I attended the PHIL Con this weekend. Very pleasant.

There was a panel about the future of SF and the aging readership and why the genre seems stale. David Hartwell (I think) said that the truest SF story would be one page long and nearly incomprehensible.

That totally burned me up because that's EXACTLY what I've been writing and submitting, but how many sales have I made? There is a consensus that SF needs new ideas and new writers, but I think it's a case of "be careful of what you're asking for."

Those magazines want "new" but friendly and readable and family-fucking-oriented. It grates my nerves every time I take out a sex scene or drop a drug reference.

But conform I will. SF editors want craft, not art. I'll conform. I promise and maybe someday I'll even stop bitching about it.

THE FAILURE OF THE CYBERPUNX