[anymouse]

As a bonus you can FReep the Globe and Mail poll:

"Is U.S. President Bush just wandering deeper into an Iraqi quagmire or is he on the right track in committing more resources to the struggle?"

[kuma]

I believe it has much to do with junk science. It's weary work to sift through all the junk to get to the science. When you talk to someone online who is involved in the Fantasy Genre they insist on details and others knowing them as well.

My point? The types of people who spend ours on genres like details. They are not satisfied with massive unproven theories aka junk science. Not to mention the fact that most new science these days presented to the public sounds like nothing more than a sales pitch for a guberment grant. While I don't know much personally about the science genre, I would imagine it's based largely on newer sciences?

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Because the Globe has "Spider-man" writing their articles?

[per loin]

A feminized society will naturally tend toward "witchy" rather than sci-fi entertainment. Lots of magic powers instead of rational development.

[harbingr]

My favorite Sci-Fi book series by Keith Laumer (1925-1993)...

Retief: Emissary to the Stars

(browse other authors here)

[KevinDavis]

What I see nowadays is that people does not have the will to explore. For example I was at a bookstore, there was more books about New Age and Witchcraft crap than there was about science. There is more emphasis on Harry Potter than there is with Star Trek. It seems the past 30 years people don't care or just don't want to take the risk no more. People have just gotten lazy. It is not just liberals who has gotten lazy it seems that some conservatives has gotten lazy too or just afraid of new things.

Space Ping! This is the space ping list! Let me know if you want on or off this list!

[foto]

I think all of us have tons of recomended reading beginning with tons of short stories which we don't even rememeber the names of anymore but that have somehow influenced us. The problem is the future of sci fi is bleak as the short stories are no longer worth reading. I have Gardner/Best of year collections from the last three years and to tell the truth I can't name one story from them. Reasons can be many but truthfully I am going to think for while on this one. Its sad but true when we all recognize the dearth of good sci fi. Maybe our best minds are being sapped away by computers, nintendos etc as such things were not around when we formed our love of sci fi.Maybe the drive for creating them is being directed somewhere else. As society becomes less traditional maybe there is less of an individualistic escapism mentality which maybe at the heart of scifi. Who knows but we are experiencing a downturn and I hope it changes. Going to think about it, and not just spill the first thoughts in my head. Take care all.
As for reading lists, anyone remember the short story,
A Rose for Eclesiastes? One of my old time favorites.
See ya.

[MrConfettiMan]

Just as we've committed ourselves inextricably to a high-tech world (and thank God, for no other kind will feed five billion)...

Soylent Green, anyone?

[-YYZ-]

I haven't had a chance to read all the responses here year, but I'd just like to say SF is alive and well. Interesting stuff that I've read recently includes Robert J Sawyer (present-tense SF with interesting twists), L.E. Modesitt (has constructed a relatively near-future world frameword for novels), and I never miss the annual "Year's Best Science Fiction" anthology edited by Gardner Dozois - if you can't find at least a half-dozen short stories in one of those that you like, I'd wonder if you really like SF.

[tm22721]

Tech has been de-romanticized by the proliferation of buggy software and the collapse of the tech driven stock market boom.

Not to mention the Homer Simpson mentality "if it's too hard then it's not worth doing".

BUMP