"Nobody Wants to Buy The Future: Why Science Fiction Literature is
Vanishing" by Simon McNeil
https://www.typebarmagazine.com/2024/03/24/nobody-wants-to-buy-the-future-why-science-fiction-literature-is-vanishing/

"A recent Washington Post article indicated that only 12% of the reading
public were interested in reading science fiction. A perusal of
bestseller lists for science fiction shows an even more alarming truth:
the science fiction books that do sell are a shrinkingly small number of
reprints, classics and novels that had been adapted into movies."

Science Fiction is moving into indie. Fantasy is moving into romance.
Neither is going away.

Lynn

On Wed, 27 Mar 2024, Lynn McGuire wrote:

> "Nobody Wants to Buy The Future: Why Science Fiction Literature is Vanishing"
> by Simon McNeil
>
> https://www.typebarmagazine.com/2024/03/24/nobody-wants-to-buy-the-future-why-science-fiction-literature-is-vanishing/
>
> "A recent Washington Post article indicated that only 12% of the reading
> public were interested in reading science fiction. A perusal of bestseller
> lists for science fiction shows an even more alarming truth: the science
> fiction books that do sell are a shrinkingly small number of reprints,
> classics and novels that had been adapted into movies."
>
> Science Fiction is moving into indie. Fantasy is moving into romance.
> Neither is going away.
>
> Lynn
>
>

From my limited and subjective perspective, science fiction was always
niche. Maybe it had its glory years before I was born, but every time I
visit the physical science fiction bookstore I go to sometimes, it's
always "nerds" and never a lot of people who look like they're mainstream
(except me and a few others who don't fit in in the book store;)).

In article <uu0gcq$2mqou$1@dont-email.me>,
Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:
>"Nobody Wants to Buy The Future: Why Science Fiction Literature is
>Vanishing" by Simon McNeil
>
>https://www.typebarmagazine.com/2024/03/24/nobody-wants-to-buy-the-future-why-science-fiction-literature-is-vanishing/
>
>"A recent Washington Post article indicated that only 12% of the reading
>public were interested in reading science fiction.

20 years ago, fantasy had 4 percent of the market and SF 2 pecent.
--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

On 3/27/2024 6:27 AM, James Nicoll wrote:
> In article <uu0gcq$2mqou$1@dont-email.me>,
> Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:
>> "Nobody Wants to Buy The Future: Why Science Fiction Literature is
>> Vanishing" by Simon McNeil
>>
>> https://www.typebarmagazine.com/2024/03/24/nobody-wants-to-buy-the-future-why-science-fiction-literature-is-vanishing/
>>
>> "A recent Washington Post article indicated that only 12% of the reading
>> public were interested in reading science fiction.
>
> 20 years ago, fantasy had 4 percent of the market and SF 2 pecent.

"If it bleeds, it leads!" Whenever possible something will be spun has
a tragedy for the ratings/page-clicks.

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

On 3/27/2024 2:03 AM, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> "Nobody Wants to Buy The Future: Why Science Fiction Literature is
> Vanishing" by Simon McNeil
>
> https://www.typebarmagazine.com/2024/03/24/nobody-wants-to-buy-the-future-why-science-fiction-literature-is-vanishing/
>
> "A recent Washington Post article indicated that only 12% of the reading
> public were interested in reading science fiction.  A perusal of
> bestseller lists for science fiction shows an even more alarming truth:
> the science fiction books that do sell are a shrinkingly small number of
> reprints, classics and novels that had been adapted into movies."
>
> Science Fiction is moving into indie.  Fantasy is moving into romance.
> Neither is going away.
>
> Lynn

I forgot to mention that I stole this off reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/printSF/comments/1bouw53/comment/kwt7e46/

Lynn

On Wed, 27 Mar 2024 13:27:01 -0000 (UTC), jdnicoll@panix.com (James
Nicoll) wrote:

>In article <uu0gcq$2mqou$1@dont-email.me>,
>Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:
>>"Nobody Wants to Buy The Future: Why Science Fiction Literature is
>>Vanishing" by Simon McNeil
>>
>>https://www.typebarmagazine.com/2024/03/24/nobody-wants-to-buy-the-future-why-science-fiction-literature-is-vanishing/
>>
>>"A recent Washington Post article indicated that only 12% of the reading
>>public were interested in reading science fiction.

>20 years ago, fantasy had 4 percent of the market and SF 2 pecent.

