posted
I like Robert J. Sawyer, but in this article about the demise of Science Fiction, I think he's way off.
quote: . . . readers who do make it through science-fiction books appear to have their faith shaken when the predictions don't come true.
Take the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. When Stanley Kubrick's film was released in 1968, it had a vision of the future that included commercial space stations and widespread cryogenics. By the actual year 2001, however, the movie proved to be light-years ahead of available technology.
"Regrettably, with 2001 having a title that had a year in it, science fiction essentially set itself up in the public's imagination as saying: 'Here's what you get if you wait to that year.' Well, we all waited till that year and we didn't get anything at all like that . . .," said Sawyer. "So part of it is that the readership has bailed."
I hereby invite everyone, everywhere, who stopped reading Science Fiction because you felt let down when 2001 turned out to be a work of literary extrapolation instead of a work of prophesy to email me. I have some equally believable "prophecies" to sell you, and you can invest in the stock market based on them.
You want half-baked oversimplified versions of why the genre's sales are slipping?
Here's mine: The genre isn't doing as well, commercially, because it isn't being commercial enough.
They're trying so hard to be accepted by the literary establishment, who long ago proved they had their heads in the sand, that they aren't looking at where they actually succeeded and imitating that.
Ender's Game would sell as well if it was published today as it did when it came out. The kids who buy it today fall just as in love with it as kids did then.
If a book of Harry Potter's appeal and resonance came out that was science fiction instead of fantasy, people would buy it up just as fast.
The sad fact is, and I include myself in this, that we, as science fiction writers, have not done as good a job of drawing in our readers, of taking them to strange places that they want to go to again and again and again.
Is this film's fault? Have the movies, as special effects gotten wilder and wilder, filled the need our books used to fill?
Is this parents fault? Are they not sufficiently teaching their children to love books, by putting books in the kid's hands not to teach them morals, or preach to them, but, as Roald Dahl used to say, for no more reason than to make children fall madly in love with books, so passionately they cling to them through out their lives?
Is this your fault? Because you haven't heard of Victor Vinge or Robert J Sawyer, so who knows if their stuff is good?
Maybe that's some of it. But I'm still getting books pushed into my hands by people who are so excited they just have to share. Kids are still devouring Harry Potter and plunging from Hogwarts off into Narnia and Meg and Charles Wallace's house and Redwall Abbey.
So don't buy it when you're told:
quote: "I would not be encouraging a young person today to be entering science fiction as a profession. I do have a fear that the science-fiction novel is as much an artifact of the 20th century as Victorian literature was of the 19th," said Sawyer. "No matter how hard you yell 'clear' and go for the defibrillator paddle, you still can't get that spark of life going again."
People are still hungry for it, crazy for it, and if you can fill that hunger, they'll reward you for it.
Hence the real insane part of the article:
quote:Sawyer hopes science fiction will continue as a form of sociological commentary, but worries that by 2030, the genre may be a thing of the past, even if its trademarks are gradually being co-opted into the mainstream: Witness Margaret Atwood's Booker Prize-nominated Oryx and Crake, for instance, which dealt with a future world suffering from genetic engineering gone virulently wrong.
What the heck?
Isn't this evidence that the public want science fiction so badly, that it's becoming less cubbyholed and more mainstream? Just because Michael Crichton isn't winning Hugos doesn't mean his career isn't proving how hungry the public is for science fiction.
But again, the sci-fi guys run to Atwood, the lit-fic writer, for validation of their mainstream potential, even though Chricton sells far more copies. Further proof that most of them, in their heart of hearts, would rather be accepted by the literati and the intelligencia than by Joe and Jane Public--what the heck do those two know?
Posts: 1894 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
Well, perhaps SF as a narrowly defined genre is dying out. It seems likely that most novels in the future will feature science as hero.
Just look at prime-time TV. Sure, they get the science so wrong it's hilarious, but that's my point. They are making up fictional science for story effect. This is the essence of science fiction (as the name suggests, "science fiction" is fiction about science;)).
Posts: 100 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
One of my first science fiction books ever was Have Space Suit, Will Travel, which takes place in the 1960s with commercial trips to the moon which are calculated with slide rules.
The fact that it hadn't come true did not bother me.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote:Further proof that most of them, in their heart of hearts, would rather be accepted by the literati and the intelligencia than by Joe and Jane Public--what the heck do those two know?
Well, they sure know that they have bettrr things to spend their time on than reading.
Seriously, why is it a bad thing to want to be read by 'the literati and the intelligencia (sic)'? And why is it a good thing to be liked by Joe and Jane public? I smell unstated, unaxiomatic axioms here.
