The Futures of Yesterday:

Hugo Gernsback (1884-1967)'s Ralph 1341C+ (1911) describes a gadget-created Utopia. The success of this novel encouraged him to start Scientific Detective Magazine, which eventually became (1927), Amazing Stories, the first science fiction pulp magazine. Previously Weird Tales, a horror magazine, published some science fiction. Amazing folded in 1929, but revived under several different editors and publishers, survives to the present day. Gernsback started rival magazines, Air Wonder (1929-1930), Science Wonder (1929-1930), and Wonder Stories (1930-1933), but it Amazing dominated the pulps until the mid-thirties. Two characteristics of this period would continue to influence science fiction novels: the magazine format and editorial input. Science fiction magazines paid little and constituted the only reliable market in the genre. Thus, writers wrote to their editorial specifications, and pulp magazines lacked the space for novels. Consequently, writers composed their novels in segments or wrote a series that featured the same setting. In the fifties, authors eventually assembled these parts publication as a "novel." Inevitably these conditions inhibited character development and caused segmentation. Until the 1950s, then, short stories that developed a single idea or setting characterized science fiction writing.

Horror and fantasy writers such as H.P. Lovecraft and Abe Merritt altered their works for this new medium. Burroughs published here as well as the generally higher-paying adventure magazines. The "space opera," an extension of Burroughs early exploration of his solar system, dominated the early pulps.

Authors rapidly took their readers to the edges of universe with machismo, two dimensional characters and alien "redskins" bent on battle, and many novels seemed little more than science fictional Westerns. Philip Francis Nowlan's Armageddon 2419 A.D. (1927, Amazing) occurs between Americans, led by Anthony "Buck" Rodgers, and stereo-typed Asiastics. Edmund Hamilton (1904-1977), made a career of space opera with novels holding such revealing titles as Crashing Suns (1928, Amazing), Captain Future and the Space Emperor (1940, Captain Future), and City at the World's End (1951). Jack Williamson created both A Legion of Space (1934, Astounding), and A Legion of Time (1938, Astounding). None, however, could surpass the sheer galactic scope of E.E. "Doc" Smith's massive Skylark series (starting with The Skylark of Space-1927, Amazing), his Lensman epic (ending with Children of the Lens-1947-1948), and his late Imperial Stars (1964, If) series.

The Amazing era offered entertainment and gadgets to a predominantly juvenile audience. Three different events signaled its passing as an innovative force. First, Street and Smith launched Astounding Science Fiction in 1930 (subsequently Analog Science Fact or ASF). Better-backed financially, ASF could pay more per word, and, therefore, demanded higher literary standards form its authors. Seldom Stanley G. Weinbaum (100-1935), published "A Martian Odyssey" in Wonder (1934). Like most of Weinbaum's tales, it featured an alien society that functioned on its own logical basis and satirical variations on space opera formula. Finally, John W. Campbell (1910-1971), began his own career. Though he started as a space opera writer, Campbell began to publish logical, serious fiction under the pseudonym of Don Stuart in 1934. Almost all of the Weinbaum's later stories appeared in Astounding. In 1937, Campbell became editor of Astounding and promoted a new group of writers that made the Weinbaum-Stuart logical story the norm, rather than the exception. These three developments, ASF, Campbellian editing, and more logic all came together under Campbell's long reign as dean of ASF.

Space opera no longer functioned as a vital tradition. Only a few of the space opera writers, such as Williamson and Clifford SD. Simak, adjusted to the new situation and evolved with the science fiction genre. Smith and Hamilton kept their following as they continued to please their fans. Space operas offered entertainment, escapism, juvenile battles, and the oft-cited "Sense of Wonder." Less ambitious science fiction authors continue to churn them out. Hollywood movie writers and producers embraced this subgenre with enthusiasm in the 1970s when new production techniques allowed them some of the ability to create new worlds inherent in the write process. Ironically, the reading and movie-going public continues to evince a high enthusiasm for the space opera, imaginatively exhausted by 1948.

