Apologies.. I kinda had trouble communicating the idea I had in mind - when I was bashing SF, I wasn't rallying against novels of Hugo and Nebula quality. The word I was looking for is genre fiction.

Lately I've been consuming more of it than I would admit in polite company - LitRPG, Military SF, YA stuff,. - and quite a bit of it is aimed at a younger audience.

A lot of this stuff is well written and engaging, but highly derivative, and is patterned on classics.