Okay. I feel a little bad saying this, but . . . I think I kind of see what the guy means. I don't think he's stated it particularly well, but . . . well, here's my interpretation. I'm going to use movies, because this is an author-supportive community, and I don't want to diss any particular author.
Take one of my favorite movies of recent times:
Avengers, which I saw twice in the theatre (and usually I only go to see 2-3 movies in the theatre per year, total) and have watched multiple times on DVD. I LOVE this movie. It does what it means to extremely well. It's well-written, with snappy dialogue, amazing characters, fantastic acting, and effects and cinematography that are off the hook.
But it doesn't say anything deep, does it? It doesn't go anywhere thematically we haven't seen before. Again, I'm not knocking
Avengers -- I LOVE it. It isn't *trying* to be deep. It's trying to be fantastic entertainment, and it succeeds magnificently at that.
But I think you'd agree that there are plenty of superhero movies that try to do the same thing and do it badly, or at least mediocre-ly. Some of them throw a lot of special effects at the audience along with some shiny characters we know and love, and those movies make a lot of money. They're not necessarily well-written or well-done movies. They're not deep. They are entertaining, to a certain degree.
Now take a movie like
District 9.*
District 9 grabbed my understanding of the world and wrenched it. It did, in my opinion, what the
best scifi does -- it held up a mirror to our world through speculative fiction, and it made us
think, and it made us
feel. My friend and I walked out of that movie shaking and saying, "This is what scifi should be."
On the other hand? I've never rewatched
District 9. Because it's not madcap entertainment. But it is a much deeper movie than
Avengers.
I do feel like we see the same thing with books. There are some books that are groundbreaking. That wrestle with difficult themes. That strive for incredible characterization, and fantastic self-consistent worlds with twists and conceits we've never thought of before. I'm sure you can think of plenty of these.
And there are also books that just set out to be fun. And that's great. I have no problem with that. And some of them do it incredibly well. They're some of my favorite books.
Then, there are the people who try to copy both those sets of authors. Sometimes they do it well. Sometimes they do it badly. But look how many books feature Tolkienesque orcs/dwarves/elves. And I feel like one in five fantasy books I pick up these days is trying to be George R.R. Martin.
And I do think more people are going for writing "fun" than going for writing that's deep. Again, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, and I don't think it's impossible to find deep books in SFF, either! But . . . ack, I feel like I'm not expressing myself too well either. But I do feel, COMPLETELY anecdotally, that there are certain . . . trends? . . . that people try to jump on. And maybe they're not directly copying them, but they're trying for that same type of book.
I don't think this is because they're trying to please readers, though. I think it's because that's what they discovered they like to read, so they wanted to write something like that.
I DO think it's possible that publishers are looking for certain "types" of fiction they've seen do very well recently, however. It would be a foolish business decision not to.
So if the author of that article likes deep/new SFF, I can see where he'd be frustrated. As another poster said, in a way it's just that what's being published and recognized "isn't what he wants to see" published and recognized, but I do have a certain sympathy for him if he wants more
District 9's and the majority of what he sees coming out strike him as pale copies of
Avengers that sell well because they have lots of special effects and tropes that are familiar to readers. So to speak.
:
lease imagine all of this said in a reasonable/speculating tone of voice; I'm just contemplating here::
* If you disagree with my opinion on
District 9, insert your own deep scifi film here. I know some people disagree with me on how good it is, but I'm just trying to make a point.
p.s. -- And I was going to say I don't get why he wanted to blog so angrily even if he did feel this way, but I sort of do, because . . . well, my friend and I just spent all evening tearing apart a certain new movie** and obsessing about why anyone likes it. We're both invested in it being done well because it was a big part of our childhoods, so we *do* have an emotional response when we see something with that much importance to us wrecked (in our opinion) -- it's not as simple as just saying, "well, we won't go see it, but who cares if other people do." I'm not saying it's rational to have that response to other people's tastes, just that as a not-always-entirely-rational human being, I get it.
** Not going to say what as that's not the point and I'm not trying to derail the conversation (and there are at least two movies out right now it could be).
EDIT: I feel I should make it clear that I have absolutely no problem with people who choose to read for fun and prefer light brain candy. Like I said, I love
Avengers. I'm just sort of contemplating here.