John Campbell defined this ten year period. A variety of competitors, such as Amazing (now owned by Ziff-Davis), Super Science and Astonishing (both edited by Frederick Pohl), and a number of lesser magazines echoed Campbell's editing policies and even took ASF rejections. The wartime paper shortage contributed to the demise of many lesser magazines, Unknown (1939-1943, Street and Smith), featured some interesting fantasy albeit also related i an indirect way to ASF. Here Campbell printed Williamson's Darker than You Think (1940), about a man becoming a werewolf, I. Sprague De Camp's comic novel about attempts to prevent the Dark Age, Lest Darkness Fall, and A.E. Van Vogt's wild, The Book of Ptath (1943) that poses both a rational basis for godhood and Jungian ancestral memory.

Campbell's lasting contribution to genre, however, lies in the development of the rationalistic, hard science fiction novel. Campbell required that every story be scientifically plausible and writers posing any future change in technology consider how that change effects society. The latter necessarily meant better characterization. Campbellian stories remained stylistically simple but rigorously self-consistent; they went beyond mere entertainment and taught the reader scientific and rational principles. Campbell encouraged and introduced a number of writers peculiarly well-equipped to write this kind of fiction since many held scientific degrees. Lester del Rey (1915-), Campbell himself, and Eric Frank Russell number among the lesser, but successful, writers, yet four writers really dominated this tradition. One of the four, Theodore Sturgeon, will merit consideration in the next chapter. Arthur C. Clarke subsequently emerged as their equal, but first wrote non-fiction for ASF.

Isaac Asimov (1920-), holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry. His novels resemble mystery stories in which the scientific laws hold the clues and the socio-physical theory the solution. I, Robot (1940-1950, ASF; 1950) contains a number of stories in which mankind's follies cause mechanical failure, but each story reads just like a mystery. In the end, the machines, properly programmed, that stand between mankind and self-destruction. In this series, Asimov wrote his famous "three laws of Robotics" quoted by other authors afterward. In The Foundation Trilogy (1940-1950; 1951), rational physical and social scientists successfully counter and diminish the barbarism caused by the fall of the Galactic Empire. Asimov's 1958 decision to devote himself to writing popularization of science in an attempt to bring the American space program back into parity with the Russian clearly echoes Campbell's own faith in science and the patriotism of the group as well.

Robert A. Heinlein (1907-) studied physics, but he also worked in a variety of odd jobs and attended West Point. His series assembled in The Past Through Tomorrow (1939-1950, ASF; 1967) epitomizes near future extrapolation; many of its predictions indeed came to pass. Heinlein developed a single character in his works, a self-sufficient, male, "homo superior" whose struggle to survive seem to parallel Heinlein's own. Throughout the fifties Heinlein's "juvenile novels," his Horatio Alger stories repeats as this male, Hemingwayesque character makes his way in society. In these works, Heinlein created one of the first believable or at-least fully developed characters in science fiction, yet this character shows Heinlein's and Campbell's extreme faith in Western independence and individual social Darwinism.

Arthur C. Clarke (1917-) another scientist, though not as closely associated with Campbell, wrote "hard" science fiction novels. His books combine solid characterization, the value of science, and a vaguely mystical perception of the universe. Ironically, his two most popular works deal with situations in which science fails to suffice and mankind requires the help of aliens to reach the stars and their destiny: Childhood's End (1952) and 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).

A.E. Van Vogt (1912-) constitutes the wildest, but perhaps the least important of these four talents. His novels exhibit Campbellian logical, but as often based on alien perceptions of logic that the reader cannot fully decipher until the last page, if then. Each sentence contains a "reality gap," some missing element the reader needs to add. Van Vogt's plots often resemble convoluted space operas. The Slan (1940, ASF; 1946) suffers the Jew-like persecution of an inferior humanity. In The World of Null-A (1945, ASF; 1948) Earth survives an alien invasion, yet its non-Aristotelian logic system allows inhabitants to separate objective action from subjective reaction. Van Vogt's novels contain something of Clarke's mystic quality but little of the control; his purposely, even scientifically created, obscurity prepared science fiction readers for more poetically hard-to-grasp works by later 1960s authors.

