Friday, July 9, 2010

The Surly Sullen Bell



How I mourn the Death of the Field.


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think you've had a lot more patience with the genre in the past decade than I have, Alvaro, but I'd have to say I agree. Why particularly have you come to this conclusion now?

Alvaro Zinos-Amaro said...

You know, I have to admit I was being somewhat sarcastic with that last post. We hear about science fiction as a genre "dying" all the time, but I think it's a death that's been greatly exaggerated. For instance, in this interview (http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2010/07/exclusive-interview-alexei-panshin/) Alexei Panshin comments that "Science fiction as it used to be is dying." Well, maybe not, but I'm not so sure.

In this thread, Lois Tilton commented that "As science fiction dwindles away, we like to look back in nostalgia at its golden years, reprint and reread its golden stories." One of Niall's responses inspired my photo. If the field has enough new short fiction to justify several dense, pretty high-quality anthologies, all of these concerns are relegated to the somewhat theoretical in my mind.

Alvaro Zinos-Amaro said...

The thread I was referring to, btw, is http://vectoreditors.wordpress.com/2010/06/07/a-new-feature/#comments