SFF Hot from Printers: New Releases discussion

Gwern Branwen wrote in 2015 an essay against reading new books: https://www.gwern.net/Culture-is-not-...

TL;DR:
1) There are so many books already that no-one can read even a tiny fraction of them in their lifetime, but still more and more works are being produced every year. This seems like a waste.
2) There are always good and bad books produced, but bad books get forgotten in time, while good books persist. Therefore old books that are still available (and/or commonly known) today are on average better than new books.
3) For marketing and psychological reasons, people are more willing to grab a new book than an old one. When you combine this with #2 above, it means that people will spend their time suboptimally, given the choice.

Therefore, he concludes, we should ban new books. It's for the greater good.

And while his conclusion might be a bit over-the-top, not to mention tongue-in-cheek, I have been having concerns with #3 in the list. I read nine books in this group this year, and the average rating I gave them is a lousy 2.9; in contrast, with the Hugo/Nebula group, the average is 3.5 (not surprising, since they have won awards and should on average be better) and in SF in Translation group the average was a whopping 3.8 (but then again all of those have passed through another kind of gauntlet: only relatively few books are translated in English, so it makes sense that they are on average pretty good).

It seems like Gwern is at least partially right: my time would be better used reading old books than new ones, and the lure of new books is mostly a net negative for me. I acknowledge that this is a privileged position: minorities might view old books with more distaste, since they can't find relatable characters or find the attitudes offensive.

But with that in mind: what are your thoughts on this? Have any of you considered reading less new books? Or perhaps the opposite: has anyone abandoned old books completely and reads only new ones now?

Oh wow, I couldn't disagree more. I went through a phase where I read a ton of classics and ended up coming away with the impression that they were by and large way overrated. A lot of classics are classics because they did something or were important in some way. Perhaps they showcase the philosophy of the time in which they were written or they innovated some new writing style. So they are worth remembering and studying, but in terms of quality of writing....they really aren't that great. I remember being really surprised at how many of them were rambling and wordy with horrible pacing issues and boring prose. And of course, a lot of the morals, values, philosophies, etc are at best borderline offensive now.

Since committing myself to reading mostly new releases I have enjoyed a massive upturn in quality of reading. Writers now write better. The craft has massively improved. And of course, the risk of running into horrible racism, misogyny, and colonizer values is much lower. Naturally, current authors are artists and philosophers who are engaging with the current moment. I certainly don't want to give that up. I want to be a part of the social and cultural conversation and growth. The past is worth learning from, but I don't want to dwell there or worship it either.

A very interesting idea and to some extent I actually agree. However, #2 assumes that tastes are similar and unchanging, which is highly questionable. There is a podcast (I guess) Young People Read Old SF https://youngpeoplereadoldsff.com/ - there a lot of classics with high cumulative publishing figures (so actively read once) doesn't 'touch' younger readers. This means changeable tastes and therefore new authors for new readers.

As you can see from my reading list, I read a lot both new and old and I have even larger TBR piles of older stuff. For example, just a month ago I become aware about Wolf of the Steppes: The Complete Cossack Adventures, Volume One, 1920s adventures of Zaporizzhyan Cossack that supposedly influenced Robert E. Howard and his Conan. I want to check them, but been old and forgotten there is no audio versions and eye-reading isn't my main way of consumption of books these days

I think a new book is just as likely to be a surprise 5 star read as an old one for me. But old books are finite. Eventually I could read all the ones of interest/good enough. Hugo/Nebula back lists are only so long and some are really not good.

That's a very bold take, but tuned down it actually rings true for me. Last year I read a lot new releases and I've never dnf'd so many books in a year. Thus meanwhile I stay away from anything new released I have to pay for unless it is an author I trust or it got good reviews from readers whose taste aligns with mine. (well, and sometimes I just can't keep away when a title catches my eye)
I'm quite happy atm to read through the last 80 years of Hugo and Nebula nominations.

Gabi wrote: "That's a very bold take, but tuned down it actually rings true for me. Last year I read a lot new releases and I've never dnf'd so many books in a year. Thus meanwhile I stay away from anything new..."

