Tuesday, October 27, 2009

"Sci Fi As We Knew It": Dead?

The Book View Cafe Blog knows what killed it:
... bad voice – bad, bad, bad, bad, bad voice. There’s a peculiar sort of tonedeaf sci fi voice sung with chalkboard scratch “wrong” notes, and then there’s a separate, cheap tonedeaf knockoff of noir film narration that I think got its start during the “cyberpunk” years. That one won’t die, and I think over time, it has been a very big nail in adult-oriented written science fiction with that label on it.
...
the people who were charged with buying and offering the material to the public ... promoted “the voice” as good, gave awards to it, and through the combination of low pay, poor treatment and social cooties-by-association drove off anybody with any sense of storytelling, talent or gift.

and concludes that "there is no appreciable new adult sci fi right now"

So far, there are 3 comments offering examples of current science fiction without the "bad voice".

10/28/2009: The Crotchety Old Fan has a take on the subject. The Book View Cafe Blog post author takes his post personally and calls him names in his comment thread.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous8:22 AM

    It's dead, Jim.

    A Pal

    :o)

    ReplyDelete
  2. There is still good scifi out there it's just hard to find. One I liked is the Unincorporated man by Dani and Eytin Kollin.

    ReplyDelete