Bruce Sterling is smarter than me.

He's probably smarter than you, too. Excerpts from a recent talk:

Hard to refute. Impossible to refute. Ladies and gentlemen to hell with the marvellous power of storytelling. If the audience for science fiction wanted *storytelling*, they wouldn't read goddamned *science fiction,* they'd read Harpers and Redbook and Argosy. The pulp magazine (which is our genre's primary example of a dead platform) used to carry all kinds of storytelling. Western stories. Sailor stories. Prizefighting stories. G-8 and his battle aces. Spicy Garage Tales. Aryan Atrocity Adventures. These things are dead. Stories didn't save them. Stories won't save us. Stories won't save *you.*

The linked item rambles a lot, but when it gets to the point, it's dynamite. I've never read a Sterling novel, but he likes William Gibson and talks like this one are terrific.