Campbell knew his market and stocked ASF with fiction from several different traditions; he used the best of each kind. Lovecraft wrote many of his best horror-tinged works for ASF. Astounding published the best space opera writers-Jack Williamson, Doc Smith, and Campbell himself. Campbell ASF's also contained parodists and entertainers such as Weinbaum, Fritz Leiber (1910-), Frederick Brown (1906-1972), and later William Tenn (1920).

Clifford D. Simak's stories exhibit sentimental, nostalgic recreations of Middle America, featuring godlike aliens in contrast with failed, mechanistic modern men. Thematically, he resembles Ray Bradbury but lacks the latter's style though he surpasses Bradbury's settings. The future City (1944-1951, ASF and Amazing; 1952), literally goes to the dogs who build a civilization based on love rather than mechanics. Way Station (1963), a novel about a farmer's attempting to prevent an intergalactic war with sinless aliens, continues in the same vein.

The Campbellian hard science fiction tradition continues to the present day, and it dominated ASF until Campbell's death in 1971. ASF introduced most of the later writers in this mode as well, notably: H. Beam Piper (1904-1967); Paul Anderson (1926-); James Blish (1921-1975, also a noted critic); Gordon Dickson (1923); and Hal Clement (1922-), a tri-degree high school teacher whose Mission of Gravity (1953; ASF; 1954) develops one of the most fully-constructed worlds in science fiction. Frank Herbert (1920-) created Dune (1963-1965; 1965), and Larry Niven (1938-) Ringworld, both of which rival Clement's best and show greater character development and continue the Campbellian tradition of plausible hard science.

In the 1950s Astounding's singular leadership of American science fiction came to an end. Paperback book publishers began to bring out a few original works; Ace, Pocket Books, and Ballantine dominated that field. Increased genre popularity led to a large number of magazine launchings. Most quickly folded, but two new magazines arose that could consistently challenge ASF for readership and authors.

Astounding continued much as it had before though Campbell lost most of the influence he earlier enjoyed over the careers of Asimov, Heinlein, Van Vogt, and Sturgeon. A number of new artists began their careers, but the dominant novelists probably included Anderson, Asimov, Blish, Clement, Piper, and Williamson. Harry Harrison, one of the new authors, produced The Stainless Steel Rat (1957) and Deathworld (1960). Both featured action and hard science, Harrison's Heinleinesque heroes, however, occasionally satirized the hard science and particularly the survival ethic of Heinlein's works.

If Magazine printed some notable stories by older authors, among them Blish's classic religious novel, A Case of Conscience (1958). Startling published some of Philip Jose Farmer's short stories. Amazing and its new sister magazine Fantastic continued with some distinction. Nebula (1950-1957) and Science Fantasy (both eventually under E.J. Carnell) emerged as the first stable British science fiction magazines. They introduced such new British writers as John Brunner, Brian Aldiss, and Michael Moorock. Moorcock though they tended to emphasize hard science and space opera.

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (FASF) made a larger, permanent impact. Editors, beginning with Anthony Boucher, emphasized higher literary standards. They also published a full spectrum of stories ranging from fantasy to hard science fiction. Heinlein wrote three of his best novels for FASF: The Door Into Summer (1956), Have Space Ship, Will Travel (1958), and the much-debated Starship Troopers (1959). Here also appeared such innovative works as Farmer's sexually explicit short stories, Miller's Canticle for Leibowitz(1955), and Brian Aldiss's The Long Afternoon of Earth (1961 as the "Hothouse Series". FASF provided a market for the more literate stories of the fifties, sixties, and seventies.

Galaxy, edited by Horace Gold (1950-1j961) and Frederick Pohl (19612-1969), started a new tradition of its own: social science fiction. Pohl (1919-) wrote science fiction for several years before he began an influential set of social satires in collaboration with C.M. Kornbluth (1923-1958). The Space Merchants (1952) create a comic future dystopia by totally dominating a near-future America. Social concerns always formed part of the Wellsian tradition; Pohl and Gold brought explicit social commentary and satire into the magazines. They roughly paralleled a complimentary move by mainstream writers such as George Orwell into science fiction.

