As the literary landscape shifts, we might be witnessing a significant transition in genre dominance. Science fiction, once a staple of speculative fiction, may be losing ground to fantasy, particularly among younger readers like Generation Z.
The unique cultural and societal factors shaping Gen Z suggest that science fiction’s popularity might not endure beyond Generation X. Let’s take a look at why.
For decades, science fiction captivated readers with its visions of the future, exploration of technology, and deep dives into what it means to be human. Generation X, having grown up amid the rapid technological advancement of the late Cold War era, found that science fiction reflected their hopes and anxieties alike.
However, Generation Z, born between 2001 and 2011, has grown up in a vastly different environment. The themes of Campbellian sci fi are less novel to a generation that grew up not just with the internet, but with ubiquitous smartphones. As a result, science fiction reflects Zoomers’ mundane lives more than it presents an aspirational view of the future. And dystopian cyberpunk hits too close to home, being less an escape than a grim mirror.
Related: Failed Generations Are Abused Generations
In contrast, fantasy set in secondary worlds where magic replaces technology offers Zoomers more of an escape. Fantasy allows readers to step into settings that are more distinct from their own. The fundamental rules can be different, so the world feels more removed from the pressures of modern life.
That greater flexibility when it comes to world building may explain why Gen Z readers are flocking to fantasy over science ficion.
Fantasy’s appeal to Gen Z also lies in its communal nature. The rise of online fandoms, fan fiction, and social media platforms has allowed readers to interact with fantasy worlds in ways that transcend the original texts. They can not only read about these worlds, they can expand upon them and create their own stories within them. This participatory culture aligns well with Gen Z’s tendencies toward collaboration and customization, making fantasy not just a genre to consume but a place to live in and shape.
Now, you could argue that the same phenomena are possible–and do happen in–science fiction. But the often rigid rules and structure of Big Men With Screwdrivers sci fi can deter audience participation. While sci fi has its dedicated fandoms, the genre’s post-1930s focus on hard science, speculative technology, and a future that seems less plausible by the day can create barriers to entry for younger audiences.
Related: Big Men With Screwdrivers
As Generation X ages, the question arises: Will science fiction survive as a dominant literary genre?
While sci fi will almost certainly retain a dedicated following, its broad appeal may wane as Gen Z and subsequent generations gravitate more toward fantasy.
Wolheim and Michel were right after all. Sciencre fiction must evolve to stay relevant. The way past a dead end is to go back, and the way forward for sci fi may be a return to its adventure fiction roots. If it fails to adapt, we might see a future in which the genre of tomorrow becomes a relic of the past, overshadowed by the magic of fantasy.
Again, this potential shift does not spell the end for science fiction. But it does suggest that the genre will have to innovate to maintain its place in the mainstream. If it can blend its traditional strengths with the elements that make fantasy so appealing to Gen Z, science fiction may yet find a way to thrive in the future.
But if sci fi remains tied to the zeitgeist and concerns of previous ages, its popularity may indeed fade, leaving fantasy to capture the hearts and minds of younger readers.
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The elephant in the room is that “Science Fiction” is modernist heresy in print form, which can only survive in a late 19th to late 20th century climate where Hard Science is purely material and not only does the supernatural have no place in it, it can only be separate and given its own Nonsense genre to keep it sealed away (that would be “Fantasy”) in order for Science to thrive and guide Humanity’s hand to the next step of evolution/post-human/meat robots/whatever it is the nearly microscopic number of old materialists who still exist believe.
There have always been stories of the Future, and there will always be stories of the Future. That is inevitable. What is going away is the dated from that has been locked in place since Fandom took control of OldPub and drew battle lines. Their influence is over, no one believes in what they sell anymore. “Science Fiction” is dead because its time and place is over, just as penny dreadfuls or railways stories are–not because you can’t write stories like them, but because it has no relevance for where we are as a culture. It’s niche and kitsch, it has no connection to modern audiences, same as “Fantasy” as a genre concept. We aren’t there anymore, and we won’t be again.
One of the reasons I advocate not bothering with outdated OldPub genre terms is because they lead people to think in those crusty old boxes, unable to imagine anything more and connecting to the needs of the modern audience. What are these so-called needs, you might be wondering? Audiences want exciting stories where We’re Going To Make It, where the Supernatural not only exists (even modern atheists believe in the supernatural, believe it or not) but is no longer separate from the natural.
As you can see, this goes against what we’ve been taught in regards to modern genres from the older crowd. And this isn’t to sneer at or spit on Gen X and older, but no one reads anymore and that decline happened under their watch–their answers to these questions are wrong, they aren’t connecting with modern audiences, in fact its been shrinking them since the pulps went away to the point where no one even reads at all anymore.