I think there is something to be said for the fact that reading brand new releases is more of a risk. I love feeling like I'm on the cutting edge, but that does mean that I'm one of the ones curating to some degree. There are more opinions and reviews for books that have been around longer than a year and definitely some will rise to the surface and some will be forgotten. So if your goal is to only read really good books, I would bet that reading books that are several years old would have the best results. Because by that point you can see which books succeeded and lots of people have endorsed so to speak.

Kristenelle wrote: "... I would bet that reading books that are several years old would have the best results ..."

That is generally my approach to new books. I'll put new books onto a wish list on my library website. But instead of joining the line in a "hold" request, I just quietly wait until the buzz dies down and the book becomes available. If I've lost interest by then, perhaps because of more reviews from friends, I just take it off the list.

But as for never reading new books.... I can't get behind that. That would be like never listening to new music. People are always coming up with new and interesting ways to combine old ideas to make them feel fresh.

I just read Arthur C Clarke's "The City and The Stars". In it there is a city which has closed itself off from the world for one billion years. He says that the people never get bored because they have access to plenty of old "sagas" and music. Apparently they don't feel the need to create much more. (Though they do seem to have some occasional new visual art.) That just felt so very wrong to me. Humans are simply not capable of living without creating and enjoying new stories.

Very interesting hypothesis, but I have to agree with Kristenelle and Z, #2 doesn't resonate with my reading experience. I have only read 42 (out of 238) books from before 2000 (according to GR's statistics page) so perhaps I'm not a great bellwether.

I love that newer SFF not only provides really cool magic systems/world building/science but also deals with modern social issues like misinformation, AI/machine learning, LGBTQ+, non-western settings, etc.

But its great to have ppl like Branwen challenge our predisposition to favor the hot new thing.

Kristenelle wrote: "I love feeling like I'm on the cutting edge, but that does mean that I'm one of the ones curating to some degree. There are more opinions and reviews for books that have been around longer than a year and definitely some will rise to the surface and some will be forgotten."

Yeah, this is the crux of it for me. You EITHER:
a) get to reap the benefits of others' curation and recommendations based on taking the risk for you over a period of years;
b) get to be one the curating for others, taking the risk on new work, and championing works and authors you believe in.

It is definitely the difference between reading the Hugo backlist of pre-2015 and being capable of nominating for the shortlist. They aren't mutually exclusive, and I'd advocate balance, because it really is *impossible* to survey the entire field even for just new releases. Even professional critics and reviewers can't keep up with the pace of creation. On Coode Street, Gary and Johnathan (who review for Locus, and Johnathan curates for the annual anthologies of short SFF) have talked about how they never have time to read anything ever except the next new thing.

Kristenelle wrote: "A lot of classics are classics because they did something or were important in some way. Perhaps they showcase the philosophy of the time in which they were written or they innovated some new writing style. So they are worth remembering and studying, but in terms of quality of writing..."

This is also a thing. The vast majority of cultural works have a resonance and value that is tied to their time and place. Culture is ever-shifting, and what we value in art is too. I'd say the majority of books that disappear do so because they are no longer resonant, even if they once were. And to a large extent classics don't resonate either, but like Kristen said, they become representative of those places and times and are useful for learning, study, cultural memory, etc. Even when they can no longer be considered *broadly* - in the sense that there is wide appeal to a readership - enjoyable "pleasure" reading.

Kristenelle wrote: "Oh wow, I couldn't disagree more. I went through a phase where I read a ton of classics and ended up coming away with the impression that they were by and large way overrated. A lot of classics are..."

I don't experience reading classics this way at all, and in general find that I'm on much more solid ground with classic than with new novels. I think one reason is that I love watching writers strain against the limitations of the thought and culture they live within. Of course, contemporary writers are doing this, too, but it is a totally different experience when you can see the outline of the norm or belief so much more clearly. I love watching a 19th-century writer try to write their way out of the traps set by their society's views of gender and marriage, or watching a scifi writer from the 60s try to imagine a radically different future, and end up with something that is so clearly of its time, but often in a totally unique way.