Social science fiction, however, introduced few new writers; generally elder writers simply adopted its conventions. Pohl and Kornbuth, Galaxy's Gilbert and Sullivan, developed peculiarly American dystopias in Gladiator at Law (1954), Wolfbane (1957), and Slave Ship (1957), the last by Pohl alone. Ray Bradbury predicted the eventual decay of anti-literate American in Fahrenheit 451 (Galaxy, 1951 as "the Fireman). Alfred Bester described wilting, corporate-controlled Western societies in The Demolished Man (1952) and The Stars, My Destination (1956). Robert Sheckley simply negated all ethnocentric American beliefs in his satirical short stories. Even Isaac Asimov's robot novel, The Caves of Steel (1953) contains commentary on the evils of overpopulation and social stagnation. Heinlein's social novels, also published at this time, waxed conservative though they alternated between advocating militaristic state control and total anarchy. Starship Troopers (1959, FASF) advocates control of the state by an enlightened military; only former soldiers get to vote in his military Utopia. The Stranger in a Strange Land (1962) uses religion to foster a new, contemporary ethic when state, society, and individual ethic fail to do so. In The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1965) lunar colonists fight another American revolution war against American imperialistic rulers. By I Will Fear No Evil (1970) Heinlein's reformers give up; they ignore social ills, and every man fends for himself in another dystopic, near-future America. Galaxy also produced two writers whose stylistic skill put them ahead of their time: Jack Vance (1920-) and surrealistic story-teller Cordwainer Smith (1913-1966).

As late as 1961, ASF (now Analog Science Fact) and ASF-spawned writers still dominated American science fiction. The paperbacks reprinted Astounding stories for a new generation of readers. The key ASF writers of the forties and fifties also successfully adapted to social science fiction and acquired the polish that FASF required. The new British magazines generally printed British writers who started in Astounding. New Worlds and Galaxies existed, but ASF still ruled the Cosmos.

In the sixties, a new group of writers and a new form of science fiction came to artistic domination of the genre. Though the impetus came form a number of different directions, the motivation remained the same: to consider the modern world from other perspectives than the social and scientific. Speculative fiction incorporated mainstream techniques and literary standards into the genre. The literary descendants of Wells became indistinguishable from those of Burroughs. The magazine domination of American science fiction came to an end; speculative fiction rose, Phoenix-like, from the same.

Several new paperback companies participated in this development. By the early 1960s, Ace, Ballantine, and several other publishers exhausted the magazine reprints. They began to print original works by some new authors. Most of the new works included simple space operas, but novelists such as Samuel R. Delany could use the tried space opera conventions for serious novels. Ballantine, Pyramid, and Ace all published some innovative works. Berkley issued the Orbit series of anthologies, edited by Damon Knight. This new market enabled authors to write worked, conceived, and executed as full length novels rather than short stories assembled as novels at some later point.

However, the magazines themselves, rather than the new paperbacks, acted as the more important agent of change within the genre. Michael Moorcock became editor of New Worlds in 1965, and proclaimed a literary revolution. He published unconventional, experimental, often pessimistic, and socially critical stories by a cluster of new authors including J.G. Ballard, Brian Aldiss, Christopher Priest, Langdon Jones, Hilary Bailey, and Charles Platt. American writers, such as Roger Zelazny, John Sladek, Thomas M. Disch, and Samuel R. Delany also appeared in New Worlds. The magazine featured such departures from tradition as explicit sex, high literary awareness, unconventional or anti-heroes, and revolutionary social attitudes. Sister magazine Science Fantasy, though less revolutionary, also contained some provocatively new novels by writers such as Keith Roberts. Judith Meril, editor and critic, traveled to Britain and assembled an anthology of short stores and autobiographical sketches by these authors entitled in period fashion England Swings SF (1967). Merril coined the term "new wave" to classify these writers, and the British New World writers do seem to share more characteristics with each other than they do with their American contemporaries or traditional science fiction writers, as the title suggests.