So, yes, my answer is that “Science Fiction & Fantasy” is dead and not coming back. However, both Futuristic and Mythic Adventure stories will not only thrive, they will grow and reconnect with audiences again. Once we accept the 20th century is over and act accordingly, we will see a radical shift in the right direction.
JD, one of the best things to happen to Fantasy & Science Fiction is your contention that neither actually exist.
Seconded. It’s one of those things that makes perfect sense once shown…
“. . . However, both Futuristic and Mythic Adventure stories will not only thrive, they will grow and reconnect with audiences again. Once we accept the 20th century is over and act accordingly, we will see a radical shift in the right direction.”
You touch on something that I’ve left unspoken for a while now (probably going on a year now) and that is stories should be made in a more mythological style. After reading many books and seeing how people discuss storycraft, something in the back of my mind festered which told me ‘it’s all so stale’ but no one wanted to be bold enough to say anything about it. However, there’s something about myths which seem timeless and have an evergreen potency about them. I’ll be working to develop a storytelling style which is more mythological than Campbellian.
It’s nice to see I’m not alone on this this front.
It’s how all Materialism-based F&SF ends — dry, stale, unsatisfying. It contains no nourishment for the mind or soul.
Not so much that, but mainly how formulaic storytelling has become. Pop novelists took Campbell too seriously and put storycraft in a box so now everyone is copying the copy of a copy of a copy.
Got it.
I dunno. I’ve been fishing around in the current self-publish SF scene, looking for something, anything, worth reading and… I’m not finding Campbell there. It seems to be mostly just reams and reams of wish-fulfillment fantasy glurged into writing completely bare of any of the self-reflection, meditation, or thoughtfulness (or editing) that might make it interesting, instead of embarrassing.
I feel like this is a step down from the boring, repetitive riffing on Tolkien, and science-ish-y space opera, that populated the genre when I was young.
I definitely think ‘Star Trek’-esque science fiction will die out. If there is any show you could describe as the ‘quintessential’ 20th century series, it would most certainly fit the bill, mostly because its entire ethos and view of existence stems from the fallout of the post-WW2 period. You’ll get a pretty laughable view of things like faith & religion when watching old clips from TNG, but that’s just a product of the time in which it was created. I’d guess something like DS9 may be relevant for longer because, in many ways, it takes the angle of striving to maintain principles in harsh conditions (with Sisko’s many moral dilemmas) instead of the more Utopian outlook, which is probably why (as a Zoomer), TNG comes across as a bit of an artefact whilst DS9, in the overall, does not.
What will survive and/or thrive is likely to be, as Cowan described, Futuristic stories which contain advanced technology whilst still retaining a spiritual core. The original Star Wars didn’t become such a success for no reason, after all. I especially like what kind of grand epic you could make in this way; what I tend to imagine basically comes down to a less ‘spicy’ version of Dune (pun intended). You’re dealing with a space where limitless imagination is possible, so the sky is pretty much the limit.
We’ll just have to see what the future holds…
“TNG comes across as a bit of an artefact whilst DS9, in the overall, does not.”
If you want an artifact, try the original Star Trek. It’s not entirely dated, but it’s hard to make out the language of it unless you grew up on broadcast TV and understood the optimism around all things tech.
It’s hard to describe how I felt about TNG as a fan when first aired. There was just something optimistic, exciting, and romantic about it. I had watched Star Trek in reruns and it captured something of that same spirit.
God at the time was a concept far away, as I lived in a household that didn’t pray. So the cringe on all things God/moral in TNG visible to me at the time. I probably would be unable to rewatch it today.
Growing up, the last season or two of any TV show was guaranteed to dish up disappointment. Writers could never offer seem to offer their characters happy endings. The OG Star Trek wasn’t on long enough to have the decay of writing typical of broadcast TV series. TNG was, however, including the dubious appearance of Wil Wheaton playing his own whiny self.
DS9 never appealed personally because it was “survival in space”. (Also why the Space Jews??). I agree that the shift in focus does make it more timeless. My husband recently rewatched the series, but I don’t think he’s ever gone back to TNG.
“The OG Star Trek wasn’t on long enough to have the decay of writing typical of broadcast TV series.”
TOS Season 3 was notorious for the decline of its writing back in the days when there was only one Star Trek movie, if not earlier. It was just ascribed more to ‘the network giving them a bad deal’ than long-term decay.
“The elephant in the room is that “Science Fiction” is modernist heresy in print form, which can only survive in a late 19th to late 20th century climate where Hard Science is purely material and not only does the supernatural have no place in it,”
Ramble ahead: CS Lewis managed to put sci-fi with supernatural elements, The Space Trilogy. The work itself is oddly prophetic, which is worth the trip for at least the last one. Full disclosure: I only read That Hideous Strength.