That doesn't mean things have improved. 12% of the reading public may
be interested in buying science fiction, but if science fiction books
are less than 16% of the books they buy, then they would still be 2%
of the books sold, assuming this 12% buys an average amount of books.

In any case, 20 years ago is 2004, not 1964, which is where we have
to go to make science-fiction, as well as America, great again.

John Savard

On Wed, 27 Mar 2024 09:58:48 +0100, D <nospam@example.net> wrote:

>From my limited and subjective perspective, science fiction was always
>niche.

Certainly, it was "niche" even in its great glory days of the 1930s to
the 1960s. But that doesn't mean that it can't become niche even
compared to that, or even more niche, or however you want to say it.

John Savard

On Wed, 27 Mar 2024 02:03:52 -0500, Lynn McGuire
<lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:

>Science Fiction is moving into indie. Fantasy is moving into romance.
>Neither is going away.

Science fiction will never die!

Or, at least, it's not going to become completely dead any time soon.

Surely sci-fi in the movies isn't going to disappear; Disney continues
to find the Star Wars franchise profitable... _despite_ thinning out
the enthusiasm of the fans by apparently taking commendable efforts to
improve inclusiveness and representation just a tad too far.

We may, however, with full justification, lament that science fiction
is just not nearly what it once was back in the glory days of the
1930s to the 1960s.

This can be blamed on many factors. We can start with the rising cost
of newsprint, and conclude with the availability of the Internet (and
maybe video games) as a rival distraction - which has also severely
impacted, say, the model railroading hobby, for example.

Less often mentioned in popular accounts - but I think discussed every
now and then here - is simply the changing nature of the real-world
background.

In the 1950s, we had the atomic bomb and the first tentative steps to
space flight.

Today, Moore's Law and CRISPR are in the spotlight. So if one wishes
to capture the current imagination... one gets cyberpunk, not classic
SF. The future we see ahead lends itself less well to a literary genre
having broad appeal, at least to old fogies, even if cyberpunk is
appreciated by young people.

I vaguely remember reading the description of a story where uploading
lets three people travel inside a soda-pop can size payload vehicle in
a sublight interstellar craft to an interstellar alien conference...
and so the classic first-contact and adjacent contacts theme _can_ be
adapted to today's landscape and made believable.

John Savard

On Sat, 30 Mar 2024 07:38:17 -0600, John Savard
<quadibloc@servername.invalid> wrote:

>Today, Moore's Law and CRISPR are in the spotlight. So if one wishes
>to capture the current imagination... one gets cyberpunk, not classic
>SF. The future we see ahead lends itself less well to a literary genre
>having broad appeal, at least to old fogies, even if cyberpunk is
>appreciated by young people.

I dunno - I read and enjoyed Neuromancer (and not just because Gibson
lives in Vancouver as I do) well before I played the game on the Apple
II 35 tears agi,

And most people would consider that one of the early classics of
Cyberpunk. (I was also reading Heinlein's more 'adult' works around
the same time)

On Tue, 02 Apr 2024 10:28:35 -0700, The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca>
wrote:

>On Sat, 30 Mar 2024 07:38:17 -0600, John Savard
><quadibloc@servername.invalid> wrote:
>
>>Today, Moore's Law and CRISPR are in the spotlight. So if one wishes
>>to capture the current imagination... one gets cyberpunk, not classic
>>SF. The future we see ahead lends itself less well to a literary genre
>>having broad appeal, at least to old fogies, even if cyberpunk is
>>appreciated by young people.
>
>I dunno - I read and enjoyed Neuromancer (and not just because Gibson
>lives in Vancouver as I do) well before I played the game on the Apple
>II 35 tears agi,
>
>And most people would consider that one of the early classics of
>Cyberpunk. (I was also reading Heinlein's more 'adult' works around
>the same time)

Hey, I generally never read horror stories - except I enjoy Lovecraft.
And I never read mysteries - except for Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock
Holmes.

So people can enjoy some of the very best cyberpunk even if, in
general, they don't like the genre much.

John Savard

On 27/03/2024 14:27, James Nicoll wrote:
> In article <uu0gcq$2mqou$1@dont-email.me>,
> Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:
>> "Nobody Wants to Buy The Future: Why Science Fiction Literature is
>> Vanishing" by Simon McNeil
>>
>> https://www.typebarmagazine.com/2024/03/24/nobody-wants-to-buy-the-future-why-science-fiction-literature-is-vanishing/
>>
>> "A recent Washington Post article indicated that only 12% of the reading
>> public were interested in reading science fiction.
>
> 20 years ago, fantasy had 4 percent of the market and SF 2 pecent.
>

Yes, I think this really raises the question of how much of the reading
public SHOULD be interested in science fiction. It's a specific genre, I
can see not wanting it to be looked down upon or for specific insightful
or important works to be ignored by consumers of other genres entirely,
but I don't see any reason we should want everyone to be fans of
science-fiction. Or fantasy.

