SJG claims that the fantasy genre is more popular than the SF genre. Is this true? Which genre do you prefer, SF or Fantasy?

I voted for fantasy.  I'm drawn to it as a player more strongly than SF; as a GM, I'm entirely drawn to fantasy.

While I've never quite puzzled out the reasons why, I think it might be rooted in what my tastes are as far as SF writing.  The sort of SF that I'm drawn to (P.K. Dick; Delaney; Ballard; Lethem; Wolfe; et al) doesn't lend itself easily to gaming, or at least the sort of gaming that I find most usable and rewarding.  Even someone like Iain M. Banks, who is closer to the sort of SF that seems to dominate RPGs, wouldn't be particularly easy to translate over.

Not that I wouldn't play a game of Traveller for old time's sake.

While I like Sci-Fi, I think SJG is correct in his assessment.

Fantasy is a much MUCH more succesful genre than Sci-fi because it has more mainstream penetration than sci-fi.

Even amongst your hardcore genre fans you just need to lok at the results of the Hugo votes.  With this year as a notable exception, for years now it's been the case that if there's a fantasy novel among the final nominees then it WILL win the Hugo regardless of how good the sci-fi books are.

In RPG terms I would be astonished if non-fantasy accounted for even 15% of the RPG market.

I'm a Sci Fi man but I agree with SJ that Fantasy is more popular.

My preference varies with the direction of the wind, but in my heart, I'm a spaceships-and-lasers guy.  So SF for the win, by a fin!

...

...the fin's on a rocket.

Interestingly enough, there are few Fantasy tv shows or movies, but a lot of RPGs, whereas with Sci Fi it`s reversed.

Even my fantasy game is SF in disguise. SF by a country mile. I know fantasy is a far larger market, but my heart is forever given to SF.

-clash

Does anyone have links to actual figures for the market share of science fiction and/or fantasy? I'm talking specifically about printed scifi, not games. I've always been under the impression that scifi greatly dominated the print fiction market.

Oddly, while I vastly prefer to read scifi, I vastly prefer to play fantasy RPGs.

Quote from: ColonelHardissonDoes anyone have links to actual figures for the market share of science fiction and/or fantasy? I'm talking specifically about printed scifi, not games. I've always been under the impression that scifi greatly dominated the print fiction market.

No figures, but a while back, there was a rant spread across several blogs in which SF writers were bemoaning that fantasy (which they considered inherently inferior)  has come to have a bigger draw than SF.  Later posters inplied that fantasy was pretty much always bigger.

There might be large sections of fantasy that you don't pay attention to, such as romantic fantasy and historical fantasy.

Here's a link to one of the blog pages on the issue that links to others:
http://www.scalzi.com/whatever/003914.html

I like both genres.  Having said that, I like reading and watching sci-fi better, but I like playing fantasy.  Sci-Fi settings are often a high-tech version of the society we live in now, and in such an envorinment it seems harder and less likely for independent adventurers to thrive, due to the tighter controls that modern and future governments have on society.  In fantasy, however, the powers that be are not capable of exerting the same level of control, so independent adventuring seems much more likely to thrive in that environment.

Make sense?

Quote from: TechnomancerIn fantasy, however, the powers that be are not capable of exerting the same level of control, so independent adventuring seems much more likely to thrive in that environment.

This varies greatly with the details of the setting more than the genre.  For example, a fairly historical fantasy might be highly restrictive.  At times in Medieval Europe, China, and Japan, people were not allowed to travel without permssion - free roaming adventurers wouldn't be allowed in any town so they'd have trouble buying/selling.

Another example is Traveller where there are whole subsectors with low population systems with little effective government so ships are pretty much on their own.

Truely excellent link Nicephorus.  I'd encountered the controversy from the British end a few months later but hadn't really traced it back.

I think the problem isn't so much that fantasy has suddenly become more popular than sci-fi, it's the fact that american sci-fi has essentially collapsed (as evidenced by the dominance of UK titles in recent Sci-fi award shortlists).

Americans either write fantasy or they're doing that whole alt-history thing which has exploded as a genre in recent years.  The watershed was Stephenson's Baroque cycle.

In my blog I talk about this phenomenon a bit and link to Charles Stross' blog in which he suggests the problem is that America is suffering from a  political malaise and is in the grip of a particularly nasty bout of introspection.

Genre authors simply can't summon up the energy or the imagination to put forward a new vision of the future.  It's all been said... it's all been done... so instead they write fantasy or pick over the bones of the past.

Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalI think the problem isn't so much that fantasy has suddenly become more popular than sci-fi, it's the fact that american sci-fi has essentially collapsed (as evidenced by the dominance of UK titles in recent Sci-fi award shortlists).

I think part of the problem is that all publishing tends to be conservative.  Publishers chase trends more often than they try to start them.  Military SF appears to be the only branch of SF currently doing well enough in the U.S. that publishers will try new authors.

Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalI think the problem isn't so much that fantasy has suddenly become more popular than sci-fi, it's the fact that american sci-fi has essentially collapsed (as evidenced by the dominance of UK titles in recent Sci-fi award shortlists).[...]Genre authors simply can't summon up the energy or the imagination to put forward a new vision of the future.  It's all been said... it's all been done... so instead they write fantasy or pick over the bones of the past.

Perhaps it's not a lack of adventurous authors. Perhaps it has to do with publishing houses here in the US getting increasingly conservative and more concerned with maintaining a certain level of profitability. I've read that the publishing industry here is becoming more and more obsessed with "franchise" authors - ones that write series and/or books about the same subject - and sure things, rather than with finding and nurturing new talent. Go into a bookstore here - the ones that carry new books, that is - and the shelves are dominated by series, or by shelves of books by "sure thing" authors like Stephen King. I imagine that a lot of great writers are out there, but simply can't get into print.