I don't like that 'cyberpunk' term being applied to all SF, because in my
opinion it denotes only a category of sf. SF is sf, and the assorted
franchise novels are garbage (99.99999% of them, anyway) and that's that. I
admit that I don't like the fact that more and more of the science fiction
section at my local Barnes & Noble is being taken over by assorted star Wars,
Star Trek, Stargate, Star Snores, Star Bathrooms, Star Home & Garden
Decorating Techniques, Star Snorts, and other assorted franchise series,
although to my shame I admit that when I was younger (up until about the age
of 14) I loved Star Trek and Star Wars books. There's still a good deal of
good SF out there, and the secret is to filter out the garbage and
concentrate on that. We don't need to stop calling it 'Science Fiction' and
and start calling it 'The genre formerly known as science fiction until a
bunch of garbage got filed under that name' or whatever. Let us read what we
like, and those that enjoy Star Trek and Star Wars (of which there are a few
good books, although not many) enjoy those, and those that enjoy reading
'True Confessions of yet another member of the O.J. Simpson Jury' read that,
and so on and so forth and we'll all get along fine.
-Ben Bjostad, who recently burned his collection of Star Trek novels after
realizing that there was much better original SF stuff out there and
concurrently realizing that ST books are, for the most part, garbage. 'Nuff
said.
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