Science fiction is back!

Dystopia, utopia,
The have and have not,
Social dynamic theory
Neatly fitted to a plot.
Orwell, Brunner, Heinlein and more,
Showed us our society,
From the future's distant shore.
I'm not looking for fortune
And not a whole lot of fame.
Just sixty thousand people
Who recognize my name.

The lowest-common-denominator formula of corporate mass-market publishing severely curtailed the literary function of science fiction, as social commentary and forum for presentation of philosophical argument and experimentation in literary style.

A science fiction or fantasy author is a social dynamicist and a working philosopher.

In the 50's, we learned ethics in comic books and watching Saturday morning TV. That's what the 60's were about. It was the time of the great editors, when bold new work... Back when a book was the most common way for people to get a story. That changed.

Corporations bought publishers bleeding red ink and revamped for the only way print publishing might be profitable. Every book had to appeal to the broadest possible audience, so lowest common denominator and designed for the national average reader, to expand the market, was the correct business decision. They're whining because Amazon didn't stick to their timetable, or let them do it first. They hadn't changed a dot in the plan in thirty years. Transition to electronic publication, with it's very nice projected profit margin, and attendant personal income increase, had been scheduled.

The complete unfamiliarity of a man-against-society plot, especially when the good guys win, is astounding in its frequency. I write superheroes and villains are a symptom. The diseased or threatened society is what must be changed. I have a whole lot of fun writing romantic heroes with a whole lot of money. My 'sets' are right at home beside Tony Stark's pad.