State of the Speculative Fiction Novel

I'm tired of seeing "scientist as hero" novels by aging wannabe "golden age" SF authors. I'm tired of simplistic space operas/military SF that glorifies a mindset that might have been okay in the 1950s, but is terribly outdated and vulgar now. I'm tired of Heinlein clones and Elizabeth Moon.

I think what's wrong with SF is something that has been wrong with it since its inception: it is NOT a genre full of new ideas and rebellious thinkers, like they want you to think. It is the most conservative genre there is, and not conducive to new thought. They've built an incestuous little club where a few self-appointed experts have become gods, and their arrogance has grown so out of hand that nowadays they like to bash literary authors for no good reason, no matter that their own prose is clunky and boring.

What have I read that's new and different in this genre? I'm not sure. I really can't recall anything that stood out. That isn't to say I don't enjoy it, because I do on some levels, but there are very few authors in this little club with anything interesting to say. I've always been a Michael Moorcock fan, and I think he's one of a handful who have been able to write SFF with any sense of maturity and skill.

I think the current state of SF is just the same as it has always been: conservative, reactionary, stuck on a set of ideas that it will never let go of. It'll be hard to place stories if you're new because you have to trick SF freaks that you've written something new while not shattering SF convention. Seducing SF editors and convincing them that a story is new and unique while still fitting inside the little boxes they create for the genre is more of an art than writing. There was a brief time, I think, where SF was open to experimental writing, but I don't think it lasted long. Now the club is so against any stylistic expression, which is extremely disappointing.

My first reaction to your question was think that if I never see another vampire novel, it'll be too soon. But I recently read Kostova's Historian and enjoying it thoroughly. So perhaps tropes always need reviving in the way they're used. Is producing original spec fic any more challenging than producing original fic in any genre? How many thousands of coming of age novels have been written? And yet a talented writer can still produce one that feels novel.

For me, the curious thing about spec fic just now is how it's spreading to the mainstream. It's all over romance, mystery, and even literary fic shelves. It seems like half the TV shows I glimpse have a spec element to them. So maybe that means we have lots of new toys to play with.

I'm tired of fantasy stories with villains, and farmer boys that grow heroes. Vampires and werewolves and goblins and what have you. And weird names with '`' and '-' and decassylabic names for characters.
Don't get me started on Eragon!

I'm tired of apocalyptic fiction. How about making utopias interesting? Gosh!

I think speculative fiction could be on the verge of changing. I dunno. My generation, I'm 18, might already have its writers, who write at a young age, and are now working on their stories that they always wanted to see, but never saw on the shelves. And they're influenced by games and films. and a lot of people my age complain about one thing or another in the stories and films that come out.

At least that's what makes me write, thinking of things that I've not seen out there. And I enjoy doing it. And I really honestly try to go for stuff that I haven't seen anywhere. And I go for absurd things that a lot of people wouldn't dare to write, in terms of the scale of it. I'm just like that. And I KNOW when I'm getting close to something people have already read.

I guess what I've never seen on the shelves are things I always wanted to have in one single story. So I write it.

I've never really read a "S.F novel", with the scientist as the main character and they go onto space and have space operas in spaceships and have creatures with weird names.
I can only bare Star Wars. All the rest seems a copy to me.

All the above comments are true and astute, and I agree wholeheartedly. Which brings up the following question: Why are 90+% of the people who frequent this site writing either fantasy or SF?

caw

I've been tired of vampires and werewolves since the day Count Dracula and Wolfman first appeared on the silver screen. But I do enjoy paranormal fiction of ghosts and psychic bizarreness. I like the juxtaposition of the weird against the familiar, which I think is how I developed such a fascination for urban fantasy (sans vamps and weres, but such books are difficult to find). I'm drawn to Rachel Caine's Weather Warden series because it's highly unique and mixes meteorology and the djinn. Cool combo, huh?

But I also adore science fiction as an exploration of new ideas and philosophical conundrums. The Electric Church is a new spec fic novel by Jeff Somers, and though I haven't read it yet, I can hardly wait to. It's described as a "techno-thriller." Why not just call it SF?

Holy Fire by Bruce Sterling is one of my favorites. SF, but it explores far more than science. It's a real culture blaster, offering a shrewd assessment of what the future has in store for those seeking eternal youth.

I wrote a "techno-thriller" that was published in 2000 by a small press. The title is Project Resurrection and it's about what might happen in the future if the cryogenic frozen were revived. It explores the question of where our souls go when we die. If the dead are resurrected, what is the spark that animates them with life?

I tend to write outside the conventional box. In the commercial publishing world, different isn't always better. I'm looking for an agent and have had some interest, but it takes a visionary to take risks on an atypical book.

JustGo said:

Thanks to everyone who's replied so far!

In my research, I found a short, interesting article about sales of spec fiction magazines that will prove especially disheartening for writers of short SFF at http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=5212

Feel free to comment on that, too.

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All print mags are suffering due to the explosion of free content through the Internet, IMO.

I don't write much short fiction, but there are plenty of venues for shorts online, some of which pay okay. There are a few ebook publishers who also sell inidividual shorts online, and royalties are decent and totally based on the number of downloads sold. For an example, visit EchelonPress.com. My short story Z is for Zombie will be available from Echelon next month.

I think you could make the same complaints about most of the other genres. Mysteries turn into themed series with repetitive plots. How many "Cat Who's" do you want to read? Getting published sets an author up to sell more books, and publishers buy what has sold successfully, so we get more and more clones. I enjoyed Elizabeth Peters' Egypt stories until they turned into the same plot with different twists. IMO it's the business of books, not the authors, that have turned, or are turning, speculative fiction, mysteries, women's, chick lit, etc. into just more of the same. Just as successful movies spawn sequels, successful novels spawn clones. Look at all the Da Vinci Code spinoffs. It sells? Copy that! As for Science fiction, I wish bookstores would separate it from Fantasy. They are not the same thing. I too am tired of dragons, vampires, Irish mythology and books one, two, three, four on and on. Except Terry Pratchett.

