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Golden Age of Science Fiction

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The Golden Age of Science Fiction, often identified in the United States as the years 1938–1946,[1] was a period in which a number of foundational works of science fiction appeared in American genre magazines. Exemplars include the Foundation series of Isaac Asimov and the Future History series of Robert Heinlein, but the form included dozens of other authors. In the history of science fiction, the Golden Age follows the "pulp era" of the 1920s and '30s, and precedes New Wave science fiction of the '60s and '70s. The 1950s are, in this scheme, a transitional period. Robert Silverberg, who came of age then, saw the '50s as the true Golden Age.[2]

"Golden Age" science fiction is often termed Campbellian Science Fiction after editor John W. Campbell.[3]: 462 [failed verification] According to Lester del Rey, "the result [of Campbell's editorship] was the so-called Golden Age of science fiction — the beginning of modern science fiction, which was capable of reaching beyond a small readership of gadget-loving hobbyists and science buffs".[4] The new approach was more sophisticated, but technology and optimism, which had always been stressed, continued to be foremost: In historian Adam Roberts's words, "the phrase valorises a particular sort of writing: hard SF, linear narratives, heroes solving problems or countering threats in a space-operatic or technological-adventure idiom."[5]: 287 

History

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Further information: History of US science fiction and fantasy magazines to 1950

From Gernsback to Campbell

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Science fiction magazines first appeared in 1926 with the launch of Hugo Gernsback's Amazing Stories.[6]: 23  This is usually considered to be the beginning of the pulp era of science fiction, though definitions vary.[7]: 109 [8]: 45  Several additional magazines by Gernsback and others appeared, and in some cases disappeared again, in the years that followed;[9][10]: xiii  in 1937, there were seven science fiction pulp magazines in publication.[11]: 98 

An influence on the creation of the Golden Age was John W. Campbell, who achieved status as the most prominent editor of the time. Isaac Asimov stated that "...in the 1940s, [Campbell] dominated the field to the point where to many he seemed all of science fiction."[12]: 1 

By consensus, the Golden Age began c. 1938–1939,[5]: 288  slightly later than the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, another pulp-based genre.[13] The July 1939 issue of Astounding Science Fiction is sometimes cited as the start of the Golden Age.[12]: 5  It included "Black Destroyer", the first published story by A. E. van Vogt, as well as the first appearance by Isaac Asimov in the magazine with the story "Trends".[14] The August issue contained the first published story by Robert A. Heinlein, "Life-Line".[14]

Characteristic tropes

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Many of the most enduring science fiction tropes were established in Golden Age literature. Space opera came to prominence with the works of E. E. "Doc" Smith; Isaac Asimov established the canonical Three Laws of Robotics beginning with the 1941 short story "Runaround"; the same period saw the writing of genre classics such as the Asimov's Foundation and Smith's Lensman series. Another frequent characteristic of Golden Age science fiction is the celebration of scientific achievement and the sense of wonder; Asimov's short story "Nightfall" (1941) exemplifies this, as in a single night a planet's civilization is overwhelmed by the revelation of the vastness of the universe. Robert A. Heinlein's novels, such as The Puppet Masters (1951), Double Star (1956), and Starship Troopers (1959), express the libertarian ideology that runs through much of Golden Age science fiction.[15]

Algis Budrys in 1965 wrote of the "recurrent strain in 'Golden Age' science fiction of the 1940s—the implication that sheer technological accomplishment would solve all the problems, hooray, and that all the problems were what they seemed to be on the surface".[16] The Golden Age also saw the reemergence of the religious or spiritual themes—central to so much proto-science fiction prior to the pulp era—that Hugo Gernsback had tried to eliminate in his vision of "scientifiction". Among the most significant such Golden Age narratives are Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles (1950), Clarke's Childhood's End (1953), Blish's A Case of Conscience (1958), and Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959).[17]

