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SCIENCE FICTION

Atomic Age Literature

Science fiction gained respectability after World War II. As the nation came to terms with the atomic age and began to speculate about the possibility of space travel, fictional accounts of alien creatures in stellar worlds became plausible enough to interest general readers. Before the war, science fiction was written according to standard genre formulas for plot and character, distinguished only by galactic settings. Nine science-fiction magazines published virtually all of the new work in the field, and, as a result, short stories dominated the genre. When science-fiction novels were published, they were either serialized in magazines or presented in paperback format and marketed to what was regarded as an undiscriminating audience.

Popular Demand

After the war, science fiction matured as it attracted the attention of big business. Holly-wood led the way with films that exploited Americans' fear of invasion. The Thing (1951), The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), When Worlds Collide (1951), and War of the Worlds (1953) were successful movies with budgets exceeding one million dollars each. They exposed large audiences to plots based on speculative fiction. ABC spent twelve thousand dollars per episode to attract established actors and talented writers for the television series Tales of Tomorrow, prompting CBS to follow with Out There and NBC to search for an entry into the science-fiction market. With the debut of Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone in 1959, science-fiction television drama captured the imagination of a huge and loyal audience. The number of science-fiction magazines increased from 9 in 1945 to 53 in 1953, led by Galaxy (begun in October 1950), which paid three to five cents a word for stories (as compared to the standard rate of one cent a word for pulp fiction). Business Week estimated the total science-fiction magazine readership to be about three hundred thousand. In addition there were some 250 fanzines, cheaply produced periodicals in which fans traded comments with one another on such topics as their favorite works, and 10 new science-fiction comic books introduced in 1950 and 1951.

Paperbacks

The success of science-fiction magazines prompted paperback houses, led by Ace and Ballantine, to develop aggressive science-fiction publishing programs. In the beginning, the paperback publishers concentrated on anthologies composed of magazine fiction, but as talented novelists with enthusiastic fans emerged, the paperback houses began to promote single-author works. New American Library reported that individual science-fiction novels sold over two hundred thousand each in 1951, and hardcover anthologies sold as many as thirty-five thousand copies.

Fans

Science-fiction fans were distinguished by their eccentricity and their devotion. They viewed being a fan as an active pursuit. Fans arranged half a dozen conferences a year, sometimes referred to as "fanferences," at which they dressed as their favorite science-fiction characters, traded memorabilia, shared ideas, and gave awards both to their favorite authors and to one another. The best known of the awards were the Hugos, named for Hugo Gernsback, who founded the first science-fiction magazine, Amazing Stories, in 1926. Instituted in 1953 by the organizers of the Worldcon in Philadelphia, Hugos were awarded in several categories (that changed from year to year) upon the vote of registered attendees of the conference. In 1953 there were seven categories; Alfred Bester won the best-novel award for The Demolished Man, and Forrest J. Ackerman was named "Number 1 Fan Personality."

Literary Celebrities

Life reported in 1951 that there were twenty thousand or so hard-core American science-fiction fans, though participation at the conventions tended to be measured in hundreds rather than thousands. The objects of the fans' attention were such writers as Isaac Asimov, Alfred Bester, Ray Bradbury, Lester del Rey, Robert A. Heinlein, Murray Leinster, Walter M. Miller, Frederik Pohl, Theodore Sturgeon, Clifford D. Simak, A. E. Van Vogt, and—despite his protestations that he was not a genre writer—Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. By the end of the decade these names commanded the attention, and often the respect as well, of a still-growing readership and eager publishing, television, and moviemaking industries.