End Times

I saw this tweet today:

@torbooks: Check out Barnes & Noble’s SF/F picks for March: bit.ly/1qgsnHm

As you know, I’m a bit of a sci-fi fan, so I clicked the link to see what Barnes & Noble were recommending in my favourite genre. Boy, was I disappointed! Out of 19 books listed only one was actually science fiction (and that was a collection of old Marvel comics – so not exactly new, adult reading). The rest was just a load of fantasy.

It was also disappointing that this tweet came from Tor, which has a reputation of being a sci-fi publisher. If even Tor is promoting this list as sci-fi and fantasy (when it’s basically just fantasy) I begin to see why science fiction is dying. Either nobody knows the difference any more, or nobody cares. In fact, it makes me wonder whether sci-fi isn’t effectively dead and the publishers and the readers just haven’t had the heart to mention it to the last few writers still working in the genre (myself included).

I’ve only come across two, really good, new sci-fi writers in the past few years, Ann Leckie and Ramez Naam. Two, and I’ve been looking. If I wasn’t so committed to the genre, I think I’d consider hanging up my jet pack. But I guess this grizzled old rocketeer will go on dreaming about the stars until they carry me off to the soylent green factory. Once the nanites are in your blood, there’s no getting rid of them.