Maybe the truth is that the kind of science fiction you like just isn't appealing except to a limited group.
There is material in every single paragraph you wrote (keep 'm coming!) I could extensively comment on, but doing so would likely muddy the waters more than they already seem to be. That's why I rather arbitrarily picked the sentence I quoted.
Wouldn't you agree that your statement is true for
any genre of writing, not just science fiction, but also including many (if not most) works earning the highest praise and prizes? (Using the word 'literature' instead of 'writing' is a value judgement I prefer to leave to the readers.)
Stepping away from that single quote, it seems to me that you're too fixated on perceived 'truths' and 'objective values' to hear what some here are saying. Or, in your words, your opinion is coloured by what you appear to think. That's fine with me, but what's good for the goose...
Just to give another 'dreck' example: James Joyce's
Ulysses is considered a high point of literature by experts, but abject and unreadable drivel by others, whose numbers likely exceed many times those of the experts.
Who's right? I suspect that your answer would be the experts. Apart from the fact that I usually don't care too much about this kind of right or wrong, I'd say they both are, albeit for different reasons. The bestselling Great Literature and Banal Dreck segments only partially overlap in market terms and volume, just like those segments that don't sell well. We may be talking apples and oranges here, but they have equal right to exist.