However, as a work that speaks to people, it fell flat. Certainly nobody even tried to make a major movie out. I’m afraid most CS Lewis fiction does fall flat for me, from booth personal interests and just being a tad too on the nose. (Note to anyone who didn’t figure it out the Chronicles of Narnia: Aslan is Christ. Sorry to spoil it.)
Interestingly, when I think about the sci-fi of 20th that does speak to the mass, it most involves a supernatural element. The most notable exception, Star Trek is a communist outlier, also lacking conflicts over money/etc. Star Wars, however, is clearly involves Christian theology/story themes. Dune of course couldn’t even try to be clever about ripping off of the Catholic faith. (The Bene Gesserits? Really?) It’s a medieval game of thrones but space.
In other words, while the genre does require no God and all science public societies, the elements that interest people involve thinking about God in some form.
I read That Hideous Strength a few years ago and it felt like it predicted our modern techno-dystopia, media misinformation, and gaslighting amongst other things to such an uncanny degree that it made me more uncomfortable than anything I’d read in a long time. It was rather shocking. The other two books are quite good as well.
“Dune of course couldn’t even try to be clever about ripping off of the Catholic faith. (The Bene Gesserits? Really?) It’s a medieval game of thrones but space. ”
That, and also the fact that it presents the Spice as essentially a psychedelic drug which ‘expands consciousness’, which means that the conflict over Arrakis in Dune is literally a drug war.
Science-Fiction has already been dead for at least 15 years (and mostly dead for a couple decades before that). Everything after that has been physicists writing about physics and cosmology with a few token fictional humans thrown in, sociological screechings about oppression, or mundane nihilism with a few tech gadgets for scenery.
Absent is the adventure and human triumph over adversity. A society can’t survive long on a diet of gray goo without hope of any better future. Even if we know it is fiction, seeing fictional others survive and succeed can spark hope and a sense that the world can be better, and maybe even your own personal reality could get just a little better.
When I was a kid there was a plethora of shows on the Discovery and Science Channel about future technologies and how they’ll revolutionize the world. Cars of Tomorrow, 2057, Beyond Tomorrow, World of Tomorrow, and all sorts of others.
Besides almost none of those technologies actually coming to market (or making no splash at all if they did), I can’t help but also notice that they don’t make series in that vein anymore.
Any optimism for technology saving us in the future is gone now. We already live in a cyberpunk dystopia and its far faker and gayer than anything Philip K Dick could have feared
Going to have some overlap with earlier comments by JD and others, but…
The big problem with Science Fiction as we generally think of it is that it’s married to a post-WWII, Atomic Age vision of a Shiny Secular Space Utopia. In the 1960s this captured the public’s imagination, but it’s downright risible today. By the 1980s, futuristic media had taken a completely different tone, for the most part. Star Wars was futuristic mythic adventure storytelling with a largely positive and upbeat orientation, while films like Blade Runner, Terminator, Robocop, The Running Man, Total Recall presented a cynical and pessimistic view of the future.
By the time the New Atheist movement fizzled out, the end of Science Fiction as we think of it was basically complete. Not coincidentally, Space Opera pretty much died with Battlestar Galactica – a flawed show, to be sure, but the only recent SF popular work to actually serious consider spiritual questions and integrate it into its mythos. It, too, was skeptical of notions of progress and technological wonder, taking a cyclical, fatalistic view more in line with Greek tragedy than typical sci-fi conventions. Turns out all those Greek mythological inspired elements may have been a little more than window dressing, eh?
As someone proficient in the conventions of Shiny Utopia Science Fiction, John C. Wright arguably perfected it in his “Count To The Eschaton” sequence. But I think I like his Space Vampire trilogy even better, which is a nod to the futuristic adventure storytelling of Edgar Rice Burroughs. I’m with you guys, the future of futuristic storytelling isn’t in following the dogma of Heinlein et al, but in the vein of pre-Atomic Age pulp adventure stories. It ends up with a worldview not unlike the best of fantasy, just set in a high technological and/or futuristic setting rather than a mythical one.
The old sci fi tradition was kept alive in Japan in many mecha shows. Gaogaigar in particular strikes me as something that feels like old pulp stories. Many of the triumphs of the heroes rely on scientific development, but this is presented as just one of the many triumphs of the human spirit along with courage, determination, hope, friendship, love, etc. That is, it’s not just “men with screwdrivers” but the truest sense of science heroes a la Doc EE Smith.
Unfortunately while there have been a few good mecha shows her and there as of late, the genre definitely took a downturn after 2007