I see it is part of the general problem of the culture industry.
Back in the 1980s the average young "science fiction fan" had never read Heinlein or Asimov or Niven or LeGunn or Anderson or Smith or Robinson or Pohl. Instead of reading 20 books by 20 different authors, they read Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy 20 times.
In the 2000s it was the same with fantasy and Harry Potter. Zillions and zillions of fantasy books but everybody just had to read the same one over and over.
And of course these folks are always negative and not positive, they aren't going to talk about what you should move on to, or even that you should read something like The Terraformers which (1) is pretty good no matter how you slice it and (2) represents an NB point of view.
Contrast that to a healthy culture in Japan where 4-panel comics that have come up in the last four years have had visual adaptations, I'd have no trouble naming 20 fantasy titles that have had visual adaptations, etc.
One thing everybody agrees in the US is that is all about gatekeeping, gatekeeping, gatekeeping, and more gatekeeping. Thing is you can't gatekeep your way to a successful culture industry, like you have to let creative people produce something.
PaulHoule•1h ago
Back in the 1980s the average young "science fiction fan" had never read Heinlein or Asimov or Niven or LeGunn or Anderson or Smith or Robinson or Pohl. Instead of reading 20 books by 20 different authors, they read Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy 20 times.
In the 2000s it was the same with fantasy and Harry Potter. Zillions and zillions of fantasy books but everybody just had to read the same one over and over.
And of course these folks are always negative and not positive, they aren't going to talk about what you should move on to, or even that you should read something like The Terraformers which (1) is pretty good no matter how you slice it and (2) represents an NB point of view.
Contrast that to a healthy culture in Japan where 4-panel comics that have come up in the last four years have had visual adaptations, I'd have no trouble naming 20 fantasy titles that have had visual adaptations, etc.
One thing everybody agrees in the US is that is all about gatekeeping, gatekeeping, gatekeeping, and more gatekeeping. Thing is you can't gatekeep your way to a successful culture industry, like you have to let creative people produce something.