The American speculative fiction writers were more individualistic and not concentrated around one magazine or another. Cele Goldsmith featured a number of these writers in the Ziff-Davis periodicals she edited, Amazing and Fantastic. Galaxy and FASF also maintained their identification with changes in the genre. Long-time literary maverick Harlan Ellison published the massive anthology, Dangerous Visions (1967) filled with stories considered too controversial for mainstream science fiction. Actually by 1967 magazines had become considerably more liberal. The American speculative fiction writers differ more from Campbellian hard science fiction writers more than they resemble one another. For one, they tended more towards optimism than the British New Worlds authors.

Classifying the speculative fiction movement remains difficult because it rebels against convention. These authors took the scientific laws and gadgets of hard science fiction and used them as symbols for the deeper, psychological parameters of life. Speculative fiction writers developed work that "escaped" to reality. The lesser or even lack of concern with scientific background perhaps forms the unifying thread in speculative fiction if only in the negative sense of defining what these authors do not hold in common with their science fiction predecessors.

The new writers came from a younger generation. Few held any scientific training. In fact, most of their science background came from reading science fiction. Some, like Zelazny, earned literary degrees. Ellison and Disch lived essentially Bohemian lives. Several, such as J.G. Ballard, embraced a literary viewpoint of the world that could find expression in non-realistic fiction. The primary concern of these writers lay in the present, not the past. Ballard's Love and Napalm: Export USA (1970) launches a devastating attack on imperial America. The sixties youth culture entered directly into several works. Ballard and Moorcock concentrated on a new perception of present society; the present, they posed, is the dystopia past writers feared. Overpopulation, drugs, pollution, and sexual revolution all appear in their fiction for consideration. In this respect, speculative fiction expands upon the themes of social science fiction.

Increased literary awareness also helps define the new writers. Damon Knight started the Science Fiction Writers of America in 1965. That body awards the Nebula; this contrasts with the older Hugo award given by fan conventions. The Nebulas tended to go to the better written novels rather than the more scientifically derived or more popular. Delany, for example, received Nebulas for Babel 17 and Einstein Intersection but Hugos for neither. The new novels incorporated mainstream techniques into their works. John Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar (1967) uses John Dos Passos's montage organization. Aldiss's Barefoot in the Head (1967) and Delany's Dhalgren (1975) utilize stream-of-consciousness.

Controversial subject matter also characterizes many of these novels. Explicit sex, violence, unpopular political position, and even Communist dogma entered the magazines for the first time. Harrison's Bill, the Galactic Hero (1965) accidentally saves the universe in a novel parodying Heinlein's Starship Troopers. Barry Malzburg's Beyond Apollo (1973) equates "re-entry" with sexual relations.

The inner world become equal in value to the outer. J.G. Ballard explored "inner space," the psychological world of his protagonists. Roger Zelazny used formal psychology in The Dream Master (1965) to diagnose the social and psychological ills of American society. The new writers, in general, improved characterization in the genre.

Speculative fiction writers emphasized emotional content, often including involved narration and first person point of view. Robert's Pavane, for example, a standard alternative-world novel, distinguishes itself through Robert's lyrical, evocative prose. All of Harlan Ellison's stories derive most of their force from emotion. Titles such as I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream (1967) illustrate their content. Personal voices in this period become readily distinguishable.

By 1972, it became nearly impossible to distinguish speculative fiction writers from science fiction writers. Writers such as Asimov's The Gods Themselves (1972), Heinlein's I Will Fear No Evil (1970) and Time Enough for Love (1973), Arthur C. Clarke's Imperial Earth (1974), and Frederick Pohl's Gateway (1978) incorporated some of the above characteristics into their own work. Another generation of hard science fiction writers such as Joe Haldeman (The Forever War, ASF 73-74, 75) proved able to continue many of the same concerns but also put renewed emphasis on the physical universe.

A revolution was over.

(1) The Visual Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, s.v, "Science Fiction as Literature" by George Turner.