Reading the article though I think it's very interesting. For one thing
it contrasts things not to 20 years ago but to the 80s, when "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." When I read that I thought "really, Return of the Jedi
novelization?" but the article does address this as a potential cause:

"Science fiction literature has always depended on an ecosystem of
non-literary media, and the transformation of this media landscape,
especially how the non-literary media landscape has pivoted to
adaptation, has had a significant deleterious effect on the success of
science fiction literature."

Another thing the article notes that I thought was interesting is that
"science-fiction readers" as a population aren't exclusive
science-fiction readers, they tend to be avid readers in general that
crossover a lot with "mystery, historical fiction, adventure and fantasy
fiction" (honestly, can't say that not me). (hence the article suggests
that those readers are simply reading more of other genres atm, as
opposed to there being fewer "science-fiction readers").

The main thrust of the article however seems to be around the "Torment
Nexus" tweet - that basically we're living in something like a
science-fiction dystopia and that might be turning people off of reading
more of that, or buying into science-fiction utopias.

Hence:

"In this we might see the rise of novel subgenres such as Romantasy as
representative of 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) and that of Science Fiction. These educated,
persistent and high-volume readers don’t want predictions of the future.
The New Wave and the Cyberpunks called that back between the mid-1960s
and the mid-1980s and we’ve got to live with the atrocious results. They
want an escape—and the romantic escapism of romance / fantasy hybrid
books provides precisely that."

I can't say that also doesn't match up with some things I'd been
thinking but I'm still curious how that thesis holds up if we looked at
the actual numbers in detail as you point out and not just "today vs
when Contact was a bestseller".

On Thu, 4 Apr 2024, John Savard wrote:

> On Tue, 02 Apr 2024 10:28:35 -0700, The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca>
> wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 30 Mar 2024 07:38:17 -0600, John Savard
>> <quadibloc@servername.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> Today, Moore's Law and CRISPR are in the spotlight. So if one wishes
>>> to capture the current imagination... one gets cyberpunk, not classic
>>> SF. The future we see ahead lends itself less well to a literary genre
>>> having broad appeal, at least to old fogies, even if cyberpunk is
>>> appreciated by young people.
>>
>> I dunno - I read and enjoyed Neuromancer (and not just because Gibson
>> lives in Vancouver as I do) well before I played the game on the Apple
>> II 35 tears agi,
>>
>> And most people would consider that one of the early classics of
>> Cyberpunk. (I was also reading Heinlein's more 'adult' works around
>> the same time)
>
> Hey, I generally never read horror stories - except I enjoy Lovecraft.
> And I never read mysteries - except for Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock
> Holmes.

You have excellent taste! Lovecraft and Doyle for the win! =)

> So people can enjoy some of the very best cyberpunk even if, in
> general, they don't like the genre much.
>
> John Savard
>

On Thu, 04 Apr 2024 21:04:09 -0600, John Savard
<quadibloc@servername.invalid> wrote:

>So people can enjoy some of the very best cyberpunk even if, in
>general, they don't like the genre much.
>
Heck I even remember being so impressed reading Enders' Game in the
original magazine long before Card made a whole series of it.

On Sun, 7 Apr 2024, The Horny Goat wrote:

> On Thu, 04 Apr 2024 21:04:09 -0600, John Savard
> <quadibloc@servername.invalid> wrote:
>
>> So people can enjoy some of the very best cyberpunk even if, in
>> general, they don't like the genre much.
>>
> Heck I even remember being so impressed reading Enders' Game in the
> original magazine long before Card made a whole series of it.
>

I thought Enders game was good, but not great. However! I liked how you
can read into it (if you like) the power of the blogosphere and media
manipulation.

On 4/7/2024 12:47 PM, The Horny Goat wrote:
> On Thu, 04 Apr 2024 21:04:09 -0600, John Savard
> <quadibloc@servername.invalid> wrote:
>
>> So people can enjoy some of the very best cyberpunk even if, in
>> general, they don't like the genre much.
>>
> Heck I even remember being so impressed reading Enders' Game in the
> original magazine long before Card made a whole series of it.

