"Those other media have nourished other fandoms which, like clones, resemble the original fandom Trekkies. Dr Who fans, Sword and Sorcery buffs - but are different from it. The masquerades are great, the swordplay terrific, the Skywalker lookalikes fine. Lifestyle imitates art. But even the near past is forgotten when literacy becomes a minor category. There's no kudos in having read John Wyndham or Philip Dick's novels as they appeared. One of the main cohesive factors within the field has faded silendy away. SF? Who reads SF? that seems a common modern fan's cry."
"But if SF as prophecy is out, SF as prodromic utterance definitely in. We have seen how Mary Shelley had a prodromic gift. Our beliefis that SF has something of the same ability. Submerged themes, as we've said already, move through science fiction. Fear of Dehumanization in the fifties, Life-Style in the sixties."
"It is, undoubtedly, safer to take a chance on a tried and product than a new commodity. Easier to serve up more of the same than trust to your own judgement and tempt the consumer with a new brand."
"The subsequent volumes have done the same. The tenacity of poor SF is renowned. It has unfortunately formed the hallmark of the genre."
"This is the Future Now. The few years before century's end will prove a long time in world history; we live, as they say, in interesting times."
"In the coming years we expect to see continued growth and proliferation of mass media technology. Will books themselves remain unaffected by this radical shift in our entertainment habits? Of one thing you can be certain - there's an SF story about it somewhere in the magazines."
"Finally, we predict a growing predilection in the non-literary artistic media for using SF metaphor as an art form; something that will, in time, feed back into the literary form. We see beginnings of this in the pop video, with its abrupt, telescoped imagery. Art often revitalizes itself by refashioning the popular."
Brian Aldiss, David Wingrove (1988). Trillion year spree : the history of science fiction. Londres: Grafton Paladin.
