Does anyone thinks that in the future, a popular genre could become.. Well, not as popular. For example, I once thought the fantasy genre would wither away in the future, but now I just think it can't. Humanity, since the beginnings of history, has been utterly fascinated with magic and now with the things science can't do. What do you think guys?
Wrey, What about the "pulp magazines" from 20's through the 50's? Those cheap fiction magazines (that tended to be formulaic detective stories) vanished.
I have to agree with Wrey, no genre will completely disappear and in many ways will reinvent itself. Still, those DaVinci Code-esque novels probably won't be as popular in ten years.
Yup! So many have lamented the death of Science Fiction, but I still see it alive and healthy, just in new forms. The Military Sci-Fi story has taken on a life of its own (Stargate: SG1 and Atlantis,) and there is all the new Weird Fiction (China Mieville) which has broken down the wall between sci-fi and fantasy and borrowed from both sides. This is not the death of a genre; it is the evolution of said.
Yeah, you're right. In fact, now that I think of it, I'm always combining genres. I think that could be called evolving. Right now I'm mixing a murder mystery with fantasy in a civil war-esque setting.
And an addition: As long as people want to write it, there will be genres to read. What with this crazy newfangled internet and everything, voices you'd never imagine are always going to be expressing themselves. Even if a webpage only gets five hits a day, that genre could be out there on the internet, just waiting to be googled.
In my opinion, the popularity of different genres will always come and go, but I think everything that fades will eventually experience a resurgence. Fantasy, for example, may not always stay as popular as it is now, but all it takes is another Lord of the Rings type movie or Harry Potter style book to bring attention to it again.
They're still around, they just call themselves "True Crime/Confessions/Whatever!" now. Seriously, browse the shelves and pick out a few of those "true crime" and "true confessions" mags and try to read those stories as fact. They are so laughable. They read like really poorly disguised (and executed) fiction. There are also plenty of formulaic detective novels out there. And TV shows. I don't think a genre will ever die out. There will be times when it's not as popular, and might go underground for a while, but I don't believe one will ever truly die. Genres are like archetypes--they're genres because people can relate to them--and they'll always be around. Like the above example, they might just change their appearance a little to better fit the times.
