Sci-fi is dead.

I'm probably wrong by stating that, but I  have a serious reason. The reason is book of science fiction novel and short stories published back in 1954. I found it and bought it. It smells of old times, a truly old and forgotten era and this aroma brings me a memories I never could have. Memories of world were scientist became the preachers of the new ways of life, new products to consume, new tools to develop and bombs to drop on your enemies.

But most of all, scientist were writing! The stuff they were writing was so different from the established genres and the ways of building up the story that they actually gave birth to a science fiction. That is even despite the fact that similar motifs of progress, technology and incredible achievements were used before industrialization. Suddenly the old fairy tales got a chance of rebirth and what's more important they became believable! If a fairy tale is coming from someone who actually knows how world operates, the fairy tale becomes a prediction, and prediction has a chance to become reality.

But now more than 50 years after the peak of science-fiction this credibility is lost. The world described by previous generation of writers is already here and we are fed up happy with it. We may not fly around galaxy in reality, but there's enough TV show's to give us a clue how it's going to look. Real scientist are doing their day-to-day research and let professional writers to elaborate on "setting", characters and plots. If there is not enough explosions or pretty half-naked scientist we easily may change the channel to find something more like it.

Sci-fi is a mainstream entertainment. It is dead. 

Why? Originally science fiction was answering to the questions and needs of those who was trying to adjust to rapidly changing world and find their own path in the new world. It was half soul searching half explanation of how-to-use-the-world around you for generation whose parents still lived in pre-space age. Author's used it as test bed for ideas, visions and what would happen scenarios. (Of course the usual way of sci-fiing the metaphor wasn't lost.) As the popularity of genre grew, along with profits the need to print something similar to competitor's product attracted writers who used science as a background instead of meaning. This pro-pulsed the trend, which caught up and overtook the initial humble stories by those writing scientist. And now, anyone can write about hyper space jump over galaxy but few know how to fix the kettle.