I tend to subscribe to the "the more things change, the more the remain the same" philosophy, so my own hunch is that the demand for speculative fiction has at least remained steady, if not grown, over the last few decades. I think you're right that while the demand for spec fiction has grown, the demand for spec lit has shrunk. Movies, whole cable channels, and video games have come in to fill the spec fic demand, but seem to have pulled demand away from spec lit.
So is it possible that we have ended up cutting spec lit in half - the "serious literature" half going more mainstream (as long as it doesn't get too sciencey or fantasy-y), and the half that loves the science and fantasy and doesn't care much about "literature" and so gets its fix from films and video games? That would leave a very small minority that likes the fantastical elements and the literary aspects, and they're the only ones still in the current SF/F market. Maybe these "core" readers haven't changed in number over the years - it's just that the other readers who preferred either the spec or the lit, had nowhere else to go to get their fix. And now they do. -- Jonathan Sherwood Sr. Science & Technology Press Officer University of Rochester 585-273-4726 On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 4:58 PM, Eric Scoles <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 4:31 PM, Jonathan Sherwood < > [email protected]> wrote: > >> Hmm. I seem to be making myself unclear here. >> Yes, I'm talking about SL that would be read in any form, book, magazine, >> internet, etc. >> >> By "serious literature" I do mean to use a subjective distinction. I hope >> you won't ask me to give an exhaustive definition. I hope it would suffice >> to say it is writing that seeks to do more than only entertain. No doubt >> there are a million ways to try to gain a more distinct definition, but I >> hope the discussion can survive our not heading in that direction. >> > > > Fair enough, but still it's not quite sufficient for the current purposes, > because the vast, vast majority of the stuff in the magazines would satisfy > very few people's sense of what it takes to be "literature", but it's at > least intended to make you think. Authors I won't name in public write > puzzle/idea stories that are painful to read -- hoary cliches, awkward prose > -- but which include interesting and challenging ideas. > > > >> >> Given that definition, I don't know if there has been a reduction in >> demand, or if demand has been lower than perceived in the past, or if demand >> has shifted into less visible media and thus only appears to be reduced. >> It's the main question I would like to find the answer to. >> > > > Given that definition, I'd argue that there's been an increase in > mainstream demand. Consider that the Ishiguro novel was a big critical > success. (I haven't read it. I know Craig hated it, which means I probably > won't try to read it unless I find some extraordinary reason to do so.) > Consider that The Time Traveler's Wife is #1 on Amazon. Back when I was in > HS, there were also spec fic titles on the bestseller list. Some were good > (King's stories in Night Shift were often quite good by SF/F standards), > some bizarre and valuable primarily as records of cultural psychosis > (Whitley Strieber, e.g.). I don't know, but my hunch would be that it's > increasing. > > (This is another reason I don't like to ignore film: There's much more > "serious" Spec Fic in film than there used to be, and clearly so. And the > best of it is usually original to film, AFAICS. OTOH, we had "serious" SF on > TV for years in form of Twilight Zone and Outer Limits, and that's long gone > by the late 70s.) > > As far as genre demand, that seems to be clearly a decline, in the magazine > space. The market speaks clearly. I suppose it depends on how you define > 'demand'; it could be that in the "age of Free" [/sarcasm] people just won't > pay for it. But it's seemed clear to me for a long time that the demand is > tailing off. When I was a kid, there were a bunch of magazines; they started > failing in the late '70s, and there's been a steady decline in per-word pay > since at least that time. It's conceivable that high-rent efforts like Omni > accelerated the problem by sucking oxygen out of "our" marketplace. (One > Omni = 2 or 3 Davis pubs back then.) > > I can't speak to the book space. I hear different things quoted. I think > it's declining, but I would swear I've been told the opposite is true. Maybe > there are more titles and fewer sales (it's cheaper to print now, so that > could well be true). I have read that the real value of hte average advance > has gone down steadily since the 70s, too. > > > >> >> >> -- >> Jonathan Sherwood >> Sr. Science & Technology Press Officer >> University of Rochester >> 585-273-4726 >> >> >> On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 3:47 PM, Eric Scoles <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> >>> What's "Literature"? Does it include military SF? Space opera? Who gets >>> to decide