Keeping my hard-earned
While browsing through Angus & Robertson's Murray Street store today I noticed a sign in the SF/F (that's science fiction and fantasy for the 'danes) section. A listing of the top 5 SF/F bestsellers for the month. Now, I'd just like to point out that I almost never visit the SF/F section in any bookstore with the sole exception of the various Elizabeth's second-hand stores. The details of the sign might give you an idea why:
- Lord of the Rings
- Magician
- Assassin's Apprentice
- Colour of Magic
- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Where are the likes of Zelazny, Harrison and Niven? Their stuff still has reasonance today and has held up well - despite Niven's early stories having been outpaced by scientific advances they're still a great read. But even if you ignore the fact that you can no longer buy most of the great SF/F works in A&R any longer - they're even hard to find in Elizabeth's now - where are today's Zelanys, Harrisons and Nivens? More to the point where are today's Brins, Bears and Gibsons? Like Asimov, Heinlein and Herbert they're effectively dead. The vision has been lost. So I'll be keeping my hard-earned until someone finds it again and breathes new life into a stagnated industry.
3 comments:
Perhaps because we're living in the future we used to read about, and it's not quite how we remembered it :) So we're a little disillusioned - the readers and writers both.
And perhaps because it's getting harder to think up new concepts and directions for technology to go, and to extrapolate on the effects those new technologies might have on society and the individual. (Who would have predicted that text messaging would be so integral to mobile phone use, or that the mobile phone itself would become so ubiquitous, necessary, or versatile?)
And perhaps it's just too damned difficult. Why put all that effort into conceptualising the future when you can just rehash Tolkien or Virgil, rewrite MacBeth as an epic space opera, or dress up a standard Mills & Boon plot with dragons and sorcery and make easy money that way?
Look at those shelves again. There's not one work of actual science fiction there anymore - just lots of zero-grade Tolkien wannabes, space opera, and novelised role-playing game adventures. There's not even any original fantasy anymore.
You want vision? Originality? And good writing? Try the Literary section. That's where they put Neal Stephenson these days.
All great artists push the boundaries. Those that do not quickly stagnate (and die).
As for SF authors thinking up new concepts and directions, then they should follow in the footsteps of their predecessors and extrapolate. That is all The Greats did when it came to creating something new. It's not overly hard. Particularly when you're working on one novel every 2-3 years. Asimov, Heinlein and most of their peers churned out many each year. Sure, not all of them are great but there is a better signal to noise ratio than amongst the current crop - which take 10 times as long to produce worse.
I think laziness and fear are the problems. Not just with the author but the publisher and reader as well. The author doesn't want to spend 2-3 years writing a novel nobody will publish because the publisher doesn't understand the concept. The publisher doesn't want to try anything too new and innovative because it costs them too much if it's a flop. Likewise the reader doesn't want to read a new author in case they're crap. Especially not at $20 a pop. I'd just like to note that books have quadrupled in price since Pratchett's Colour of Magic was written. In the same time an adult movie ticket has not-quite tripled. There's too much pressure placed upon every book (or movie for that matter) to be a smash hit. Most of them won't be. Thereby artificially driving the price up and removing most of the new, up-and-coming authors from the marketplace. There needs to be a way to get them published and distributed. I'm sure they're out there.
As for living in the future, we may well live in Orwell's 1984 or Harrison's Homeworld future, but what of Brin's Uplift, Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat or Niven's Known Space? Clearly some authorial predictions have come true but most have not. Where are the aliens? The homicidal cyborgs? The large-breasted robots? We are further now from reaching the stars or even returning to the moon than we were when The Greats wrote their best work. Maybe that is the problem. We lack hope. As for having the Jetsons living next door, they have for the last 40 years. Take away the robot and the jetcars and you have suburbia - 60s style. I just think people are making excuses and that's kinda sad and pathetic.
Ted: regarding the tv station. NP.
It seems like these days, if you want science fiction, you just have to watch an episode of CSI :)
Maybe we're just not looking for it in the right places.
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