I guess I also prefer if a novel rambles a little on the way to its destination, too :)

But I would never want to give up reading new books. It is so exciting to pick up a book from this moment we're living in now! I've also found that I'm much more likely to be surprised by a new book, sometimes absolutely loving a book that I was just giving a chance against my own instincts, and didn't expect to even finish; sometimes being gravely disappointed by books that look amazing. For some reason, I seem to have that experience less with older books, perhaps because their reputations have settled out a little.

I like exploring new structures and approaches to writing that one can find in new releases much more so than the classics - different ways of conveying the story, different formats, etc.

There is such stuff as priming in psychology exposure to one stimulus influences a response to a subsequent stimulus, without conscious guidance or intention, like your choice of price for unknown value object depending on asking you your last 2 digits of social security number. I guess it works with books too - if you started enjoying SFF with authors from a given time period, they are a yardstick for all others. Like my earliest SF I enjoyed were Citizen of the Galaxy and Orphans of the Sky and therefore I still value Robert A. Heinlein highly and enjoy (but less) even his after-1970 works

Khira wrote: "I like exploring new structures and approaches to writing that one can find in new releases much more so than the classics - different ways of conveying the story, different formats, etc."

Yes, practices of writing change, but sadly quite often there is a fad for writing this way or that and everyone tries it instead of developing their own

Yes, that's a good point, Oleksandr. I often get the "another one of those" feeling when I start one of the new releases. Of course there were always fads in the different eras, but since I'm not reading 10 books back to back from the same year when I read older ones that's not so obvious as with new releases. So a new one from time to time is good, but as main dish it gets very stale.

Oleksandr wrote: "Like my earliest SF I enjoyed were Citizen of the Galaxy and Orphans of the Sky and therefore I still value Robert A. Heinlein highly and enjoy (but less) even his after-1970 works"

For me it's Clarke. Who also said (in one of his early, and frankly not-very-good works) "Nothing is deader than yesterday’s science-fiction". SF is a genre which moves rapidly. At its most ambitious, it talks about modern society through the lens of the future, and so is apt to get out of date as that society changes. But even if its just telling a scientific puzzle or a fun adventure romp, it dates, in its technological and social assumptions, in what it considers to be an "interesting" question, in what it ignores, or just in who it chooses as its characters. And this makes those stories a lot less relevant to modern readers. It might have been good or interesting or relevant in its day, but now its just... uninteresting and irrelevant. And I expect that'll be true of almost all of the stuff I've read this year in 10 or 20 years time.

The exceptions (like Dune or The Dispossessed) are pretty rare, and to be treasured.

Gabi wrote: "I often get the "another one of those" feeling when I start one of the new releases."

This is my experience, as well. New SF books repeat same themes (queer and anticolonial, mostly) and use similar narrative devices (multiple first-person POVs being the chief among them), so they feel rather like reading the same book over and over again. This is most likely a character defect from my part, but I get bored very easily if there's not enough variation. It's sort of ironic, since most people would say there is much more diversity these days in SF with ownvoices and queer characters and whatnot, but all that diversity has resulted in a new kind of uniformity.

I can only imagine how I would've hated living through the New Wave era: indeed, I think that our time will in retrospect be seen as pretty similar as the 70's: an age or important exploration, but which produced lots of books that no one wants to read later, with the exception of some notable masterworks (I think the Broken Earth will be one of these enduring masterworks of our era, to name one example).

Antti wrote: "And while his conclusion might be a bit over-the-top, not to mention tongue-in-cheek, I have been having concerns with #3 in the list. I read nine books in this group this year, and the average rating I gave them is a lousy 2.9; in contrast, with the Hugo/Nebula group, the average is 3.5 (not surprising, since they have won awards and should on average be better)"

This suggests that we're making some poor choices, rather than necessarily going for the obvious Hot Thing all the time?

But then, that's the point. I'm reading stuff through this group, and as part of trying to be a Good Nominator, that I normally wouldn't bother with based on the blurb. And that's obviously going to drag average ratings lower. But I've found good stuff that's broadened my horizons as part of that, so I don't feel like its a waste.