what's "literature" and what's crap? And are you restricting the >>> discussion to print? We can do that, but I don't think it's useful -- I >>> really don't believe that defining a clean boundary between modes of >>> narrative expression is a good idea if you want to figure out what's going >>> on. When you do that you lose sight of things like the intertesting fact >>> that the theatre is full of speculative elements, and that there's lots of >>> interesting original SF being written for film. >>> >>> The "seriousness" issue is a non-trivial question in at least two ways: >>> First, speaking from a cultural standpoint, each class or type of literature >>> has something to teach us about the society that conceives it; second, I'm >>> not aware of any method of distinguishing literature from junk that doesn't >>> either rely on highly subjective expert opinion or on market-driven >>> determinations, which almost always end up lauding stuff that most of us >>> would agree is crap. E.g., romantic vampire tales. >>> >>> My first paragraph meant what it said: There's been a demand for >>> speculative literature in "the mainstream" for at least 20 years. We may not >>> see what they want as "science fiction" -- but Speculative Literature is not >>> Science Fiction and by any definition of 'Speculative Literature' that I >>> find interesting, there's a good deal of it in the mainstream. (If we're >>> going to say Spec Lit *is* SF, then there was no point in coining the >>> term -- using it actually muddies the waters rather than clarifying them.) I >>> don't think that's changed all that much in that time. The superficial >>> character of the speculative literature the mainstream demands might have >>> changed (as the type of literature readers want always does), but the demand >>> has been there ever since I was a kid. *We* think what the mainstream reads >>> is crap, because we have a different standard. >>> >>> I think the very first thing you have to decide before we can get very >>> far figuring out whether there's a problem with "speculative literature" is >>> what speculative literature *is*. I contend that by any definition >>> that's not empirically market-driven, there's no lack of demand. I see the >>> SF magazines as presenting only one subset of speculative literature; that's >>> the subset people don't want. >>> >>> >>> On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 3:16 PM, Jonathan Sherwood < >>> [email protected]> wrote: >>> >>>> I'm not sure I understand your first paragraph. >>>> And to make sure I am being clear: Is demand for speculative literature >>>> - and I am emphasizing "literature" - decreasing? Or is >>>> the perceived decrease an illusion? >>>> >>>> Yes, there are a lot of SF/F/Romance books out there, but how many might >>>> be considered serious works of literature? Has the demand for those >>>> changed? >>>> >>>> -- >>>> Jonathan Sherwood >>>> Sr. Science & Technology Press Officer >>>> University of Rochester >>>> 585-273-4726 >>>> >>>> >>>> On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 3:04 PM, Eric Scoles <[email protected]>wrote: >>>> >>>>> >>>>> But the demand was always there in other markets. (Or at least has been >>>>> for 20 years or so.) We only think it was in one market because we were >>>>> looking at some very particular sub-forms that are associated with the >>>>> pulp >>>>> SF magazines and SFWA. >>>>> What's suffering is those sub-forms, and their associated markets. >>>>> >>>>> And I think we need to be careful when talking which parts are failing. >>>>> It's obvious that the magazines are failing (I don't think that can be >>>>> seriously disputed), but there are lots of *book* titles published >>>>> still. It's just that right now, most of them are military SF and dramedic >>>>> vampire titles. They're sucking up the oxygen, just like LOTR knockoffs >>>>> sucked up the oxygen in fantasy in the '70s-'80s. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 2:55 PM, Jonathan Sherwood < >>>>> [email protected]> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> Certainly the appetite for science fiction and fantasy is strong - >>>>>> movies and video games make that point solidly. >>>>>> I think the real question is: Does the decline of traditional markets >>>>>> indicate that the demand for spec literature is decreasing? Or is the >>>>>> same >>>>>> demand shifting to other markets? >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> -- >>>>>> Jonathan Sherwood >>>>>> Sr. Science & Technology Press Officer >>>>>> University of Rochester >>>>>> 585-273-4726 >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> -- >>>>> eric scoles ([email protected]) >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> eric scoles ([email protected]) >>> >>> >>> >> >> >> > > > -- > eric scoles ([email protected]) > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "R-SPEC: The Rochester Speculative Literature Association" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/r-spec?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
