Current Trends in Science Fiction

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Current Trends in Science Fiction

1LShelby
Mar 29, 2020, 7:11 pm

So I spent far more of the last two years offline than on, and I haven't been to a bookstore in forever (and I can't go to one now) and I feel like I have no idea what's going on in my own industry.

So what is going on?

Who is winning awards?
What subgenres are hot?
What new authors are everyone getting excited about?

2dukedom_enough
Mar 30, 2020, 1:34 pm

The source I use most for keeping up is tor.com

3Cecrow
Mar 30, 2020, 2:15 pm

>2 dukedom_enough:, I frequent that site myself. There is a strong groundswell in the direction of inclusiveness right now. A lot of emphasis there is landing on representation of the LGBT community in fiction, and authors with various minority backgrounds coming to the fore. Genre fiction as a whole has been behind-hand for a while, and (to judge from this site, at least), it's finally catching up. Not unlike what you see on Netflix or from Hollywood these days.

4ScoLgo
Mar 30, 2020, 4:07 pm

I subscribe to TOR's newsletter and find it very useful. Another good resource is Worlds Without End. You have to dig under the hood for anything 'cutting edge' but the 'Books' menu is a good place to start.

5AnnieMod
Mar 30, 2020, 4:13 pm

Add also Locus and their monthly and weekly "new books" lists and their online reviews. The weekly list is rarely overwhelming (and will give you a fair idea of what is being published) and the monthly one is heavily curated.

Their "Best of last year" lists (in February) are usually worth scanning as well and can give you an idea of changes of tone year to year.

6LShelby
Mar 30, 2020, 8:36 pm

So does tor.com keep you up to date on the genre in general, or just what's happening at Tor?

(I have been there before, but its been a good long while. Over 5 years maybe?)

I used to subscribe to Locus way back when it was paper only, too. (This is the sort of comment that is prone to making people feel old. Fortunately I just think its super cool how I'm catching up with the future.) :)

7AnnieMod
Mar 30, 2020, 8:38 pm

>6 LShelby: Tor's blog is covering pretty much anything SF - more detailed about Tor of course but they do go outside.

Hey, I like the paper Locus :) The whole site can be overwhelming at times but if you check the New Books listings (Tue for US books), they help see what is actually coming out - and you can dig from there :)

8RobertDay
Mar 31, 2020, 10:17 am

If you want to keep up with what's happening in the UK - more in terms of the latest insider gossip rather than new books coming soon - you should look at Dave Langford's newsletter 'Ansible':

https://news.ansible.uk/

9igorken
Mar 31, 2020, 12:51 pm

>6 LShelby: Ah but it makes others (like me :) ) feel young, so there's that!

10JacobHolt
Mar 31, 2020, 1:16 pm

I find a manageable way of keeping up with contemporary SF/F trends is to read the annual anthologies from John Joseph Adams, starting with The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015. Individual stories are usually more hits than misses, and overall it seems like a fair representation of current trends, for better or worse.

11LShelby
Modifié : Avr 11, 2020, 10:42 am

>8 RobertDay:
Thanks for the tip.

>9 igorken:
My loss is your gain? I guess that makes everything even then. ;)

>10 JacobHolt:
That does sound like an excellent method. I'm not sure I'm up for it though, I think I've had the Oxford Book of Fantasy Stories on my nightstand for more than five years, and I'm not even halfway through it.

I have found Locus' recommended reading list for 2019, which I hope nobody minds if I copy some of to here, so I can research it easier. (Please do feel free to share your opinion of any of these books.)

The Silver Wind, Nina Allan - fixup, no subgenre tags
The City in the Middle of the Night, Charlie Jane Anders -dystopia, aliens (not hard?)
(2) The Testaments, Margaret Atwood -dystopia
Ancestral Night, Elizabeth Bear -space opera
Gamechanger L.X. Beckett - post apocalyptic
Rule of Capture, Christopher Brown -dystopia
Escaping Exodus, Nicky Drayden -generation ship (not hard?)
Perihelion Summer, Greg Egan (Tor.com Publishing)
(3)The Book of Flora, Meg Elison - dystopia
Empress of Forever, Max Gladstone - space opera, time travel
The Light Brigade, Kameron Hurley -dystopia, military, time travel
(3)Luna: Moon Rising, Ian McDonald -space opera
The Future of Another Timeline, Annalee Newitz - time travel
(4)Atlas Alone, Emma Newman -detective, romance?
The Memory Police, Yoko Ogawa -dystopian, magic realism
The Need, Helen Phillips
(2)Fleet of Knives, Gareth L. Powell (Titan US & UK)
(3)The Forbidden Stars, Tim Pratt -space opera
Million Mile Road Trip, Rudy Rucker
Stealing Worlds, Karl Schroeder (Tor)
Fall; or, Dodge in Hell, Neal Stephenson
The Rosewater Insurrection/The Rosewater Redemption, Tade Thompson
Wanderers, Chuck Wendig
Golden State, Ben H. Winters - dystopia
Frankissstein, Jeanette Winterson

