Other founders of the "Golden Age" of Sicience Fiction

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Nobody's mentioned Fritz Lieber yet.

Every time I think about modern politics, I think of Poor Superman.

I didn't mean to insult early Science Fiction, I just re-read Doyle's A Lost World a few weeks ago.

But I am looking at the "Cambrian Explosion" of Science Fiction, starting in the late 1930's.

Fafhrd and the mouser, yes.
Among others.
But, oddly enough, the first book of his to come to mind after that, is CONJURE, WIFE.

The 30's is when SF began to be taken seriously and acquiring its modern forms and tropes but it was hampered by the distribution system. I tend to wonder what would those stories look like if the authors had the freedom of even two decades later. I suspect some of the episodic "novels" of the 30's and 40's would have ended up more polished. And longer.

The 50's, with the arrival of paperback originals is, for me, when the genre really started to mature. By the time the New Wavers were done (mid 70's) the field had coalesced into the forms we know today. Just in time for Star Wars to bring in massive attention.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I do think trying to tie Mary Wollstonecraft and Jonathan Swift in as the founders of the golden age is a little ludicrous. They may have influenced other writers, but at some point you have to draw a line.

Not founders.
And certainly not of the "golden age" which is a mid 20th period.

But, like the 19th century exemplars listed, they tilled the same general territory (literature of ideas) with a rationalist viewpoint. The proper term, I think, would be precursors. The borders of SF are fairly broad and those worthies certainly fit within.

[barryem]

This is a good topic for discussion because almost anything you can say about it is likely to be disagreed with in different ways by practically everyone. Who are the founders of SF? Who are the founders of civilization? The first question is probably as easy to answer as the second one.

I've always liked hard science fiction. I've always disliked fantasy. But I began reading SF in the mid 1950's and what was hard SF then would be considered fantasy today.

A really good example is Alfred Bester's "The Demolished Man", about a future time when the police can read the citizens minds and arrest those who plan to commit crime, thereby completely eliminating crime. It's the story of one of the richest men in the world and how he plans to murder his chief competitor, without thinking about it, ever, of course.

Today a story like that has to be fantasy. There's no scientific basis for mind reading and none was postulated for the story. It was just assumed that at some point it would become part of our evolution. So when it was written it deserved the name "hard science fiction", at least in a vague sort of way. By the way, it's very much worth reading. And it was the first novel to win a Hugo award.

I think I have to agree that the golden age of science fiction was when Heinlein, Asimov and Clarke were writing. I even have to grudgingly agree that Heinlein wrote hard SF, although much of his later stuff was really sexual fantasy disguised as SF.

It's also worth pointing out that in those golden days the general public considered science fiction to be a bit lower than comic books and barely better than porn. There were no genres in bookstores then. There was a section for fiction, in which all sorts of books, westerns, mysteries, mainstream, etc. were stacked together, alpha by author. Even fantasy and horror novels were there. But a lot of stores had a section hidden away from general view for science fiction books. They didn't want the public to see it. It might hurt their reputation.

That really didn't begin to change till Star Wars. Even 2001 didn't have the effect it might have because, even though nobody could deny that it was SF, nobody really thought of it that way. It was something of it's own.

After Star Wars SF books began selling a lot more and a lot of new writers entered the field and changed it drastically. I lost interest a few years later. I still read some of the older books from time to time but I've only read a few SF books written after the 1980s.

There were some other writers during the golden age that had a big impact on SF even though they weren't really SF writers. John D. MacDonald and Kurt Vonnegut to name a couple.

By the way, a little off topic but fun anyway, for any of you Bonanza fans you might want to search for some of the short stories by Hoss Cartwright, sometimes known as Dan Blocker. He was an avid SS writer and a lot of his stories had a nice SF flavor. They were really good stories as I recall. I read quite a few of them back in those days. I'm not sure where to find them today.

Barry

[dwig]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Not founders.
And certainly not of the "golden age" which is a mid 20th period.

But, like the 19th century exemplars listed, they tilled the same general territory (literature of ideas) with a rationalist viewpoint. The proper term, I think, would be precursors. The borders of SF are fairly broad and those worthies certainly fit within.

Correct.

