I wish I had all my old SF magazines. I remember an Asimov's editorial by Robert Silverberg in which he discussed this and his own shift from SF to F. I remember him saying it was primarily a financial decision for him because SF was getting hard to sell. Unfortunately, other than that, about the only thing I remember is that he pointed out that a lot of hard SF of the time (50's-60's) was tech oriented, rather than plot or character oriented (not the exemplary SF, but a large volume of hard SF in general). Women were minor figures, mostly sex objects, if they existed at all. This created a negative perception of SF in general. Women were putting up with this attitude much less in real life and didn't want in in fiction either. And women were becoming more of a force as consumers. And more of them started writing in these genres.
Something that caught my attention as I read the comments above is that often references are made to movies (and TV). With Star Trek and Star Wars, the books came after and sell well because the market is already there. I think that the visual media has a major influence over the print media. A lot of people who aren't/weren't particularly readers would read something about or similar to something they saw and liked, which further influenced what was being accepted for publication. Plus we're bombarded with a lot more advertising for visual media than for print media. Outside of this visual media influence, I don't think SF was a very big genre, whereas fantasy has been around forever, but even fantasy wasn't as major as it seems now. Books like The Lord of the Rings were always popular among a select group, but it was the movies that made them commonly known to people. That Harry Potter quickly became a movie series wasn't only the movie industry's marketing. The publishers knew how it would help sales. Some people will become fans of a genre, but others are merely following the fad. The guys who crunch the numbers for the TV, movie and publishing industries want to ride a fad 'til it wears out.
Something else that is an interesting influence, and you gamers can verify or refute this, is rpg's. According to my son, several of his games are merely a new, interactive form of the novel (after print and movie forms). Most of these that I've seen are fantasy (the Final Fantasy series being the first to come to mind) or a fantasy SF. Are there games without "powers?"
Everything ebbs and flows. What is popular in one area influences another. And this isn't merely in forms of entertainment. Science and technology aren't regarded as highly right now as they were in the 60's. "New Age" seems to many of us the closest reality to a fantasy, taking in, as it does, the powers of the mind, a resurrection of Gaia, natural religions (or a resurgence in all religions, some would argue).
I don't suppose this actually answers "Why," but it is part of the answer. This ebb and flow is just the way things go. When we're sated with the current flow, it will ebb and another flow will come in. In general, the pendulum metaphor of opposites works, but in so specific an area, it could be something quite different.
no subject
I wish I had all my old SF magazines. I remember an Asimov's editorial by Robert Silverberg in which he discussed this and his own shift from SF to F. I remember him saying it was primarily a financial decision for him because SF was getting hard to sell. Unfortunately, other than that, about the only thing I remember is that he pointed out that a lot of hard SF of the time (50's-60's) was tech oriented, rather than plot or character oriented (not the exemplary SF, but a large volume of hard SF in general). Women were minor figures, mostly sex objects, if they existed at all. This created a negative perception of SF in general. Women were putting up with this attitude much less in real life and didn't want in in fiction either. And women were becoming more of a force as consumers. And more of them started writing in these genres.
Something that caught my attention as I read the comments above is that often references are made to movies (and TV). With Star Trek and Star Wars, the books came after and sell well because the market is already there. I think that the visual media has a major influence over the print media. A lot of people who aren't/weren't particularly readers would read something about or similar to something they saw and liked, which further influenced what was being accepted for publication. Plus we're bombarded with a lot more advertising for visual media than for print media. Outside of this visual media influence, I don't think SF was a very big genre, whereas fantasy has been around forever, but even fantasy wasn't as major as it seems now. Books like The Lord of the Rings were always popular among a select group, but it was the movies that made them commonly known to people. That Harry Potter quickly became a movie series wasn't only the movie industry's marketing. The publishers knew how it would help sales. Some people will become fans of a genre, but others are merely following the fad. The guys who crunch the numbers for the TV, movie and publishing industries want to ride a fad 'til it wears out.
Something else that is an interesting influence, and you gamers can verify or refute this, is rpg's. According to my son, several of his games are merely a new, interactive form of the novel (after print and movie forms). Most of these that I've seen are fantasy (the Final Fantasy series being the first to come to mind) or a fantasy SF. Are there games without "powers?"
Everything ebbs and flows. What is popular in one area influences another. And this isn't merely in forms of entertainment. Science and technology aren't regarded as highly right now as they were in the 60's. "New Age" seems to many of us the closest reality to a fantasy, taking in, as it does, the powers of the mind, a resurrection of Gaia, natural religions (or a resurgence in all religions, some would argue).
I don't suppose this actually answers "Why," but it is part of the answer. This ebb and flow is just the way things go. When we're sated with the current flow, it will ebb and another flow will come in. In general, the pendulum metaphor of opposites works, but in so specific an area, it could be something quite different.
I'll be thinking about this for a while.