Why is SF Flagging? Part 2: Colton Blathers on Some More

On the Downhill

Last post, I blathered on about how the fantasy genre reinvented itself following a Tolkien burnout. Now I’ll talk about my personal opinion for why the numbers of sci-fi readers are dropping down.

Warning: There are exceptions to every rule. Keep that in mind.

Working back onto the original point, why aren’t people reading science fiction anymore? I’m not talking about the YA classification. They’re SF, true but most don’t actively think so. Science fiction to the average reader is Star Trek, Star Wars, Avatar, etc.

My personal view then is that science fiction’s decrease in readership traces to two factors. The first: the end of the space race.

Looking back, how many golden age authors found inspiration in the rockets lifting skyward? There were several existing before man landed on the moon, but I think the entire space-race was one of the driving forces that pressed SF forward.

With the end of the moon missions, space flight became… well… boring. It was old hat, rarely making the news anymore. Unless something exploded. There was no longer a huge scientific effort in the limelight, inspiring both reader and author, and I think this is one of the base causes for this readership decrease.

The other root cause is a shift in paradigms towards apathetic feelings towards science. Go ask someone who read Hunger Games, or Harry Potter, and try to get them to read Heinlein or Asimov. And they’ll tell you it’s boring. They’ll say those are dusty old books whose time has passed.

Interest in science no longer provokes the interest of many people. Everyone doesn’t care how their cell phone works. They just care that it works. They don’t care how their computer works, as long as it loads Facebook and email.

But none of this is news. No one wants to read a science textbook for fun. And that’s how they see SF. Reading that needs an advanced education to garner any enjoyment.

One last point occurs to me. As mentioned, there are always exclusions. It’s my personal view that people now read not just for enjoyment, but for escapist fantasies. A way to get away from their boring depressing life, and live somewhere else where everything isn’t so bad, or at least where they get to be the hero. How many letters did J.K. Rawling get from kids wanting to know whether Hogwarts was real, and if so, how could they get there?

It sounds funny, but she presented a world so much better than their own. And I sometimes think sci-fi doesn’t remember this idea. SF can get depressing.

People don’t need a story tell them about how monstrous people are, they already know, and aren’t looking to plunge into someone else’s miserable, hopeless life*. If they wanted to read about planetary genocides, and hideous acts of violence, they’d go read the news. What people don’t want is a novel to get preachy on them. I know of plenty of people who hurled books across a room, because the author decided to use their characters to start pontificating on their own world views (I’m looking at you, Ayn Rand). Again, if people wanted this, they’d go watch inane news pundit.

People want their fiction to be fulfilling, and enjoyable. They don’t want their fiction to tell them why life sucks, why their world view sucks, and why humanity’s position in the universe is precarious at best. It’s depressing.

In recap: the decrease in sci-fi readership I think is due to the end of the space race and ending of moon landings, a lack of interest caused from social and governmental policy and social change (blame whoever you want for that one), and a want by readers to find escapist literature.

I’ll blather about my own views on how I’d fix it in the next post.

* It can work sometimes. But I don’t think many people actually want to live in the setting for A Song of Ice and Fire.