The Wall Street Journal recently published an article saying SFF is on the rise and starting to flavour more and more of the popular titles by mainstream publishers. Lately, even literary authors have been trying their hand at using a “tweaked version of reality to talk about the world.” Hopefully SFF will start to get even more interesting in the next few years.
I’ve heard people say SFF peaked a long time ago, back when science was still “mysterious,” mainly because they think science has solved so many mysteries and left us with nothing to wonder about. But I think that’s just a lack of imagination, and a weird disconnect with the current mysteries of modern-day science. Early SFF was brilliant and exciting, as it was the time the genre was laying down its roots and establishing itself, but our modern day explorations are fertilizing the ground with fresh ideas and new scientific questions to explore. Mysteries are everywhere and there are an infinite number of exciting new SFF stories to be told. The variations, hybrids and new breeds of stories will be limited only by human creativity, and there’s plenty of that around.