Does fiction, artistic writing, have much of a future? I must say it's on the way out.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Most near-future fictions are boring. It's always dark and always raining, and people are so unhappy.
Fiction, maybe art in general, is a tentative, uncertain enterprise; it's not science, it's an exploration, but you never find much in the way of answers.
I have argued about the future of fiction with jaded novelists, far-seeing postmodernists, technologists, television critics. The argument that future generations will not know the pleasures of the novel has been a staple of book reviewing since at least 1960.
I think what will happen is that fiction will become more like poetry. As in, the only people who read it will write it.
I think the one thing that's changed over time is that I've come to realise, as a fiction writer, the fact that I don't think it will work out, doesn't mean that it actually won't.
It may be far in the future, but there's some kind of logical way to get from where we are to where the science fiction is.
Fiction is able to do one thing better than any other art form: it is able to convey a convincing sense of what is going on in someone else's head. To me, that is the great mystery of life: what is everyone else thinking?
So, I guess the answer to your question is very few people can bring off a novel of the future because it's just so damn hard to make it look like the future.
I like to think readers appreciate a well-drawn near-future as well as a well-drawn far-future.
I think there is a real thing going on where writers are feeling more liberated to write with a big canvas because of a demonstrable, continued appetite for long-form storytelling.