| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| specfiction |
Posted - 11/14/2006 : 13:01:00
I ran across this blog-forum and found the two entries very interesting. I agree with the second much more than the first. I think pop culture is like a lime-green leisure suit—cool at the time, but has no lasting power. Conversely, a good suit never goes out of style. Because of marketing today, much of the most popular tends are a mile wide and an inch deep. I love it when Jay Leno hits the street and asks seemingly intelligent young people on the streets of NY whether the Earth orbits the moon or visa-versa. Fifty percent don't know the answer—many of the other fifty percent seem unsure even though they got the right answer. So when we start patting ourselves on the back in 2006, and look back to 50's-70's and smirk at how quaint SF was and how irrelevant it is today, I smirk back and have very different thoughts.
Anyway, I thought I'd present this interesting discussion I found:
http://www.huge-entity.com/forum/discussion/215/is-science-fiction-still-relevant/
BTW, If you feel like discussing this on this forum I'd love to hear your thoughts... |
| 2 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| specfiction |
Posted - 04/13/2007 : 08:48:57
Colton, I partially agree with you. And you're certainly right about the fact that the SF readership that the publishing industry has built wants simpler, more fantasy oriented stories. I think that the decline in SF is due, in part, to the audience that was built by tying SF and Fantasy together so strongly--these are very different audiences a lot of the time. If, for example, SF had been more strongly associated with thrillers or mystery and suspense, I think it would be doing a lot better. The biggest draw for fantasy has been the YA audience. They are very powerful, they love buying a series, and their parents will spend whatever it takes to keep them reading. JK Rowling admitted this herself when she said that the success of HP was born by word of mouth in the playground. This is not the same venue as SF.
I think what would fix this problem (for SF writers and potential readers) is to have greater diversity in publishing and in the decision makers that buy and distribute books. In some (very modest way) that's why SFR exists. I'm not against anything--I'd like to see a greater diversity--and it would be better for SF, and would not hurt Fantasy, to see the two part ways in the business context.
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Specfiction |
| colton45 |
Posted - 04/12/2007 : 21:34:09
This article completely justifies my previous post. Thrust in the body of your text a bunch of cyber excrement and then bask in your ability to use your software's thesaurus. Sci-Fi will never die (that should be a bumper sticker on the back of a rusty VW bus). Only the authors die. They're dying, or rather, not being published because of their hyper-complex details and pseudovocabulary. Back off a bit, the flux capacitor worked for everyone! Focus should be on appeal, anotherwords, a good story, and sci-fi will come bounding back like a lost St. Bernard (copious amounts of drool included). |
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