The Cultural Decline of Literary Fiction

Re:The Cultural Decline of Literary Fiction by a_bonobo on Monday June 23, 2025 @07:41AM (#44354704)

A related (counter?) point - OP's article talks about the demise of literary magazines.

I feel like SF magazines have the same problem? Ut looks like all the SF magazines are on the downward slope, to quote Wikipedia:

>[Asimov's] Circulation declined steadily over the life of the magazine and as of 2020 it was below 20,000, more than half of that coming from online subscriptions.

If people would still read SF, why do these magazines fail just like the literary magazines?

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Re:The Cultural Decline of Literary Fiction by rsynnott on Monday June 23, 2025 @07:45AM (#44354744)

I think the magazine thing is just _wrong_, tbh; serialisation in magazines, as means of distributing novels, is dead. As you say, sci-fi, which used to be particularly heavily dependent on serialisation, has survived this. Litfic's problems lie elsewhere.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Cultural Decline of Literary Fiction by a_bonobo on Monday June 23, 2025 @07:59AM (#44354863)

I think I agree with you: in the age of the internet, where you can 'sample' SF fiction on every corner, you may not need a middle-man (the SF magazine) going around collating those samples for you. You can find them on your own now! for free!

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Cultural Decline of Literary Fiction by rsynnott on Monday June 23, 2025 @08:25AM (#44355075)

Even before the internet, the magazine serial was dying, tho; its heyday was probably the 60s or so.

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