This list is at least the third “best sci-fi/fantasy of 2022” list I have seen recently that is heavily weighted toward the latter category. That’s fine. I’m not personally a huge fan of most fantasy fiction, but I’ve got no problem with it.

It does make me wonder two things, though.

First, why do publications like the Times continue to lump these two genres together if they vast majority of the titles contained therein are going to be fantasy? Just call it “The Best Fantasy of 2022” and be done with it?

Second, has science fiction mostly just dried up as a literary genre at this point? It sort of seems that way. Maybe with the state of the world being what it is, we are having a harder time than we used to imagining a future that isn’t super depressing. Perhaps also we have kind of caught up with a lot of the tropes of traditional sci-fi.

I don’t know. There’s obviously still good stuff being written and created in the genre, but it feels like it’s really thinning out in the collective cultural consciousness.