Golden Age of Science Fiction

The Golden Age of Science Fiction 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, and precedes the New Wave.

The age is often associated with the influence of editor John W. Campbell.

History

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

From Gernsback to Campbell

Refer to caption
Sketch of John W. Campbell c. 1932

Science fiction magazines first appeared in 1926 with the launch of Hugo Gernsback's Amazing Stories.[1]: 23  This is usually considered to be the beginning of the pulp era of science fiction, though definitions vary.[2]: 109 [3]: 45  Several additional magazines by Gernsback and others appeared, and in some cases disappeared again, in the years that followed;[4][5]: xiii  in 1937, there were seven science fiction pulp magazines in publication.[6]: 98  In October 1937, John W. Campbell became editor of Astounding Stories. He finished the already in-progress December 1937 issue and started exercising direct editorial control from the January 1938 issue onwards alongside outgoing editor F. Orlin Tremaine, changing the title to Astounding Science Fiction starting with the March 1938 issue when he gained full editorial control.[7][8][9]: 150  Campbell's editorship of Astounding is generally held to mark the beginning of the Golden Age,[7] though the precise starting point varies slightly depending on definition—from 1937 at the earliest to 1940 at the latest.[10]: 288 [11]: 288 [12]: 128 [13]: 64 

Alva Rogers, in the 1964 book A Requiem for Astounding, writes that the period was both the Golden Age of science fiction as a whole and of Astounding in particular, and identifies the July 1939 issue as "the first real harbinger of Astounding's Golden Age".[14]: 59, 68  The July 1939 issue of Astounding has been adopted by others as the starting point of the Golden Age,[15]: 5 [16]: 79 [17]: 66  and The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction writes that "The beginning of Campbell's particular Golden Age of SF can be pinpointed as the summer of 1939" more broadly.[8] The July issue 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"; the August issue contained the first published story by Robert A. Heinlein, "Life-Line"; and the September issue had the first story by Theodore Sturgeon, "Ether Breather".[8][15]: 5 [16]: 79  Rogers nevertheless holds that, despite the appearance of these early stories, "it wasn't until 1940 that the Golden Age came into full being".[18]: 75  Mike Ashley similarly finds the July 1939 date arbitrary, viewing the change that happened as occurring gradually during 1938–1939 with each successive issue of Astounding contributing.[17]: 66 [19]: 111 

Campbell and Astounding

Campbell's instruction to his writers was refreshing: Write a story that could be published as a contemporary tale in a magazine published in the 25th century.
He also told them he wanted stories about aliens who could think as well as humans, but not like humans.

Paul A. Carter, Anatomy of Wonder: A Critical Guide to Science Fiction (2004)[20]: 46 

As editor of Astounding, Campbell took a proactive role.[10]: 287  Even before he assumed the editorship, it had become the best-selling science fiction magazine and paid authors higher rates than its competitors did.[8][21]: 19–20  This made Astounding a popular market and made it possible for Campbell to be selective.[21]: 20  Campbell, who had been a science fiction writer before he became editor, had a strong sense of what made for good science fiction, and he would frequently demand revisions, revise himself, or outright reject stories that did not meet his exacting standards.[10]: 287 [22]: 2  One of his convictions was that the maturity of sf readership was greater than had previously been believed.[22]: 2  He demanded that stories be logically sound,[21]: 20 [23]: 14 [24]: 217  required greater scientific accuracy than had previously been the norm,[21]: 20 [25]: 32 [26]: 56  and asked authors to consider what the effects of their ideas upon society and the individual would be.[6]: 98 [23]: 14 [27]: 487  More broadly, he was not content with the prevailing literary quality that appeared in magazines at the time but insisted upon more proficient writing.[20]: 46 [21]: 20 [25]: 32 [28] In the words of Asimov, who started writing for Campbell around this time, "he found magazine science fiction childish, and he made it adult".[15]: 4 