End of the Golden Age

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Asimov said that "[t]he dropping of the atom bomb in 1945 made science fiction respectable" to the general public.[18] He recalled in 1969 "I'll never forget the shock that rumbled through the entire world of science fiction fandom when ... Heinlein broke the 'slicks' barrier by having an undiluted science fiction story of his published in The Saturday Evening Post".[19] The large, mainstream companies' entry into the science fiction book market around 1950 was similar to how they published crime fiction during World War II; authors no longer had to publish only through magazines.[13] Asimov said, however, that[18]

I myself was ambivalent ... There was a tendency for the new reality to nail the science fiction writer to the ground. Prior to 1945, science fiction had been wild and free. All its motifs and plot varieties remained in the realm of fantasy and we could do as we pleased. After 1945, there came the increasing need to talk about the AEC and to mold all the infinite scope of our thoughts to the small bit of them that had become real.

He continued, "In fact, there was the birth of something I called 'tomorrow fiction'; the science fiction story that was no more new than tomorrow's headlines. Believe me, there can be nothing duller than tomorrow's headlines in science fiction", citing Nevil Shute's On the Beach as example.[18]

Several factors changed the market for magazine science fiction in the mid- and late 1950s. Most important was the rapid contraction of the pulp market: Fantastic Adventures and Famous Fantastic Mysteries folded in 1953, Planet Stories, Startling Stories, Thrilling Wonder Stories and Beyond in 1955, Other Worlds and Science Fiction Quarterly in 1957, Imagination, Imaginative Tales, and Infinity in 1958. In October 1957, the successful launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik 1 narrowed the gap between the real world and the world of science fiction, as the space race began. Asimov shifted to writing nonfiction he hoped would attract young minds to science, while Heinlein became more dogmatic in expressing libertarian political and social views in his fiction.[citation needed]

In the early 1960s, emerging British writers, such as Brian W. Aldiss and J. G. Ballard, cultivated New Wave science fiction, indicating the direction other writers would soon pursue. Women writers, such as Judith Merril, Joanna Russ and Ursula K. LeGuin emerged. The leading Golden Age magazine, Astounding Stories, changed its title to Analog Science Fiction and Fact in 1960.[citation needed] John Clute, writing in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, asserts that it was Frank Herbert's novel Dune (1965) that "arguably capped and put paid to the Golden Age of SF. No sf novel since published, it may be, has seemed so sure of the world it describes."[20]

Prominent authors

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Early (1938–1946)

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Later (1947–1959)

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Alternate date range

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Robert Silverberg, in a 2010 essay, argued that the true Golden Age was the 1950s, and that the "Golden Age" of the 1940s was a kind of "false dawn". "Until the decade of the fifties", Silverberg wrote, "there was essentially no market for science fiction books at all"; the audience supported only a few special interest small presses. The 1950s saw "a spectacular outpouring of stories and novels that quickly surpassed both in quantity and quality the considerable achievement of the Campbellian golden age",[2] as mainstream companies like Simon & Schuster and Doubleday displaced specialty publishers like Arkham House and Gnome Press.[13]

The English novelist and critic Kingsley Amis endorsed that view when he compiled and titled The Golden Age of Science Fiction: An Anthology (1981), with two thirds of the stories from the 1950s and the remainder from the early 1960s.

A long-running joke held that the "Golden Age" of science fiction was not a period in the history of the genre, but rather a nostalgic period in a young boy's life, often age 12 or 13 years. (Thus, Q: "When was the Golden Age of Science Fiction?", A: "About 12...")[1][21][22]: 45–46 