Posts: 2443 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Science in the latter half of the 20th century got a lot weirder with quantum theory, then string theory, then genetics. If scifi wants to survive (which I believe it is), it has to start attacking these crazy new discoveries, which I think some authors are doing very well. There was a point in time when space travel, relativity, and atomic power were cutting edge and that's what the golden age of scifi had to work with. Now, science fiction can be a lot more pervasive and varied. We don't have to set stories on Mars because we've had such breakthroughs in weird science here on earth.
Just because scifi authors are exploring different worlds doesn't mean the genre is dead. If anything, I think contemporary speculative fiction is even more compelling than the now-formulaic space epic genre. And it's made it mainstream - look at The Matrix and Michael Crichton. I'm not worried in the least.
Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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posted
My understanding is that the genre is doing pretty well, as a whole. Sales are up, are they not? For novels anyway?
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
It is good to be liked by Joe and Jane public because perhaps that is what authors started out to do. To entertain the public, who are the readers. Who cares if your book won a bunch of literary awards if nobody wanted to read it? I'd rather see a book that was created to entertain me and make me think at the same time than a book with little entertainment value that was given the stamp of approval by the literati.
posted
It's hard for me to find value in popularized literature. I try to be democratically minded, but Joe and Jane public like things like CSI and The DaVinci Code and Sex in the City. I can't support the dumbing-down of culture for mass appeal.
On the other hand, there are marvelous works that also end up being immensely popular - The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, This American Life...
There are some authors and artists who can make a lasting popular work, but there are others that I wouldn't like to see try it. I will always adore Borges, but there's no way he'll ever make the best seller list, and I'm glad there's no major motion picture in the works for Ficciones.
Though Oprah's Book Club tackled García Marquez, so who knows? ...
Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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posted
Wait, what exactly is wrong with CSI and Sex in the City, Annie? They've both perfectly servicable programs. Well shot, well acted, well produced.
Posts: 1515 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
not everyone is completely stupid, although most people are. Just because something is popular doesn't mean it has no intellectual value. It could just be that most of the people reading/viewing it aren't getting it.
I get tired of things being devalued because of popularity. If you are an artist, don't you want your song to be popular, a writer your books, an actor your show? Can't you become popular without losing what makes you what you are? Apparently not in the eyes of some people.
It bothers me quite frankly, as an artist trying to put my art out there.
Some of what may be 'wrong' with Sci Fi today is Hollywood. The hacks take a classic and butcher it to the point it no longer resembles the book. So when people see a movie, they think "Oh KEWL!!! That movie was GREAT (When actually it sucked so bad) so I'll read the book. They then find that the book isn't like the movie so they get disappoited and drop reading Sci Fi like a bad habit. Take for example I Robot. I haven't seen this yet but from what I hear from the Pureist, it is NOTHING like the book. Now there ARE exceptions to this theory. LOTR for example. That was a GREAT translation from book to film. But face it, how many books to film stay as true to the book as LOTR? VERY few.
Something else that affects readership. Societies view on 'Sci Fi Fanatics'. Trekkies/Trekkers, people that have fun doing the dressup and acting out at Cons and such are look3ed upon as defectives by society at large. Maybe a little 'touched' so to speak. Hell it don't bother me that folks think I dress funny (that should be dressed since I haven't attended a Con in years) but you get the picture.
Sci Fi is seen as a kids thing. When you grow up, you're supposed to put it away. The 'grownups' just don't realize what they are missing.
Posts: 986 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:It is good to be liked by Joe and Jane public because perhaps that is what authors started out to do.
Nice claim.
Now prove it.
quote:To entertain the public, who are the readers.
People who read John Barth and Thomas Pynchon and David Foster Wallace are no less readers and members of the public than people who read John Grisham and Michael Crichton. There may be fewer of the former than the latter, but what of it?
quote:Who cares if your book won a bunch of literary awards if nobody wanted to read it?
Ha, I like this bit. How about you find me a single winner of the Booker Prize that went on to sell horribly?
quote:I'd rather see a book that was created to entertain me and make me think at the same time than a book with little entertainment value that was given the stamp of approval by the literati.
Everyone wants to read entertaining, thought-provoking books. The thing is that different people find different things entertaining and thought-provoking. Hell, some people found The Matrix thought-provoking ('OMG! What if everything's, like, not real??').
I am not you and you are not me, and dismissing all the people who write books for people like me rather than people like you is no less arrogant coming from your side of the fence than mine.
quote:I get tired of things being devalued because of popularity. If you are an artist, don't you want your song to be popular, a writer your books, an actor your show? Can't you become popular without losing what makes you what you are? Apparently not in the eyes of some people.
It's bleeding obvious that sometimes, for some people, yes, you can't become popular without losing what makes you what you are; it all depends on what 'what makes you what you are' is!
Posts: 2443 | Registered: Apr 2002
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