Spider Robinson (last seen around these parts getting a vigorous fisking) wrote an interesting op-ed in the Globe and Mail last week concerning the state of science fiction. Slashdot has a great follow-up discussion on the article and the problem Robinson describes.

For all my earlier crankiness towards him, I think he's spot-on with this description of the state of SF. I used to be a voracious SF reader, but several years ago I noticed that the genre was rapidly declining in quality. I noticed it because it was increasingly difficult to find a "science fiction" novel which didn't in some way incorporate magic and the supernatural, junk science, radical political agendas, inexplicable anachronisms in characters or settings, gratuitous violence, unpleasant philosophies, pessimistic worldviews, and just plain unrealistic fictional environments. I got tired of reading preachy, negative stories about how our world was going to hell in a handbasket, and how it was all because of science and technology and evil human nature. (Ironic, considering one of my favorite sub-genres is the post-apocalypse story.)

Oh, and the cover art sucks, too.

It's very difficult to find SF I'm willing to buy, and I've long since read through the complete works of the writers I've found I like.

Perhaps he's right (and I hope so) that this is only a protracted lull in the genre's cycle, and that new writers with new perspectives and fresh ideas will soon appear to start another upswing.