TBH, I thought the original novella was much better than the
book.

pt

On Sun, 07 Apr 2024 09:47:06 -0700, The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca>
wrote:

> Heck I even remember being so impressed reading Enders' Game in the
> original magazine long before Card made a whole series of it.

I was blown away when I read "Ender's Game" in the magazine, and
wanted to clasp young Ender to my ample bosom and tell him the first
rule of strategy: know what you want.

But it turned out that Card had put everything he had into it. I've
very little memory of anything else he wrote -- and, for that matter,
little of "Ender's Game" itself beyond that I was impressed.

--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at centurylink dot net
http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/

On Sun, 21 Apr 2024 21:51:50 -0400, Joy Beeson
<jbeeson@invalid.net.invalid> wrote in
<ujgb2jdnh2atc6o0i5u5pg1rrarc9thcn5@4ax.com>:

> On Sun, 07 Apr 2024 09:47:06 -0700, The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca>
> wrote:
>
>> Heck I even remember being so impressed reading Enders' Game in the
>> original magazine long before Card made a whole series of it.
>
> I was blown away when I read "Ender's Game" in the magazine, and wanted
> to clasp young Ender to my ample bosom and tell him the first rule of
> strategy: know what you want.
>
> But it turned out that Card had put everything he had into it. I've
> very little memory of anything else he wrote -- and, for that matter,
> little of "Ender's Game" itself beyond that I was impressed.

I liked the novel. Haven't seen the movie -- is it worth watching?

However, we live in "The Future" now, and some ideas Card wrote about
just don't seem plausible. Such as:

https://xkcd.com/635/

--
-v
Current reading: finishing up _Citizen of the Galaxy_, another novel
that looks very different with older eyes.

On 24/04/2024 05:42, vallor wrote:
> On Sun, 21 Apr 2024 21:51:50 -0400, Joy Beeson
> <jbeeson@invalid.net.invalid> wrote in
> <ujgb2jdnh2atc6o0i5u5pg1rrarc9thcn5@4ax.com>:
>
>> On Sun, 07 Apr 2024 09:47:06 -0700, The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Heck I even remember being so impressed reading Enders' Game in the
>>> original magazine long before Card made a whole series of it.
>>
>> I was blown away when I read "Ender's Game" in the magazine, and wanted
>> to clasp young Ender to my ample bosom and tell him the first rule of
>> strategy: know what you want.
>>
>> But it turned out that Card had put everything he had into it. I've
>> very little memory of anything else he wrote -- and, for that matter,
>> little of "Ender's Game" itself beyond that I was impressed.
>
> I liked the novel. Haven't seen the movie -- is it worth watching?
>
> However, we live in "The Future" now, and some ideas Card wrote about
> just don't seem plausible. Such as:
>
> https://xkcd.com/635/
>

The most heartbreaking part of that comic is how you know the two
instances of (1) comment are spam

On Wed, 24 Apr 2024 03:42:51 -0000 (UTC), vallor <vallor@cultnix.org>
wrote:

>On Sun, 21 Apr 2024 21:51:50 -0400, Joy Beeson
><jbeeson@invalid.net.invalid> wrote in
><ujgb2jdnh2atc6o0i5u5pg1rrarc9thcn5@4ax.com>:
>
>> On Sun, 07 Apr 2024 09:47:06 -0700, The Horny Goat <lcraver@home.ca>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Heck I even remember being so impressed reading Enders' Game in the
>>> original magazine long before Card made a whole series of it.
>>
>> I was blown away when I read "Ender's Game" in the magazine, and wanted
>> to clasp young Ender to my ample bosom and tell him the first rule of
>> strategy: know what you want.
>>
>> But it turned out that Card had put everything he had into it. I've
>> very little memory of anything else he wrote -- and, for that matter,
>> little of "Ender's Game" itself beyond that I was impressed.
>
>I liked the novel. Haven't seen the movie -- is it worth watching?

I liked it a lot.

But you should know, going in, that the focus is on Ender (his sibs
appear but their political efforts are left out) and Ender is the same
age throughout. So it could be said to have been done as a YA movie,
while the novel is more for adults.

But it definitely covers the ground and makes the vital points in the
book. Even if the end is a bit abbreviated.

>However, we live in "The Future" now, and some ideas Card wrote about
>just don't seem plausible. Such as:
>
>https://xkcd.com/635/
--
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"