Campbell attracted some established writers such as Jack Williamson, Murray Leinster, and Clifford D. Simak; mainly, he discovered new ones like van Vogt, Asimov, Heinlein, and Sturgeon.[7][15]: 5 [28] He had a habit of coming up with ideas that he would have his writers turn into stories.[20]: 47 [21]: 20 [22]: 2  Donald A. Wollheim credits the success of Campbell's approach in part to Astounding being his sole venture,[a] rather than needing to divide attention between multiple publications as several of his contemporaries did.[29]: 76 

End of the Golden Age

Opinions differ on when, exactly, the Golden Age ended.[10]: 288  At the earliest, it is sometimes considered to have ended in 1941 when the United States entered World War II.[30]: 124  At the latest, in the early 1960s with the advent of the New Wave of science fiction.[31]: 326 

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.[32]

Analysis

Causes

Besides the editorial influence of Campbell, George Mann identifies the broader cultural shift brought about by World War II as an important factor in determining the trajectory of the genre during this time period.[23]: 13  Increasing scientific literacy among the readership has also been proposed as a contributing factor.[21]: 22  Another aspect is that many of the emerging writers of the time had themselves grown up reading science fiction magazines.[22]: 3 [29]: 74–75 [9]: 149 

Significance

According to The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, the Golden Age was "the time when most of the themes and motifs of sf were taking their modern shape".[7]

Characteristic tropes

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."[10]: 287 

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.[33]

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".[34] 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).[35]

Alternate date range

F. Orlin Tremaine, editor of Astounding between October 1933 and November 1937,[8] said that "I believe we can safely call the years 1933–37 the first golden age of science fiction".[36]: xvii 

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",[37] as mainstream companies like Simon & Schuster and Doubleday displaced specialty publishers like Arkham House and Gnome Press.[32]

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.

"The Golden Age of Science Fiction is twelve"

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...")[7][38][20]: 45–46 

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Between 1939 and 1943, Astounding had a fantasy companion magazine that was also edited by Campbell: Unknown.[8]

