The View Looking Down
I get cranked up over what I think of as a general state of decay in the field of science fiction these days. I know the doom sayers have been predicting the end of the SF world as we know it since the late 1950’s. I’ll be the first to say the scheduled implosion has yet to arrive.
On the other hand, who here wants to stand up and claim this genre is thriving? Magazine subscriptions at the “Big Three” outlets of short SF–Asimov’s, Analog and Fantasy and Science Fiction–have been dropping steadily for decades and are at historic lows.The intramurals, such as the Nebula and the Hugo, have degenerated to an exercise in cyclical redundency, barely more than a marketing ploy.
I’ve heard famed voices in the industry declare the content is better than it ever has been. There are more good stories than the editors have space to publish them in. If there is any problem, it’s with distribution.
I’ve even heard a panel speaker announce that the field is thriving: 2002 was another banner year, with more new SF titles published than ever before.
I’m not comfortable with the idea that more new titles is the same as a healthy literature. If science fiction is so well off, why is it that everyone I know is an ex-science fiction reader? They still love the field, but the frequent refrain has been “I haven’t read any SF in years. I keep looking, but I can’t find anything new to read. If you hear of something good, let me know.” This, as they hand me a paper bag full of the SF (and fantasy) books that they’ve read in the last six months.
So of course they find “new” books to read. All the time. Tor alone will put out seven new titles every day this year. It’s that they haven’t been able to find anything that strongly gripped their attention, their imagination. These are often people with a thousand-plus SF titles in their personal libraries. These are people who read Dune six times. They love the field. But that bag of books they’re passing along probably contains all of the SF they’ve read in the last six months. Every title. None found their way into the permanent collection. And when I paw through that bag and say “What’s good?” what do you think the answer will be?
I am especially saddened because in the last two years I notice more and more responses from my Science-Fiction-loving, ex Science-Fiction-reading friends that suggest they’re giving up on the field, even the ones who remain active on the periphery. (For example, many of them still go to conventions. Some of them run conventions.) But they can’t look at me when I ask “What have you read in SF that’s good lately?” They don’t want to admit to themselves that they are reading any. That they really aren’t “Science Fiction Readers” anymore.
Five years ago, even three years ago, when they said “I haven’t found anything I really like,” it sounded hopeful. Maybe there was a mother lode of the “good stuff” around the corner. Over the hill. Just out of sight. Wait, and it will come.
Now the same words from the same people carry the weight of repressed anger and recognized loss. Its as if they were upset at me for reminding them of a lost girl- or boy-friend. Worse. Most of them don’t get so upset at lovers who have left. They’re ashamed of what the field has become: an insular community that caters to the aging tastes of a (sadly) dwindling readership.
There seems to be something wrong to me when the leaders in the genre declare victory while leaking readers. And it’s also wrong to write off these disaffected readers, to ignore their concern about the loss of “wonder” in the genre and their dissatisfaction with content, if, for no other reason, they outnumber the faithful.
There’s only so long you can live in a state of unrequited love before you get a clue.
Move on. Don’t look back.
Trying to get these generations of disenchanted readers happy and involved again is going to be next to impossible. The longer it goes on, the harder it will be to reverse.