Where have all the Sci-Fi gone?..

For the past few months, there has been a noticable dearth of science-fiction novels on bookstore shelves around the metro.. In most places like NBS or Powerbooks, the sci-fi section has shrank to a solitary shelf on a book rack, often sharing space with the apparently neverending Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms fantasy series. In fact, the only place I've seen with a sizable Sci-Fi section is Fully Booked there in Promenade (with Greenhills being a traditional geek haven and all).

Sigh... It used to be such great fun browsing through all those great works of futuristic fiction. I was lucky enough to have amassed my own (almost) complete Robotech collection. I have all 12 books spanning 3 generations, the complete 5-book Sentinels campaign, and the final End Of the Circle book. ( I'm still missing the Zentraedi Rebellion, which went out of stock a few weeks befote I went out to buy it.. dang!  I wonder if I can steal Wesley's copy... hehehe)

Recently, I was lucky enough to have snapped up copies of Jedi Healer and Republic Commando: True Colors, both of which are novels based upon Star Wars lore which I have almost given up hope of finding.

With stocks dwndling and hardly any new titles coming on the shelves soon, I'm forced to make the sad presumption that Sci-Fi is almost dead (at least, in this part of the world)... :(

From my observations, these are the probable causes of the decline in sci-fi titles:

1. Star Wars is officially over
 - Star Wars titles used to dominate Sci-Fi shelves (around early 90s), but with no further movies coming out, and almost all aspects of the universe realized in novels (through obscure stand-alone titles like Tales From Jabba's Palace and the like), Star Wars fans may have already lost the drive to delve into the once infinite unverse of that galaxy far far away..

2. Star Trek has lost its appeal
- another staple of the science fiction community, Star Trek novels have been losing their foothold in store shelves all around, though the upcoming Star Trek movie might be able to do something anout that.. I saw the trailer and it was AWESOME!!!

3. Recent advances in technology
- lets face it, with the current pace of technological advancement seen in society today, science-fiction is slowly turning into sciece-fact. A good example would be real-time teleconferencing, once the stuff of mystic sci-fi technobable 20-30 years ago, is now readily available with the advent of faster internet connections, webcams, and third-genereation mobile handsets. People don't have to imagine stuff about what the future could be like anymore, coz tomorrow they'd wake up and see the technology right at their doorstep.

I'd also like to include under this heading the paradigm shift from paper-based reading resources to online ones. I remember browsing thick volumes of encyclopedias just to do my research, but when my brother's time came to look stuff up for school, he could readily do so via the web! Add that to the current trends in computer and console gaming, and you now have a generation that barely bothers to look around and grab a book, much set time aside to curl up on the sofa and read it..(hmm, I guess this applies to books as a whole)

Sigh.. that's progress I guess.. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to chatting with my friends on YM, while browsing the net for info on hovercars and jetpacks... ;)