When Did SFF Get Too Big?

September 27, 2024 1:35 PM

Is it possible to pinpoint the moment when readers stopped being able to keep up with their favorite genres?

Nicoll concludes: "Was there ever really a time when people actually could read the whole field? Or is that just a story older readers tell themselves, with the line between “fully known” and “too big for one person” drawn at the moment the reader became aware how large the SFF field is? I suspect the latter."

posted by cupcakeninja (10 comments total)

To qualify this - there genuinely was a point when I could and did read all the science fiction and fantasy by writers of color that I could find in English. And then up to about 2012 I felt like I was able to keep up with most of the big novels and I tended to have heard of most of the writers and anthologies. After that, nope, I no longer do or can, and I don't try. I think that's good, actually. I definitely read a lot of SFF by writers of color, but at least in my neck of the fandom woods, that's pretty normal. Up through about 2012 or so "make sure that I read and talk about SFF books by writers of color" was a conscious goal and now it is only a goal in the way that "make sure to eat several meals a day" is a conscious goal for me.

Similarly, up until maybe the early 2000s I felt like I had a pretty good sense of the field of queer SFF...and now I can barely even keep up with the books I want to read.

I don't know if SFF as a whole in terms of books published has expanded (I suspect that it has, a bit) but definitely areas of SFF have expanded a lot.

Also, there's just a lot more sources of information than there used to be, partly because we have a well-developed SFnal internet now, partly because of television, etc. Because I'm an old, I remember when you needed to subscribe to the feminist science fiction email list if you really wanted to talk in detail about feminist science fiction online, I remember when there were a handful of blogs, etc. (I also remember when google search would find all that stuff, which did mean that you could see most of what was out there.)

Further, I remember when it was a huge fucking deal to run across an old copy of the first Women of Wonder anthology, and I remember when you'd read a great story by someone in an anthology and then really have to struggle to find any of their other work.

It would have been hard to read all SFF by women, volume-wise, but first you'd have to hear about and find all SFF by women, which was much harder.

Now, as soon as I post this, someone will hop on to say that in the mid-eighties they had a five thousand book collection of all SFF in English by people of color and queer people, and they ran a bookstore that only stocked SFF by women and they had a hundred thousand titles on the shelf and a massive clientele, and it's just my own laziness and naivete that made this seem so hard, because there's always The Woman Who Does Everything More Beautifully Than You, but at least in the upper midwest, even the specialist SFF stores (and we have two good ones) didn't have a ton of titles or stock most writers' full catalogues.
posted by Frowner at 2:03 PM on September 27 [11 favorites]

The headline on the article is really unfortunately clickbaity because I don't think it particularly reflects the tone or the actual question in the piece. I found the history of the growth of the genre fascinating and wouldn't have imagined it was anywhere near that traceable.
posted by jacquilynne at 2:08 PM on September 27

I feel like when I was a kid I couldn't keep up with individual SFF authors, much less the entire genre. Do you know how many novels Moorcock wrote? Turns out a lot.
posted by phooky at 2:34 PM on September 27 [6 favorites]

a huge fucking deal to run across an old copy of the first Women of Wonder anthology

One of the titles I really enjoyed connecting with customers, back in my used bookshop work days.
posted by doctornemo at 4:11 PM on September 27 [1 favorite]

Do you know how many novels Moorcock wrote? Turns out a lot.

Which is the one he dedicated "To my creditors, an endless source of inspiration," or words to that effect?
posted by doctornemo at 4:11 PM on September 27 [3 favorites]

I do find it hard to read broadly into SF these days. Partly that's because of time, as I work too much and spent a lot of time caring for family.

But it's also because I'm dreading my own death, which makes me increasingly skeptical of sf books. I want to devote remaining years to the best stuff, and feel enraged when I finish or give up on something flimsy, dull, or at best semicompetent.
posted by doctornemo at 4:14 PM on September 27 [3 favorites]

galaxy brain meme.jpg: just read the same 25 things you like best over and over again until the heat death of the universe
posted by phunniemee at 4:33 PM on September 27

Hmm. My living room has four large book shelves, containing around 1000 sf/f books published between 1950-1990. They belonged to my partner's dad, who died in the 90s. I have read a few here and there, and I want to read more, or read them all. But, realistically that won't happen. Well, the stories in them will still be there in a few decades.
posted by rebent at 4:44 PM on September 27

I think it used to be possible to keep up with major presses, certainly, but the small stuff I mean, there's always gonna be something somebody finds in a closet that had 1500 compies printed and it got reviewed in the Oberlin College newspaper and that was it or whatever. But there's no way one could even imagine doing so today, even if one had all day to do it.

It's wild, and there's a lot of great stuff coming out. It's awesome.

@rebent, check and see if you have Radix by A.A. Attanasio. That's a fun one.
posted by Smedly, Butlerian jihadi at 5:44 PM on September 27

As with music, there is certainly much more fiction published today than ever before, but one wonders (a) how much of it can realistically make its creators any profit, given the scattered audience, (b) how long most creators will/can continue to create in an environment that can't reward them financially for their work, and (c) what allows creators who make no money to stay in the game of satisfying the tiny sliver of the whole audience that pays attention (it's probably mostly wealth from inheritance and/or a spouse).
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:10 PM on September 27