12karenb
Mar 31, 2020, 8:06 pm

>1 LShelby: Who is winning awards?

LT has reasonably up-to-date information over in CK/Awards: Nebula Nominee and Hugo Nominee lists. Overall, the awards have shown more diversity than the field in general: mostly women, many people of color, various styles and mixes of genres, and a bigger range of topics. I'm finding it refreshing to read about people who are from other countries, continents, and hemispheres than mine (the US).

Or were you looking for recommendations for specific authors?

Tor.com is a good online resource, definitely, and all the "best of" anthologies. Sadly, Gardner Dozois died, so he's no longer producing his own annual, but the other dozen or so editors also do good work.

13justifiedsinner
Avr 1, 2020, 6:21 am

IO9.com gives monthly lists of new SF. Worlds Without End lists current and past winners and nominees for an extensive list of prizes in SF, Fantasy and Horror genres.

14Sakerfalcon
Avr 1, 2020, 6:48 am

>11 LShelby: As I"m sure you'll see when you check out this list in more detail, several of the titles are later books in a series and won't work as standalone. For example, Luna: Moon rising.

15DugsBooks
Avr 3, 2020, 11:45 pm

>11 LShelby: The Wanderers by Chuck Wendig and Richard Price

I followed the link & it looks like a great mash up of two authors! 🤔

“An Italian-American teenage gang prowl the Bronx in 1963 feeling that something is slipping away from them as they are about to graduate high school”

- when suddenly they are whisked away to join an intergalactic group of thugs with strange powers after impressing the alien leader by holding a bunch of smaller kids upside down until they give up their lunch money.

16LShelby
Avr 4, 2020, 3:15 pm

>15 DugsBooks:
That one really does sound worth checking out. I do enjoy science fiction that doesn't take itself too seriously.

I hadn't got that far down the list, myself. I keep interrupting myself to go do other things (like write books, read books, take walks with my cabin-feverish husband, or do some administrating over in the Hobnob group).

But I will persevere.

So far, besides the afore-mentioned gender themes, dystopias seem to be very popular, and time travel tags are popping up often enough to surprise me.

17DugsBooks
Modifié : Avr 4, 2020, 3:45 pm

>16 LShelby: you are probably jerking my chain but I was pointing out a broken link - evidently Richard Price gets credit for every novel titled “The Wanderers” , I noticed after poking around a bit ;-)

18iansales
Avr 7, 2020, 2:31 am

I don't see that much that has changed, if anything the field is far more tribal. For all its battle for inclusiveness, it's only a small group of people who are being nominated over and over again for the awards. And some of the stuff being given awards really is bland and badly-written. Even the small presses, like Subterranean, have turned to publishing limited editions of bestsellers to keep afloat. The interesting stuff is just not getting through anymore.

I used to follow the BSFA Award, but the current shortlist is appalling. Just about everyone on it was nominated last year and the year before. People don't read widely anymore, and get really upset when you point out that their narrow view of the genre, and their tribalism, is bending everything out of shape.

19paradoxosalpha
Avr 7, 2020, 11:13 am

>18 iansales: People don't read widely anymore

Did they ever? If so, was it a function of magazines and/or imprints "publishing widely" so that it was a feasible (or even easy) undertaking? All 21st-century media seem to be increasingly siloed and specialized for discrete audiences.

20iansales
Avr 8, 2020, 2:00 am

>19 paradoxosalpha: I meant within the genre. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, it was possible for avid readers to read a large percentage of the science fiction published. Certainly, sf magazine review columns could cover most of the books being released. That hasn't been true for a long time. But things are so bad now, people are attacked by fans for pointing out that they don't think an author is very good. And some authors mobilise their fandom when it comes to award time with the deliberate aim of bagging an award.