I'm with MacAllister on this one. In any genre you have the cream and you have the rest. Read the cream and you'll find it well worth your time. In the last year I have been quite blown away by Spin by Robert Charles Wilson (hard SF) and Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay (fantasy), for example. Topnotch writing, however you slice and dice it.

Would like to try a hand at Sci-Fi, myself, one day. It's a really intimidating genre, though. You have to be versed in all the new, technological advancements that have been made, like cloning and whatnot, unless it would be possible to leave out all the specifics and just give readers an impression of what you're driving at. Would modern, sci-fi audiences let a writer get away with this, or do they as a general rule want to know all the ins and outs of everything that goes on, e.g. how a time machine a character is using operates?

Is traditional fantasy completely exhausted? I'm not so sure. Debuts that fall into that category continue to come out. Sure, they may not have dark lords and elves and quests, but they're not SF or urban fantasy. I think there will always be people (like me) who don't want to read about our world, even if it's "our world" X number of years in the future or "our world" with spec elements.

Also, to the person who doesn't want to read books with villains, consider my mind blown by that statement. A book needs conflict, which means there's got to be some sort of antagonist, even if it's man against nature or man against himself.

I think every generation writes the books they haven't found on the shelves. If we were all satisfied with what was out there, we wouldn't need to write.

Non-traditional fantasy, at least, is alive and thriving. So is traditional fantasy, if you take that to mean "fantasy that looks to traditional/mythic roots" rather than "Tolkien knockoffs."

If you'd like a list, I can give you one, but the Journal of Mythic Arts can do it better

Traditional fantasy is the same as non-traditional fantasy. Everything has influence, otherwise we wouldn't be able to understand the authors imagination. Fantasy as a genre appears to be more alive than ever. Classical creatures (those traditional associated with the genre) will continue to be used, I would think, until a new set arrives. The question is however, whether or not the setting will change, which of course, is all speculative from this point.

JBI said:

Traditional fantasy is the same as non-traditional fantasy.

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There are pretty huge differences between the two, if one gets beyond vast generalizations. But then, that's really only clear to people who read in the field.

Everything has influence, otherwise we wouldn't be able to understand the authors imagination. Fantasy as a genre appears to be more alive than ever. Classical creatures (those traditional associated with the genre) will continue to be used, I would think, until a new set arrives.

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This much I agree with, but I think it's rather general.

The question is however, whether or not the setting will change, which of course, is all speculative from this point.

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"The setting"?
There are many, many settings for fantasy, traditional or not.

The setting referred based on the technology we have at hand. The same way sci-fi has changed as technology has changed. Will we see new political changes reflected in the setting? probably. We see all sorts of things like that.

Shweta said:

There are pretty huge differences between the two, if one gets beyond vast generalizations. But then, that's really only clear to people who read in the field.



This much I agree with, but I think it's rather general.



"The setting"?
There are many, many settings for fantasy, traditional or not.

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Who says I don't read in the genre?

JBI said:

The setting referred based on the technology we have at hand. The same way sci-fi has changed as technology has changed. Will we see new political changes reflected in the setting? probably. We see all sorts of things like that.

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Hopefully we will!

But I would say "change or expand the range of settings".

Which may be a nitpick, but your post makes it sound like you think all fantasy takes place in Middle Earth. I know that isn't true, and I suspect you don't want to be quoted in an essay as thinking that

JBI said:

Who says I don't read in the genre?

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Uh, you do. You did. Want me to find chat logs?

Er, if you must, I admit to cutting down about 80% of my fantasy reading, but I still stick one in there, every now and again. If you consider magical realism categorized with fantasy, then I sure read a great deal of it. Either way, I have read enough of it to make a certain judgment.

JBI said:

Er, if you must, I admit to cutting down about 80% of my fantasy reading, but I still stick one in there, every now and again. If you consider magical realism categorized with fantasy, then I sure read a great deal of it. Either way, I have read enough of it to make a certain judgment.

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I'd stick magical realism in with mythic fantasy, mostly, but then I don't care much about genre labels. Except that my favourite fiction often doesn't fit any one genre label.

Looking back at logs, I'm realizing that we discussed fantasy -- but later, you said you'd stopped reading it entirely. So I assumed you had. It was probably, uh, a generalization taken out of context.

I'm tired of people saying Sci-fi is in trouble.

Mostly cause its about the same way it's always been: lots of things you don't like and a few things you do. Some people like different things.

So many people say "There's a few good books and a ton of crap"...but the truth is, every person thinks the 'few good books' is a different few books.

Which is why we argue so often =3

Zoombie said:

I'm tired of people saying Sci-fi is in trouble.

Mostly cause its about the same way it's always been: lots of things you don't like and a few things you do. Some people like different things.

So many people say "There's a few good books and a ton of crap"...but the truth is, every person thinks the 'few good books' is a different few books.

Which is why we argue so often =3

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What Zoombie said. In spades.

Wow, I seem to have struck a chord. If I was more Hitlarian, I'd capitalize on it and try to take over the world, then fail, then have a bunch of movies made out of me.

Zoombie said:

Wow, I seem to have struck a chord. If I was more Hitlarian, I'd capitalize on it and try to take over the world, then fail, then have a bunch of movies made out of me.

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Nice to know you think I drag that many slavish followers behind me. *looks behind at slavish followers* Huh. You're right.

Oh, go for it! Think of the fun to be had along the way!