Word: fictions
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Back in the 1950s, science-fiction literature earned a reputation as the opiate of supernerdy teenage boys: sturdy but unimaginative prose that waxed rhapsodic about G-forces and interstellar trajectories. It wasn't quite fair even then; early works by authors such as Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke relied as much on clever plot twists and thought-provoking views of societal evolution as on visions of rocket ships and interplanetary travel. Still, there was sufficient truth for the stereotype to sting...
...choose from a wide array of subgenres, including Tolkienesque fantasy, high-tech cyberpunk, horror sci-fi, feminist sci-fi, techno-thriller sci-fi, gay and lesbian sci-fi and even sci-fi erotica. Readership and authorship have broadened too: women now account for a third of the science-fiction audience, compared with just 10% in the '50s, and such writers as Ursula Le Guin and Octavia E. Butler (one of sci-fi's few African-American authors) are no longer considered invaders in a men's club...
...most popular genre, however, is one sci-fi purists disdain: endlessly replicating paperbacks based on movies and TV shows, notably Star Wars and Star Trek. "Movie tie-ins outsell regular science fiction by quite a bit," Brown says with a sniff. "We don't consider them real science fiction." A bit more acceptable, though still off the point, are traditional sword-and-sorcery fantasies like Robert Jordan's A Crown of Swords (Tor), which debuted at No. 2 on last week's New York Times list...
...book is a haunting and lyrical triumph, one of the few cyberpunk-influenced novels to weave a believable and emotionally involving vision of mankind's cultural and technological future from the reality of the vast Net already developing around us. That's all one can reasonably ask of science fiction: show us new worlds and make us believe our descendants might live there someday...
...will those descendants even read sci-fi? "When I started working here 20 years ago, we were getting the 12- and 13-year-olds," says Michael Franklin, manager of New York City's Science Fiction Shop. "We're still getting the same people--but now they're 32 and 33." Where have all the teenage gearheads gone? The Web. Nintendo. The Cineplex Odeon. "It's awful, a terrible habit!" says one of Holy Fire's 21st century Gen Xers. "Reading is so bad for you, it destroys your eyes and hurts your posture and makes you fat." How ironic...