Absolutely same for me, Antti. I remember when I re-started reading SFF in earnest some 3 (?) years ago that I was delighted that there now was queer and non-Western content. I was totally happy with the first books I've read. And now? When I see a new release shelved foremost as LGBTQ and the typical hype reviews from the typical readers in the review section my first thought is to give it a wide berth. It took only 3 years for me to get oversaturated.

MH wrote: "This suggests that we're making some poor choices, rather than necessarily going for the obvious Hot Thing all the time?"

Perhaps, but then again it could be just me. I'd be curious to hear what kinds of rating averages other members have: do they follow the same pattern as mine or am I the outlier? From this thread is pretty obvious that some people have had a much more positive experience with newer SF than I have.

Kristenelle wrote: "I love feeling like I'm on the cutting edge, but that does mean that I'm one of the ones curating to some degree."

Yes, this is exactly the problem for me. I, too, seem to like feeling I'm exploring new frontiers and being part of the vanguard... but in reality it means I'm reading lots of poor-to-mediocre books. Ed's approach seems much more sensible: wait for a while to get some feel of whether the book is actually something I'd enjoy.

Perhaps the mildest version of "don't read new books" is "only read books that are at least a year old", and that seems like an unqualified plus, compared to reading the latest releases semi-blindly. Unless one is a professional reviewer, is there really any advantage to read any books "hot off the presses"? Isn't it basically always better to wait for a year or two?

Antti wrote: "Yes, this is exactly the problem for me. I, too, seem to like feeling I'm exploring new frontiers and being part of the vanguard... but in reality it means I'm reading lots of poor-to-mediocre books. Ed's approach seems much more sensible: wait for a while to get some feel of whether the book is actually something I'd enjoy.."


How do you feel about dnf-ing? I feel like being willing to give up on a book that isn't working for me, makes reading new books less of a risk.

But personally, I'm enjoying trying to read as many new releases as I can so that I can try to get a feel for how good the awards and general hype actually are at finding the best books. I want to know how trustworthy they are. So it is completely possible that this is just a phase for me and I'll switch up my approach after a few years.

Oleksandr wrote: "Yes, practices of writing change, but sadly quite often there is a fad for writing this way or that and everyone tries it instead of developing their own ..."

I think that fads have always existed and always will, they just change over time. But fads arise as a result of someone exploring new creative themes, some of which resonate with the readers and become successful, in turn inspiring other writers to follow in their path.

I love the fact that fictional writing is continuously exploring new ways of story-telling, like twitter novels, lucid fiction and bizarro. (Or the chewing gum story or 'STET,' the links to which you've posted in the Science Fiction and Philosophy Group - they're both fantastic.)

Many of the novels that we think of as classics and 'old books' today were ground-breaking in their own time, including Robert A. Heinlein's works.

Kristenelle wrote: "How do you feel about dnf-ing?"

I DNF bad books all the time: I usually decide at 50 pages whether to continue or not. The problem isn't bad books, but 2,5-star books. There are lots of books that are not good, but are not really bad, either. It's not always obvious which way the book will turn until you're so far in the book you might just as well finish the damn thing.

@Antii - ah yeah, that’s totally fair.

Gabi wrote: "Absolutely same for me, Antti. I remember when I re-started reading SFF in earnest some 3 (?) years ago that I was delighted that there now was queer and non-Western content. I was totally happy with the first books I've read. And now? When I see a new release shelved foremost as LGBTQ and the typical hype reviews from the typical readers in the review section my first thought is to give it a wide berth. It took only 3 years for me to get oversaturated.

Absolutely the same for me. I like LGBTQ when it is just part of a character(s) description, but I don't want to read a bunch of internalizing about it, necessarily, nor do I want a bunch of plot points caused by the LGBTQness of the characters.

And I NEVER have been good at reading books that jump quickly between several POV's or time periods, particularly when the time periods are previous to a prologue. I don't like previews of movies, either, and dislike TV episodes where they show you 3 minutes of something and then there's a subtitle that says "12 hours earlier" That type of writing seems to be popular now even when the book does not need to be written that way!

Annti, thanks for starting this discussion. Fascinating thing to think about.

Just in case anybody got the wrong idea about me, I should also say that I am an equal opportunity ignorer of romance and sexual scenes in books. Particularly first person whining about it.

