The authors are trying...but the publishers are balking. Author friends of mine like Phyllis Eisenstein and David Gerrold, who have numerous SF novels to their credit, are having a hard time getting novels published, and first timers like me apparently have no chance at all, even with solid records in other genres (like computer books) or stale records in short SF. I have a number of very successful computer books to my credit, and was actually on the Hugo final ballot in 1981, but my hard SF novel languishes.
One interesting clue to what's going on: Attend an SF convention and note the preponderance of increasingly gray heads. The crowd I see at cons is the same crowd I saw in 1975--and there's nobody bringing up the rear. I don't see young people buying SF these days, and so the publishers are hardly to be blamed for publishing less of it. My teenage nephew prefers Clive Cussler novels. Not sure why, but it bodes ill for those of us who love idea fiction.
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The authors are trying...but the publishers are balking. Author friends of mine like Phyllis Eisenstein and David Gerrold, who have numerous SF novels to their credit, are having a hard time getting novels published, and first timers like me apparently have no chance at all, even with solid records in other genres (like computer books) or stale records in short SF. I have a number of very successful computer books to my credit, and was actually on the Hugo final ballot in 1981, but my hard SF novel languishes.
One interesting clue to what's going on: Attend an SF convention and note the preponderance of increasingly gray heads. The crowd I see at cons is the same crowd I saw in 1975--and there's nobody bringing up the rear. I don't see young people buying SF these days, and so the publishers are hardly to be blamed for publishing less of it. My teenage nephew prefers Clive Cussler novels. Not sure why, but it bodes ill for those of us who love idea fiction.
--Jeff Duntemann