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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2235 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 30, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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I was on goodreads, and out of curiosity, I took a look on final 10 Readers' Favorite nominees in SciFi category. I generally never use contests like that as a guide, but I saw an ad and I was curious about what I'd find there and if I recognize any names (spoiler: I recognized one). What I saw made me ask some questions. Out of 10 top candidates, 8 are female authors. I read the descriptions - I have never read the books themselves and likely never will, so that's all I have to go on - and in 7, the main protagonist(s) are women, in one they are bots, one had a mixed crew and in one I couldn't determine it. In young adult SciFi category, all 10 nominees are female. So my question is - why? I also checked last year winners - 11:4 female authors.

Since we're living in a clown world in clown times, I must post a disclaimer that I have no problem with either female SciFi authors or female sci-fi protagonists, and enjoyed (and continue to enjoy) books with either. Yet, somehow I didn't expect this situation. Why is it so - is it the case that 80+% of SciFi writers are now female? 80+% of good ones? Goodreads sample is skewed? Vote is rigged or meddled with somehow? Note I am not seeking a value judgement on this situation (as ultimately I personally don't care at all who is nominated or wins), but would like to understand its genesis.

Contemporary fiction literature is female-dominated across the board. We have a few threads a year on this (which I don't usually pay much attention to, since I don't read contemporary fiction literature). Try typing "Hugo Awards" in the search box.

If I had to come up with a non-social-justice based explaination for why this happened, I would guess that the invention of video games provided a superior substitute to books for male entertainment demand, and that this caused a cultural vacuum which was filled by women.

I think I've circled around this point without hitting it so neatly. As games increased in quality, I found my burning need for books to be diminished.

There are still so many types of stories that don't work as a video game, but I think men migratting to them and culture war junk are to blame.

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