Bramblethorn
Sleep-deprived
- Joined
- Feb 16, 2012
- Posts
- 16,739
Last I looked there still was some brick&mortar bookstores around here, doing rather well, but that might be local specific with literature obsessed folks specifically cherishing ancient tradition and national shit.
My local independent bookshop is doing well enough that they recently expanded their store. (This after previously killing off the Borders that tried to take them over.) Amazon's made a huge dent on the brick-and-mortar business, but some folk still like to see before they buy.
And yes, they still sort syfy and fantasy together right next to fringe spirituality stuff at one end and alternative history stuff in the other, but I think the real reason is a bit different: while hard science fiction and canonical high fantasy fanfic are indeed wolds away, they're actually the far ends of a continuous spectrum no concrete watershed can't nor should be drawn trough. When a completely made up magi-tech backed up by nothing more than senseless techno babble at best cross into the realm of pure fantasy? When a well researched ethnographic tradition of practical magic or alternative history cross the border of scientific possibility? And then there stuff that don't have even close as well defined paradigms as in my questions, or will mix those concepts freely intentionally.
Exactly. As one of the most famous SF authors of all time put it, "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". Stuff like the Pern series, or Merchant Princes, or much of Lovecraft, can be read as either SF or F depending on which elements one chooses to prioritise.