21paradoxosalpha
Avr 8, 2020, 11:15 am

I meant within the genre too, although it's an observation that could be applied more generally.

22LolaWalser
Avr 8, 2020, 11:23 am

What does it mean to "read widely" within the genre when the genre is dominated by one homogeneous group?

23iansales
Modifié : Avr 8, 2020, 3:26 pm

>22 LolaWalser: Well, for one thing it means reading outside that group, because there are other groups that write sf.

24AnnieMod
Avr 8, 2020, 4:10 pm

Part of the problem is the number of books being published in the genre - when you have a few thousand books per month, finding the ones to read which are not mentioned somewhere else is not that easy. So most people will end up with whatever is recommended in places they trust. Does not make it a good thing but unfortunately that's the reality.

25LolaWalser
Avr 8, 2020, 7:29 pm

>23 iansales:

Right, but I was puzzled by the invocation of the 1960s, some better past. Surely it was impossible to read more diversely, in the genre, in the 1960s than today?

>24 AnnieMod:

Yeah--I can't really speak to the current scene as I read so little of it, but just from the echoes of other people's reading, reviews, chat, to me the offerings appear wildly rich and diverse--in topics, treatments, styles, and of course, last but not least, author diversity. But, again, could be that my perspective is very limited.

I'm not tying this apparent richness to literary quality, necessarily. Only it doesn't seem to me there was a lack of dross in the past, perhaps even from better writers (e.g. Aldiss?)

Is there maybe a feeling that there are currently no or few really good (as in "high literary quality") writers in the genre?

Oops, sorry, this actually went off the "diversity" topic. Ignore if unwelcome.

26iansales
Avr 9, 2020, 3:01 am

>25 LolaWalser: I misread your comment. I was talking about different authors, not diverse authors. And for all that Hugo voters today are reading diverse authors, they're still only reading a small group of them. Which means very little has changed.

It was probably possible to read diversely in the 1960s, you just had to change your definition of genre to include stuff that wasn't US science fiction...

27LolaWalser
Avr 10, 2020, 11:36 am

>26 iansales:

Well, my question was about, as you said, "reading diversely", and I thought by now it's generally recognised that it's impossible to read diversely when the authors all have more or less the same make-up.

I mean, that was the whole point of questioning constructs like the "Western canon" and similar, no? Lots of different authors there but hardly representative of humanity in total in any sense.

It was probably possible to read diversely in the 1960s

It would be interesting to know if this is so, and then also if anyone did. Can't say it appears that way from what I'm reading...

Which means very little has changed.

I get your point but I think this is missing the biggest change there is (or that is, maybe, coming into being).

If someone is today reading only books by women, or black women, black transgender women, or black transgender left-handed women, I can see where one might say they are reading narrowly, but on the other hand, just the fact that today it's possible to favour such niches, would speak in itself to a vastly more diverse scene than ever before.

So, you may be right up to a point--that people are still getting fare that reflects predominanly a particular point of view. Nevertheless, I'd say it's not insignificant--that in fact it's supremely significant--that they can now choose whose particular point of view, whose experience, whose sensibility they are getting.

28iansales
Avr 10, 2020, 4:46 pm

>27 LolaWalser: Women have been published in science fiction since the beginnings of the genre,e but you wouldn't know it reading anything prior to around 1975. It was certainly possible to read female-authored sf before then, of course - in fact, a diet of entirely female-authored sf would not have been impossible, despite their invisibility in the awards shortlists.

There was LGBT sf available from the 1960s onward - and not just Delany - although it took some hunting down. But given that LGBT culture was mostly underground at the time, it's not unsurprising that it was not easy to find in mainstream sf., and it was more likely that LGBT novels used sf tropes than the other way round. I'm not sure of this as most of the gay fiction and gay sf I've read has been post-1980.

And then there was Delany... Dhalgren remains a favourite novel, and in terms of stature through the 1960s and 1970s, he was probably unique - as both a gay writer and a black writer. He was not the only gay writer, although he made sexuality very much an element of his fiction...