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b Nicholls, Peter; Ashley, Mike (2021). "Golden Age of SF". In Clute, John; Langford, David; Sleight, Graham (eds.). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (4th ed.). Retrieved 2025-04-05.
  2. ^ a b Robert Silverberg (2010). "Science Fiction in the Fifties: The Real Golden Age". Library of America. Archived from the original on August 25, 2012. Retrieved September 20, 2012.
  3. ^ Sawyer, Andy (2019). "Review of Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction by Alec Nevala-Lee". Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts. 30 (3 (106)): 459–462. ISSN 0897-0521. JSTOR 27095634.
  4. ^ Del Rey, Lester (1976), "The Three Careers of John W. Campbell": Introduction to The Best of John W. Campbell; Del Rey/Ballantine (Series: Classic Library of Science Fiction), pg xiv.
  5. ^ a b Roberts, Adam (2016). "Golden Age SF: 1940–1960". The History of Science Fiction. Palgrave Histories of Literature (2nd ed.). Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 287–331. doi:10.1057/978-1-137-56957-8_11. ISBN 978-1-137-56957-8. OCLC 956382503.
  6. ^ Westfahl, Gary (2021). "Science Fiction from 1926 to 1960". Science Fiction Literature through History: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. pp. 23–27. ISBN 978-1-4408-6617-3.
  7. ^ Westfahl, Gary (2003). "Three Decades That Shook the World, Observed through Two Distorting Lenses and under One Microscope". Science Fiction Studies. 30 (1): 109–122. ISSN 0091-7729. JSTOR 4241144. Archived from the original on 2025-01-19 – via DePauw University.
  8. ^ Tymn, Marshall B. (1985). "Science Fiction: A Brief History and Review of Criticism". American Studies International. 23 (1): 41–66. ISSN 0883-105X. JSTOR 41278745. Science fiction entered a new phase when, in 1926, Gernsback placed the first issue of Amazing Stories on the newsstands. [...] With Amazing Stories the pulp era of science fiction began.
  9. ^ Nicholls, Peter; Ashley, Mike (2023). "Pulp". In Clute, John; Langford, David; Sleight, Graham (eds.). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (4th ed.). Retrieved 2025-04-20.
  10. ^ Bleiler, Everett Franklin; Bleiler, Richard (1998). "Introduction". Science-fiction: The Gernsback Years : a Complete Coverage of the Genre Magazines ... from 1926 Through 1936. Kent State University Press. pp. xi–xxx. ISBN 978-0-87338-604-3.
  11. ^ Nevins, Jess (2014). "Pulp Science Fiction". In Latham, Rob (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of Science Fiction. Oxford University Press. pp. 93–103. ISBN 978-0-19-983884-4.
  12. ^ a b Asimov, Isaac (1989). "Introduction: 'The Age of Campbell'". In Asimov, Isaac (ed.). The Mammoth Book of Golden Age Science Fiction: Short Novels of the 1940s. pp. 1–6. ISBN 978-0-88184-480-1.
  13. ^ a b c Budrys, Algis (October 1965). "Galaxy Bookshelf". Galaxy Science Fiction. pp. 142–150.
  14. ^ a b Asimov, Isaac (1972). The early Asimov; or, Eleven years of trying. Garden City NY: Doubleday. pp. 79–82.
  15. ^ Roberts, Adam The History of Science Fiction, pp. 196–203, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. ISBN 0333970225
  16. ^ Budrys, Algis (August 1965). "Galaxy Bookshelf". Galaxy Science Fiction. pp. 186–194.
  17. ^ Roberts, Adam The History of Science Fiction, pp. 210–218, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. ISBN 0333970225
  18. ^ a b c Asimov, Isaac (1969). Nightfall, and other stories. Doubleday. p. 93.
  19. ^ Asimov, Isaac (1969). Nightfall, and other stories. Doubleday. p. 328.
  20. ^ Clute, John (2023), Entry: "Dune; Part One" in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, online version.
  21. ^ Stableford, Brian (2004). "Golden Age of SF". Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction Literature. Scarecrow Press. p. 139. ISBN 978-0-8108-4938-9.
  22. ^ Carter, Paul A. (2004) [1976]. "From the Golden Age to the Atomic Age: 1940–1963". In Barron, Neil (ed.). Anatomy of Wonder: A Critical Guide to Science Fiction (5th ed.). Westport, Connecticut: Libraries unlimited. pp. 45–58. ISBN 978-1-59158-171-0.

Further reading

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