Why I don't buy much SF these days

That's SF as in science fiction, not San Francisco. But you knew that, right? In his weblog today, Greg Costikyan writes about "Elfy-Welfies, War Bores, Decadent Vamps and Licensed Crap":

Categories ... exist for readers who do not want to be challenged. They like sinking in to the warm familiarity of something they know they like. The problem is that I do want to be challenged. I want to be challenged with interesting ideas, distinctive writing styles, unconventional ways of looking at things, and transportation to a world very different from our own.

Costikyan takes his typical pull-no-punches approach. As is also typical for him, his observations ring very true to me, and explain a lot of why I don't come home with much written in my supposedly chosen genre -- and why I almost never get involved with open-ended series.