To be honest, I'm not sure where I'm going with this line of argument. And probably the best way to describe it is something that happened to me a couple of years ago. It was at the 2017 Eastercon in some soulless hotel near the NEC in Birmingham... I was in the dealers' room, chatting to a friend who ran the Interzone table, when a group of black people approached. They were the authors of books available on the Interzone table, but it was clear from both their behaviour and the blurbs on their books that they did not consider themselves part of the sf fandom in which I was a member. They had created their own fandom because they had not felt welcome in what I had thought was "the" sf fandom.

On the one hand, I can complain about US misdepictions of the UK in genre fiction - which happens far too often for comfort - but that means nothing when compared to the existence of an entirely independent parallel fandom which exists only because mainstream sf fandom was too white. I have always had a problem with sf readers not reading genre books that don't happen to have a genre stamp on the spine but are from diverse authors, Naguib Mahfouz wrote several books that qualify as fantasy, for example. Reading widely, to my mind, means looking beyond tor.com. And the latter's move to diversity strikes me pretty much as "ooh look, the US has discovered the rest of the planet exists".

Science fiction is a predominantly white male genre because the commentary insists it is. I don't think that has been wholly true for much of its history, but disproving it requires work from the reader. I am more worried that groups whose presence have not been welcomed have created rival fandoms and would like to see them integrated to create real diversity.

Apologies for the lecture.

29LShelby
Modifié : Avr 11, 2020, 10:57 am

>17 DugsBooks:
What? There isn't really a book about gang members being picked up by aliens? Darn it! That was sounding like the most promising book on the entire list.

(I have hopefully fixed all the errant touchstones.)

...
To be entirely honest, the reason I stopped trying to get published at traditional big-name science fiction and fantasy publishers was because after a couple decades of being told there was nothing wrong with my books except that the publisher didn't want them, it finally occurred to me that this response was the literal truth and not a polite brush off.

The trigger for this realization was my husband bemoaning the fact that he had been coming home from bookstores with empty hands more and more often.

I'm afraid I don't care much about who wrote the book I am reading. All I really care about, is if I like the book. And over the past fifteen years, the answer to that question has more and more frequently been: no.

Not being able to find science fiction I want to read, is a side effect of the same narrow focus that has been being bemoaned up thread. Narrow list of authors, narrow list of styles, philosophical bents and moods.

I still want to keep an eye on what is going on in mainstream science fiction. Maybe some day the trends will wander onto paths I actually like.

But I would welcome hints on where else to look.

Most attempts to support 'diversity' mean that in a sociological sense. I'm not interested in reading authors because of what color they are, or because if their sexual preferences. I would like to see a market that isn't so subject to the whims of fashion. In a market that is fueled by personal taste rather than public taste, surely all the little sociological groupings will get their fair say?

We have the technology to make this possible--so why do I still not know how to find science fiction books I think I will want to read?

30andyl
Avr 11, 2020, 12:01 pm

>11 LShelby:

I have read a fair chunk of the list

The Silver Wind, Nina Allan - fixup,

Lit-SF, naturalistic with an underlying weirdness. The stories are really inter-linked stories with no continuing narrative, and all somehow relate to time.

Ancestral Night, Elizabeth Bear -space opera

I thought this stood a chance of being nominated for a Hugo. The story sort of wanders a bit in the middle but it corrects in the end. First part of a series I think.

Perihelion Summer, Greg Egan (Tor.com Publishing)

Novella. Near future, Human-focused on people adjusting to a vastly changed world.

(3)The Book of Flora, Meg Elison - dystopia

Third book in a series, and I think is probably the weakest of them.

The Light Brigade, Kameron Hurley -dystopia, military, time travel

Pretty much what the sub-genre tags say. I found this to be very different in tone, structure and well feel to Hurley's other novels. In the past she has the habit of chucking the kitchen-sink at what she is writing. This is far more controlled.

(3)Luna: Moon Rising, Ian McDonald -space opera

Third book in a series. I wouldn't really call it (or the series) space opera that confuses the issue as people will think spaceships and battles. I guess gang wars on the Moon is a better way to look at it.

The Future of Another Timeline, Annalee Newitz - time travel

Multiple people going back in time to try and make the world better (or worse) for women.

(2)Fleet of Knives, Gareth L. Powell (Titan US & UK)

Space Opera.

(3)The Forbidden Stars, Tim Pratt -space opera

Space Opera.

Million Mile Road Trip, Rudy Rucker

The Usual Rudy Rucker weirdness. If you have read Rucker before you kind of know what you are going to get.

