coalescent

grahamsleight reported his Readercon schedule, which includes a panel titled: "What Do You Believe About Speculative Fiction That You Can't Prove?"

ninebelow took this question and gave his own answer:

Most science fiction is shit. A common, unthinking response to this is to quote Sturgeon's Law as if it actually means anything. This may come as a surprise but it isn't actually a natural law and saying 90% of everything is crap doesn't tell you anything useful. In fact the quality of most science fiction is substantially below the quality of most mainstream fiction - as most of us in the genre ludicrously persist in calling literary mimetic fiction. Of the science fiction novels published in any given year you would be lucky to find one that stood up against a handful of popular, well received mimetic novels.

what I believe about sf but can't prove is almost the direct opposite:

There are many different measures of 'good writing'. What they all actually mean is 'the use of the best, most appropriate techniques for the story being told.' The best techniques for telling a realist story may not be--in fact, are probably unlikely to be--the same as the best techniques for telling an sf story. Consequently, measured by realist standards many sf novels may look like failures (and measured by sf standards, many realist novels may look like failures).

I say all this without denying that the majority of published sf is, indeed, shit, and without denying that the majority of it could indeed do with the wider frame of reference

ninebelow wishes for.

So: anyone else want to offer their own answers?

EDIT: And Graham has suggested almost the same argument already.