Update: Thanks to everyone who read and shared this post. I've written a follow-up post on why genre fans shouldn't fear new readers discovering SF/F through non-Golden Age authors.
I'm tired of genre fans who create & read nothing new or exciting & complain today's SF/F they isn't as good as during the golden age.
More exciting SF/F stories are being written today than ever before. But these fans would never know it.
No one still discovers the SF/F genre by reading Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, or Tolkien. (1 of 2
They discover new authors then, maybe, go back and read the classics of the Golden Age. More likely they'll see the films instead.
Science fiction & fantasy has conquered the world. But many genre fans want to keep out the genre lovers who didn't grow up immersed in SF/F
But all that does is make our genre irrelevant to the people who are consuming SF/F films, TV shows, games, comics, and stories.
Science fiction is the more ironic of literary genres--supposedly worships the future but lives firmly cemented in the past.