Above, I said "I like LGBTQ when it is just part of a character(s) description, but I don't want to read a bunch of internalizing about it, necessarily, nor do I want a bunch of plot points caused by the LGBTQness of the characters."

But I also don't want to read a bunch of internalizing about heterosexual love or relationships or sex etc. I most hate the "I'm not good enough for him/her/them" plot idea.

Basically, I'm good with just a little bit of romance. And, for example, some of the Vorkosigan books are outright romances, and some of the Connie Willis' books are also, and I LOVE them. But I don't want to be in most characters heads about "love" too much. And I don't really want to read sex scenes anymore because bored now.

I second your approach, Kate! I'm fine with romance and don't skip sex scenes (no more than any other scenes) but these aren't reasons I prefer SFF over other genres - I go for a sense of wonder, interesting ideas and their realizations

Oh, I have to admit that I love sex scenes. When an author is able to put good scenes within a sensible context of an SFF story I'm there for it. But imho 95% just can't write them (latest example Watchful City with so many metaphors and similes that my eyes didn't stop rotating) off the top of my head there's only Nalo Hopkinson whom I recall as writing organic feeling sex.

Apart from that I agree that I'm into SFF because of the sense of wonder. I admire great ideas, even when the characters are not top written. A good idea gets me miles without the need of character connection (best example the Three Body Problem). And that is something I tend to find more in older books (or I'm just reading the wrong new ones). That's why I enjoyed Andy Weir's "Hail Mary" so much. A real nice SF concept.

Gabi wrote: "Oh, I have to admit that I love sex scenes. ... But imho 95% just can't write them "

Yes, exactly! I can get all feely-touchy for a good high tension scene, but if as a teen I cried aloud when D'Artagnan lost his love Constance to a poisoning, most today's works don't touch me that deep - maybe it is old callous me, but maybe it is that new works are often artificially tense

Oleksandr wrote: "artificially tense"

Oh, yeah.

Maybe the reason I don't like sex scenes and romance is because I have read too many over the years. Example: I used to read the sex scenes in J.D. Robb's In Death series, and now I just turn the page until I get past them.

And sense of wonder . . . there are so many interesting things that can happen in SF and F. That's what keeps me reading. And when they resemble any old book . . . bored now.

Plus, it's character for me. Write me a character I can relate to and I will follow you anywhere. NO WHINERS!

I am getting ready to give Paladin's Hope by T. Kingfisher a lower rating than I usually would because it's PNR. Too much internal moaning about how "I'm not worthy of this person's love"

But I love Kingfisher's writing, so I keep reading them even though the last three have been PNR.

Kateblue wrote: "But I love Kingfisher's writing, so I keep reading them even though the last three have been PNR."

I see a growing fandom for Kingfisher's works, she may get to major awards soon

Kateblue wrote: "Too much internal moaning about how "I'm not worthy of this person's love""

Yep, I read Paladin's Grace and didn't like it very much, the world building was too thin, but yes the romance aspect was nice. But I won't be continuing the series.

Re sex scenes, I'm with Gabi, I'm all in. Kate recommended Burn for Me (the cover just made me laugh and roll my eyes), which was spectacular in terms of the magic system, political machinations, and, of course, sexual tension. Sometimes when I read a book with minimal romance I find myself missing it, I think because it brings more depth to the characters (if done well). In The Three-Body Problem I hated all of the characters but was fascinated by the plot, but the plot wasn't enough to get a 4 start rating from me.

Gabi wrote: "I was totally happy with the first books I've read. And now? When I see a new release shelved foremost as LGBTQ and the typical hype reviews from the typical readers in the review section my first thought is to give it a wide berth."

Agree with you here as well Gabi, and it only took me maybe a year. Less with LGBTQ but anything on anyone famous' book club list (e.g. The Midnight Library or The Lost Apothecary) is a definite no for me from now on. The advantage to reading newer books is that I can listen to the Booktubers I follow talk about them once I finish, but really that's not even where my mind goes when I pick up a new release. I like being able to be an early review on Goodreads, helping other readers steer clear or check out a new release.