Does it matter whether there is hope or not in the stories? We are less hopeful about this precisely because things haven’t been nearly as impressive in the last fifty years as we thought they would be. A story set fifty years in the future with big Mars and Moon colones won’t look hopeful, it will look at best overly optimistic, and possibly naive.
Moreover, this may actually be a signal that the genre has reached real maturity, that it isn’t just gee-whiz look at that stories.
The claim that the genre has collapsed simply isn’t born out when one looks at how popular Greg Egan, Charlie Stross, Alastair Reynolds, and Cory Doctorow are among others. The genre is in fact much more successful now. Fifty years ago, book shops didn’t have separate sections for science fiction. Now they have large sections. Science fiction also is one of the most popular genres judging by the sales of used books. Science fiction is also far more accepted as a literary genre by academia, to the point where there’s a separate area of study devoted to it. I have to wonder how much of what you are seeing is just the decline in average quality that occurs when a small thing becomes popular.
Just because the genre conventions have changed from your preferred form doesn’t mean that the genre has collapsed. This sounds a bit akin to fans who when something in their favorite franchise changes become convinced that it has been Ruined Forever. (Not linking to TVTropes for obvious reasons).
More like DisContinuity, I would say. Which isn’t surprising, given that EY’s favorite TV shows are “All four seasons of Babylon 5 and all three seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”
(Both of those shows have more seasons than that, but are generally agreed to be of declining quality.)
Although, I wouldn’t have guessed someone capable of writing Three Worlds Collide would be so much in favor of hopeful!SF versus stylishly!cynical!SF. But maybe I’m reading it wrong?
Edit: To clarify, I’m not accusing TWC of being stylishly cynical, precisely, but… while it is one of the best-written iterations of “humanity makes First Contact, overcomes communication barrier in record time only to immediately discover irreconcilable differences that inevitably result in the deaths or brainwashing of billions” I’ve ever read, one must recognize that is what it is, and that’s not exactly what I would describe as “feeding people hope”.
If you consider the contemporary struggle between Enlightenment values and Postmodern cynicism, Three Worlds Collide is definitely in the former camp. Its message is that no matter what happens, there is still a difference between right and wrong. I don’t know what a postmodern answer to Three Worlds Collide would look like (someone should write one, please) but I imagine it would use moral error theory in place of moral realism.
Fifty years ago, book shops didn’t have separate sections for science fiction. Now they have large sections.
I can’t speak to fifty years ago, but I can tell you that 47 years ago Bookland, a smallish and not extremely ambitious bookstore in a suburb of Wilmington, Delaware definitely did have a science fiction section.
One man’s bitter cynicism is another man’s gritty realism and one man’s hope is another man’s delusionary dream.
Looking at another literary genre, did the emergence of hardboiled school “collapsed” crime fiction?
Does it matter whether there is hope or not in the stories? We are less hopeful about this precisely because things haven’t been nearly as impressive in the last fifty years as we thought they would be. A story set fifty years in the future with big Mars and Moon colones won’t look hopeful, it will look at best overly optimistic, and possibly naive.
Moreover, this may actually be a signal that the genre has reached real maturity, that it isn’t just gee-whiz look at that stories.
The claim that the genre has collapsed simply isn’t born out when one looks at how popular Greg Egan, Charlie Stross, Alastair Reynolds, and Cory Doctorow are among others. The genre is in fact much more successful now. Fifty years ago, book shops didn’t have separate sections for science fiction. Now they have large sections. Science fiction also is one of the most popular genres judging by the sales of used books. Science fiction is also far more accepted as a literary genre by academia, to the point where there’s a separate area of study devoted to it. I have to wonder how much of what you are seeing is just the decline in average quality that occurs when a small thing becomes popular.
Just because the genre conventions have changed from your preferred form doesn’t mean that the genre has collapsed. This sounds a bit akin to fans who when something in their favorite franchise changes become convinced that it has been Ruined Forever. (Not linking to TVTropes for obvious reasons).
More like DisContinuity, I would say. Which isn’t surprising, given that EY’s favorite TV shows are “All four seasons of Babylon 5 and all three seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”
(Both of those shows have more seasons than that, but are generally agreed to be of declining quality.)
Although, I wouldn’t have guessed someone capable of writing Three Worlds Collide would be so much in favor of hopeful!SF versus stylishly!cynical!SF. But maybe I’m reading it wrong?
Edit: To clarify, I’m not accusing TWC of being stylishly cynical, precisely, but… while it is one of the best-written iterations of “humanity makes First Contact, overcomes communication barrier in record time only to immediately discover irreconcilable differences that inevitably result in the deaths or brainwashing of billions” I’ve ever read, one must recognize that is what it is, and that’s not exactly what I would describe as “feeding people hope”.
If you consider the contemporary struggle between Enlightenment values and Postmodern cynicism, Three Worlds Collide is definitely in the former camp. Its message is that no matter what happens, there is still a difference between right and wrong. I don’t know what a postmodern answer to Three Worlds Collide would look like (someone should write one, please) but I imagine it would use moral error theory in place of moral realism.
I can’t speak to fifty years ago, but I can tell you that 47 years ago Bookland, a smallish and not extremely ambitious bookstore in a suburb of Wilmington, Delaware definitely did have a science fiction section.
One man’s bitter cynicism is another man’s gritty realism and one man’s hope is another man’s delusionary dream. Looking at another literary genre, did the emergence of hardboiled school “collapsed” crime fiction?