I feel everything is going down culturally. Music, movies, games, and books as well. In the movie and game department I can be quite certain because I observe those closely. Good things are coming out not out of the regular market, but something hidden, indie, arthouse, cultist. The regular market becomes a business and it becomes corrupted, spawning professional creators who create not for art but for money... I cannot say if that is the same with literature because I am not a close observant but is there a large number of good books that came out? I only hear of Stephen King, Harry Potter, and Eragon so far. >_< Good works usually become popular among communities such as this forum, but all I have been observing is old books.