|
Charlie Stross
02-22-2002
06:24 PM ET (US)
|
I read this article, then checked here, and saw Chris Smith's posting which said "it's much easier to invent the future when you hate both the present and the past."
YES!
Sorry guys, got to run. Sod navel gazing, it's time to go build a better future.
-- Charlie "born a century too early" Stross
|
|
Martin Wisse
02-22-2002
05:28 AM ET (US)
|
The short story market of sf magazines is increasingly irrelevant. It's no wonder stories written for them are so pessimistic.
It seems to me science fiction is going belately through the same metamorphosis other branches of literature went through
half a century ago: from a short story dominated genre to a
novel orientated genre.
|
|
Stefan Jones
02-22-2002
02:28 AM ET (US)
|
Z: I occasionally get really down about what yer talking about. BUT . . .
While the RATIO of (media drek) : (good stuff) is very high, there is still quite a lot of (good stuff) in SF. There are a lot of good authors out there.
Anyway, you're talking about an entirely different problem. The short story market the article tackles isn't much like the chain-bookstore-novel market.
|
|
z
02-22-2002
01:02 AM ET (US)
|
The future's got nothing to do with it. The problem is the lack of new sci-fi that's actually worth reading. Go to your average chain bookstore, the shelves are filled with mostly poorly written series junk, reprinted classics and little else. The publishers aren't interested in anything that won't take off instantly. That's fine, but they're killing off their own reader base. Also the fact that sci-fi writers (as the Sterling link proves, though he's far from the first and won't be the last) and readers are a notoriously whiny and bitchy lot, where most think they're far more clever and smart than they actually are (call it the "how dare you not like what I like" problem). This gets on many people's nerves, including mine. Thank God for used bookstores. If it wasn't for them I'd have given up on sci-fi a long time ago. It's cheaper too! Edited 02-22-2002 01:15 AM
|
|
Cory Doctorow
02-21-2002
09:15 PM ET (US)
|
Pat, this is the NYRSF article, reprinted online.
|
Pat York  02-21-2002
09:08 PM ET (US)
|
Funny thing, Judith wrote a very similar article last year, I believe it was in _New York Review of S.F._ She counted the number of stories that were genuine S.F. in the big three and there were damned few. Lot of chat about the article at Worldcon in Philly.
Fwiw, I believe that the Hugos are a closed shop of fannish folk who vote for more or less the same people all the time, Dozois being top among them. How else to explain the constant re-nomination of L.M. Bujold, Connie Willis, Mike Resnick, etc., all wonderful writers but far from the only people doing interesting things.
|
Stefan Jones 02-21-2002
06:25 PM ET (US)
|
There's a group out there, "Readers for the Future," that's trying to get young folks to read SF and keep fandom going. I contributed some web space to it, and certainly wish them well . . . but it could be tough going.
Amazingly precient Bruce Sterling piece on Just This Problem from about 1985:
http://www.io.com/~ftp/usr/shiva/SMOF-BBS/cheap.truth/ct.05
|
Chris Smith 02-21-2002
05:33 PM ET (US)
|
Hmmm. Do I detect a closed society? Her point that 12 of the last 13 Hugo best editor awards have gone to Dozois suggests that the problem is also with the awards. The last woman on earth is going to win all the beauty contests if they don't change their judging criteria. That, to me, calls the basis of the entire article into question. I found this disappointing, because I think the question is valid. It raises thoughts about how SF will move now that it has a Golden Age - 'cause, let's be clear here, it's much easier to invent the future when you hate both the present and the past. The authors are way better equipped than I to comment on the breadth of publishing opportunities available today. (More to the point - they're actually equipped, I'm not) Are there more places to get out SF? I know I've seen the occasional name author with a story in industry-specific trade magazines - not a traditional venue at all. Something like "The Rebranding of Billy Bailey" is - perhaps in a strange, perverse fashion - hopeful about the future. But that ran in Interzone, and thus can't possibly be part of the future of SF - at least based on the criteria in this article. If anything, this strikes me as valid criticism of Dozois and - in part - the Hugos. Edited 02-21-2002 05:35 PM
|
|
Erik V. Olson
02-21-2002
05:14 PM ET (US)
|
Death of /t/h/e/ /I/n/t/e/n/e/t/ SF predicted. News at 11.
|
New Topic
My Topics
Views:
750
(Unique:
400
) / Subscribers:
1 | What's this?
