted in Stand on Zanzibar and The Sheep Look Up —one of corporate dominance, political instability and environmental collapse. We are, all of us, in the Torment Nexus. So why would we want to read what future horrors Silicon Valley merchants of human misery are trying to produce next.

And the fact that science fiction readers tend to be heavy readers and are mostly reading other genres right now, like non-fiction and romance/fantasy.

4

Adrian Tchaikovsky is holding up sci-fi by himself. Throw in Ringo and other prolifics and I think we’re in a good spot. What I wonder is whether the general public understands that science fiction isn’t just apocalyptic near-future fiction. Or vampires.

5

I don’t think the article is claiming that good science fiction isn’t being written - that’s clearly not true, there are some great new authors, including some great new women authors like N.K. Jemisen or Becky Chambers. Just that I guess people aren’t really reading much sci-fi anymore.

6

Read the Sun Eater series by Chris Ruocchio and then decide if SciFi is in a decline ( as far as material goes). Good books will eventually find an audience even if it is the generation after the book was written.

I also think that modern readers have more genres such as Sci-Fantasy that they maybe listing their reads under as opposed to an all encompassing one as SciFi. I have seen some younger readers call Dune SciFantasy.

7

I did update my post to include Social Media (plus phones) and the endless scroll as one reason why a generation doesn’t read as much, , including SF. I would hypothesize that this accounts for the fact that YA has had an even more precipitous decline per the article:

the collapse of both the Adult YA reading market (which is in even more dire condition than Science Fiction with the survey cited by the Washington Post showing it being read by just 6% of adult respondents)

8

Mh, kinda feeling it myself - enjoying sci-fi of the more speculative kind requires you to have some investment into the (possible) future, and most of the younger generations are pretty much burnt out. It’s not so much fun watching/reading Mad Max when it’s technically just a slightly edgy take on the world in 20 minutes.

I’d also say that outside of established franchises, sci fi is mostly dead in games. The space sim has for years been in the hands of indie developers (I’m not counting whatever Roberts has been cooking for the last decade as an earnest effort to actually put out a game), the Mass Effect franchise came and went, and the rest of the suspects are the usual evergreen licenses with an established fandom behind it. Like, say, Aliens or Waaaaagh!Hamster 40K.
Sure, there’s the occasional scifi backdrop in games, and certainly, there’s a few good novels as well, but I feel the genre itself is in a lull. Nobody seems too interested in a far flung future anymore, and actual “speculative” science fiction has become kinda hard when technology advances at an uncomfortable pace and threatens to put you out of a job and/or make everything even less enjoyable.

Besides that, there seems to be little optimism left in the genre - the last iterations of the former gay luxury space communism setting were downright cynical takes on the Federation and the Prime Directive.

Besides the intricacies of writing scifi (except for the most wibbly wobbly of sci-fantasy settings, the usual “a wizard did it” just doesn’t cut it if you want to suspend some disbelief), there’s the pesky worldbuilding (one world is NOT enough…), tired tropes (planet of hats, mono-biome planets, eh, basically “Star Wars with the serial numbers more or less filed off”) and those awful politics that a substantial amount of morons people are vehemently opposed to. Doesn’t help that media literacy seem to not-so-slowly go the way of the dodo.

I’d wager that in these shitty times, it’s a LOT easier to sell some good old fantasy escapism, where men are men, dwarves are dwarves, and plots are heroic-yet-predictable and not foiled by the latest advances in technology. Throw in a colourful cast of horny bastards (looking at you here, Baldur’s Gate 3…), and you got a fantasy stew going.

Sure, as a writer, you can see beyond the set dressing and recognize the same themes in a different packaging, but it’s the packaging that sells, not so much the themes contained within.

9

As someone who watches book tube occasionally I think there is a lot of new sci-fi out there. Fantasy does seem to have exploded though with all the YA stuff available.

If anything in the past couple years there has been a changing of the guard in science fiction.

10

the article doesn’t say there isn’t any new stuff, just that people aren’t buying/reading it like they did.

Think back to when Niven/Pournelle books like Footfall were #1 Best Sellers for extended periods.

11

I don’t have any special insight on the market viability of SF, but over in the book thread, I’ve been banging on and on about how we’re currently in a golden age of SF. Given the amount of new work coming out, it seems like there’s enough money there, but I certainly hope it’s not just a bubble or something! I think it’s also worth pointing out that the barrier to entry is probably quite a bit lower than it was back in (what other people call the) golden age of Asimov/Heinlein/etc, when it took more money to print books and get them in front of people.

Re: movies and TV, I’m encouraged by the fact that things like Arrival, Dune, Three-Body Problem, etc, are being made.

12

How long has it been since the Expanse books and series were out there. Look at the adaptations on streaming services now.

I haven’t had any problems finding science fiction books to scratch that itch.

13

My Washington Post subscription just ran out, otherwise I’d do this. Can someone give us a gift link to the article that inspired this article in the first place? I’m wondering if they’re only counting physical books, something like that?

14

Yeah no kidding.

Add in some fantastic new series and writers like Anne Leckie and things feel pretty good as a reader right now.

If anything I’d wager the rise of fantasy romance is the big thing. I know my wife reads, well mostly listens to the audiobook versions of, things like Sarah Maas and series like Fourth Wing. Those seem to be the big money right now.

15

Have you heard how PC gaming is dying?!

16

You meant d0med, right?

17

Done!

https://wapo.st/43YUiUz

18

WTF? According to the article SF is very popular - the third most popular genre among all males, as popular as Thrillers, Literary Fiction, Religion, and Politics - and MORE popular than Romance. Also it’s most popular with Millennials (tied for 4th most popular category in that age bracket).

Oh no, what will they do, catering to a huge demographic that will be reading the genre for another half century.

19

20

Yeah, count me as one of those questioning the starting premise.

From the article in @Pyperkub’s post:

his marks a significant change from the 1980s, a decade in which science fiction novels like Carl Sagan’s Contact and James Kahn’s novelization of Return of the Jedi appeared amongst the bestsellers of any given year. Many of these were adaptations of blockbuster films or were connected to movie projects, but not all, as Contact did quite well on its own merits.

Did the writer read the article they linked to? For many years during the 80’s, there no SF book at all, and only two of those that show up are not film adaptations.

For the 2020’s, the yearly lists consist almost entirely of children books (including young adult). If SF books don’t sell, the reason seems to be that adults no longer read, and when they do they read children’s novels. Those books are heavily based on market trends, so if publishers don’t think SF is trending with the kids right now they won’t get published, or at least not heavily marketed, and the kids won’t read them. That is, if it’s true at all that SF sells less than it used to.

Readers during the SF golden age of the first half of the 20th century lived through a world war, the great depression, the rise of fascism, another world war, the invention of weapons of mass destruction and the start of the cold war. Their present was not that great and the future wasn’t just an idyllic dream waiting to happen.

“a slightly edgy take on the world in 20 minutes” is what Mad Max was when it came out during an energy crisis. Mad Max II was based on the completely plausible at the time future of a nuclear war ending all human civilization.

I honestly don’t understand where folks over the age of 25 get this idea that our world is uniquely dystopian compared to a generation ago.