Fall; or, Dodge in Hell, Neal Stephenson

I didn't like this as much as lots of other people did.

The Rosewater Insurrection/The Rosewater Redemption, Tade Thompson

Both follow on from Rosewater. Read that first. Set in Nigeria in 2066 after an alien visitation. Loads packed into just the first novel but it doesn't feel slapdash with elements added for the sake of adding them.

Wanderers, Chuck Wendig

Near future, dystopic. Story about people who begin to sleepwalk and who cannot be injured.

Golden State, Ben H. Winters - dystopia

A world where people are arrested for saying (or writing) things that are untrue. The protagonist is a member of the Speculative Service, charged with protecting the 'Objectively So' from 'purposeful distortions of the truth'

I will note that 3 of the series listed in your post (the Emma Newman, the Ian McDonald, and the Tade Thompson) are all nominated for best series for the Hugo. I haven't read all of Emma Newman's series, so didn't comment about her book.

31LolaWalser
Avr 11, 2020, 2:22 pm


>29 LShelby:

I'm not interested in reading authors because of what color they are, or because if their sexual preferences. I would like to see a market that isn't so subject to the whims of fashion.

People's racial, ethnic, sexual etc. identities are not a matter of fashion. Demands for more diversity in publishing and elsewhere reflect the surprising discovery that people other than white, and/or male, and/or straight, European etc. exist and are interested in seeing their own experiences, sensibilities, avatars etc. represented in the media and entertainment they consume, and supporting authors who do this best.

There's plenty of stuff produced by, from the point of view, and for white straight men and those who valorize white straight men above all. You know, those people whose colour, sexual preference and the like are, never a question of "fashion" but just the god-given default we must all kowtow to.

32LShelby
Avr 11, 2020, 8:37 pm

I'm not interested in reading authors because of what color they are, or because if their sexual preferences. I would like to see a market that isn't so subject to the whims of fashion.

>31 LolaWalser:
I meant those as two separate thoughts. Should have punctuated better. Sorry!

Naturally who you are isn't a fashion. Which groups get the attention of the big publishers is fashion. What moods and styles are readily available and which are hard to find is fashion.

Fashion is stupid. I'm not going to stop liking purple and start liking orange just because orange is in and purple is so last year. Neither am I going to stop liking swashbucklers and start liking grim-gritty dystopias, just because swashbucklers haven't been in since before I was born.

If we always rely on a small group of people to choose our reading material for us, we'll likely always be missing out on something we might have otherwise really liked.

Did I phrase it more clearly this time?

If the publishing fashion police were still preventing people from getting published, then it would be fair to blame them for not being able to find what we want to be reading.

But if we are going to whine about the state of publishing, we need to whine about the right things. The truth is that at the moment NOBODY is being prevented from publishing. My cat could get published right now. (If had a cat.)

There are undoubtedly more books being produced by the-minority-group-of-your-choice right now, than you have time to read. And the books I want to read are probably out there too.

FINDING the GOOD ones is the problem.

But there must be some way to achieve that goal without relying on the book fashion police.

Maybe form reading circles with people of similar tastes who actively go out and seek lesser known authors, and report back on who the good ones are?

33johnnyapollo
Avr 12, 2020, 11:14 am

I don't think I've ever consciously read a particular author due to sex, religion, etc but as already discussed, the genre is predominately white and male. I remember the first time discovering that Andre Norton was female - quite a surprise to me as it wasn't apparent in all those early Ace books (I'm 58 and grew up reading those books in my middle school library) - I just knew that there was something about her writing and in particular the shared universe of those books that really appealed to me. I think good writing, or in broader strokes, an appealing narrative, provides what I'm looking for in entertainment, regardless of who wrote it or the particular medium. Just my thoughts on the subject.

When approaching sex, the lack or focus on objectifying same, etc. my preference is for it to just happen as part of the narrative - I've found the best writing takes things for granted where those subjects become part of the context rather than the subject of the storytelling. It's easy to tell when uneasy subjects are forced into the story, you can almost year an editor telling the author "maybe put in a gay character"....

I've recently read most of the bound works of Yoon Ha Lee - the stories are thought provoking (and sometimes mind numbing) and entertaining in their own right, but I feel that they aren't bound by the white-male author prevalence.

34davisfamily
Avr 30, 2020, 11:37 am

This entire thread has been the most interesting thing I have read all day. Thanks for this.

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