To reference these and HarryT's list:
Verne: 1828
Rider Haggard: 1856
Conan Doyle: 1859
Wells: 1866
Burroughs: 1875
E E 'Doc' Smith: 1890
Heinlein: 1907
Clarke: 1917
Asimov: 1920

Only the last 4 clearly qualify by writing during the Golden Age of SF. Wells and Burroughs also qualify, though Wells barely does as his great works predate the period. Verne and Haggard plus Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly, rather than her mother Mary Wollstonecraft, and others form the bedrock on which it sprung but weren't part of The Golden Age.

[meeera]

C.L. Moore, Zenna Henderson, Leigh Brackett, Joanna Russ, L. Taylor Hansen

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by meeera

C.L. Moore, Zenna Henderson, Leigh Brackett, Joanna Russ, L. Taylor Hansen

I thought I was pretty well up on "golden age" SF, but I can honestly say that the only people in this list that I've heard of are Moore and Brackett!

[MikeB1972]

Gonna have to throw Philip Francis Nowlan into the mix, where would we be without Buck Rogers

Lester Del Rey and Phillip K Dick need a shout out as well but may be slightly late for Golden Age.

Anyone mentioned A E Van Vogt yet?

[ZodWallop]

I don't think of Philip Nowlan, E.E. Doc Smith, E.R.B., Fritz Lieber or L. Ron Hubbard as part of the golden age of sci-fi, even though they had books/stories published during that time.

Before John Campbell, science fiction was sort of like westerns in space. Or vroom-socko stories of rocket packs and ray guns. That's what Nowlan, Smith, Burroughs and Hubbard wrote. I'm not saying I'm right in this. Just revealing my prejudices, I guess.

(I love Lieber. But when I think of him I think of Fafhrd and horror rather than science fiction, though I know he wrote some famous sci-fi.)

[ekbell]

Originally Posted by meeera

C.L. Moore, Zenna Henderson, Leigh Brackett, Joanna Russ, L. Taylor Hansen

Nice to see some of the women of the Golden Age. I own what I *think* are all the collected stories of Zenna Henderson (Holding Wonder, The Anything Box and Ingathering-The Complete People Series)

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Before John Campbell, science fiction was sort of like westerns in space. Or vroom-socko stories of rocket packs and ray guns. That's what Nowlan, Smith, Burroughs and Hubbard wrote.

But it's certainly not what Wells wrote, to give a counter-example.

[ekbell]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

(I love Lieber. But when I think of him I think of Fafhrd and horror rather than science fiction, though I know he wrote some famous sci-fi.)

When I think of Lieber I first think of the story "A Pail of Air" https://www.baen.com/Chapters/074349...498747___6.htmeven though I read and enjoyed his Fafhrd books.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by ekbell

When I think of Lieber I first think of the story "A Pail of Air" https://www.baen.com/Chapters/074349...498747___6.htmeven though I read and enjoyed his Fafhrd books.

I didn't realise Lieber was the author of that! As you say, a classic.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by HarryT

But it's certainly not what Wells wrote, to give a counter-example.

Oh, for sure. That's why I've been leaving Wells and Verne out. They don't belong to what we think of as the golden age of sci-fi, but their work is definitely in the style of it.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by ekbell

When I think of Lieber I first think of the story "A Pail of Air" https://www.baen.com/Chapters/074349...498747___6.htmeven though I read and enjoyed his Fafhrd books.

Yeah, I need to read A Pail of Air (or at least listen to the X Minus One episode) as well as The Big Time and The Wanderer.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Oh, for sure. That's why I've been leaving Wells and Verne out. They don't belong to what we think of as the golden age of sci-fi, but their work is definitely in the style of it.

Verne's an interesting one. Although he's widely considered today to be one of the "fathers of SF", what he basically wrote were books about travel. Those of his works we consider "science fiction" were simply travel to unusual places, or by unusual methods, as in "From the Earth to the Moon" or "20,000 Leagues under the Seas". The overwhelming majority of the 54 novels that comprise his "Voyages extraordinaires", or "Extraordinary Journeys", have no SF elements to them. In the words of Verne's editor, the purpose of his books was "to outline all the geographical, geological, physical, and astronomical knowledge amassed by modern science and to recount, in an entertaining and picturesque format, the history of the universe."