References

  1. ^ 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.
  2. ^ 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. doi:10.1525/sfs.30.1.0109. ISSN 0091-7729. JSTOR 4241144. Archived from the original on 2025-01-19 – via DePauw University.
  3. ^ 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.
  4. ^ 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.
  5. ^ 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.
  6. ^ a b 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.
  7. ^ a b c d e 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.
  8. ^ a b c d e f Edwards, Malcolm; Nicholls, Peter; Ashley, Mike (2024). "Astounding Science-Fiction". In Clute, John; Langford, David; Sleight, Graham (eds.). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (4th ed.). Retrieved 2025-04-28.
  9. ^ a b Page, Michael R. (2018). "Astounding Stories: John W. Campbell and the Golden Age, 1938–1950". In Canavan, Gerry; Link, Eric Carl (eds.). The Cambridge History of Science Fiction. Cambridge University Press. pp. 149–165. ISBN 978-1-107-16609-7.
  10. ^ a b c d e 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. Fans bicker pleasantly amongst themselves over the dates most properly connected with this Age, nominally golden. There is a consensus that it starts in 1938–39, some say it ends when World War II does, some that it lasts into the 1950s, but this need not distract us.
  11. ^ Ash, Brian, ed. (1977). "Science Fiction Art". The Visual Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Harmony Books. p. 288. ISBN 0-517-53174-7. OCLC 2984418. Shortly before the outbreak of war, science fiction was beginning a new phase, one signalled by the appointment of John W. Campbell as editor of Astounding. This next period, roughly from 1938 to 1950, is referred to by some as the Golden Age of Science Fiction.
  12. ^ Higgins, David M.; Duncan, Roby (2013). "Key Critical Concepts, Topics and Critics". In Hubble, Nick; Mousoutzanis, Aris (eds.). The Science Fiction Handbook. A&C Black. pp. 125–142. ISBN 978-1-4725-3897-0. Golden Age: A term used to refer to the period from 1937 (when John W. Campbell took over as editor of Amazing [sic] Stories) through the late 1950s in US SF publishing. The Golden Age followed the pulp era of the 1920s and 30s
  13. ^ Withers, Jeremy (2020). "Perfectibility and Techno-Optimism in the Pulp Era". Futuristic Cars and Space Bicycles: Contesting the Road in American Science Fiction. Oxford University Press. pp. 25–64. ISBN 978-1-78962-175-4. what many people refer to as the 'Golden Age' of sf (c.1940–60).
  14. ^ Rogers, Alva (1964). "The Dawn of the Golden Age: 1939–1940". A Requiem for Astounding. With editorial comments by Harry Bates, F. Orlin Tremaine, and John W. Campbell. Advent:Publishers. pp. 59–74. ISBN 978-0-911682-08-3. LCCN 64-57082. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
  15. ^ a b c d 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. Running Press. pp. 1–6. ISBN 978-0-88184-480-1.
  16. ^ a b Asimov, Isaac (1972). "Postface to 'Trends'". The Early Asimov; or, Eleven Years of Trying. Doubleday. pp. 79–82.
  17. ^ a b Ashley, Mike (2005). "Science Fiction Magazines: The Crucibles of Change". In Seed, David (ed.). A Companion to Science Fiction. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 60–76. ISBN 978-0-470-79701-3.
  18. ^ Rogers, Alva (1964). "The Golden Age Begins: 1940". A Requiem for Astounding. With editorial comments by Harry Bates, F. Orlin Tremaine, and John W. Campbell. Advent:Publishers. pp. 75–84. ISBN 978-0-911682-08-3. LCCN 64-57082. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
  19. ^ Ashley, Mike (2000). "Towards the Golden Age". The Time Machines: The Story of the Science-Fiction Pulp Magazines from the Beginning to 1950. The History of the Science-Fiction Magazine. Vol. 1. Liverpool University Press. pp. 93–134. ISBN 978-0-85323-855-3.
  20. ^ a b c d 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.
  21. ^ a b c d e f g Lambourne, R. J.; Shallis, M. J.; Shortland, M. (1990). "Science and the Rise of Science Fiction". Close Encounters?: Science and Science Fiction. CRC Press. pp. 1–33. ISBN 978-0-85274-141-2.
  22. ^ a b c d Carr, Terry (1979). "Introduction". In Carr, Terry (ed.). Classic Science Fiction: The First Golden Age. Robson Books. pp. 1–17. ISBN 978-0-86051-070-3.
  23. ^ a b c Mann, George (2001). "John W. Campbell and the Golden Age of SF". The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Carroll & Graf Publishers. pp. 13–15. ISBN 978-0-7867-0887-1.
  24. ^ Aldiss, Brian Wilson; Wingrove, David (1986). "The Future on a Chipped Plate: The Worlds of John Campbell's Astounding". Trillion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction. Atheneum. pp. 208–229. ISBN 978-0-689-11839-5.
  25. ^ a b Booker, M. Keith (2014). "Astounding Science-Fiction". Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction in Literature. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 31–32. ISBN 978-0-8108-7884-6.
  26. ^ Booker, M. Keith (2014). "Campbell, John W., Jr. (1910–1971)". Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction in Literature. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 56–57. ISBN 978-0-8108-7884-6.
  27. ^ Mann, George (2001). "Golden Age". The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Carroll & Graf Publishers. p. 487. ISBN 978-0-7867-0887-1.
  28. ^ a b Edwards, Malcolm; Clute, John (2025). "Campbell, John W, Jr". In Clute, John; Langford, David; Sleight, Graham (eds.). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (4th ed.). Retrieved 2025-07-24.
  29. ^ a b Wollheim, Donald A. (1971). "A Victorious Vernian". The Universe Makers: Science Fiction Today. Harper & Row. pp. 74–79. LCCN 75-123973.
  30. ^ Booker, M. Keith (2014). "Golden Age". Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction in Literature. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 124. ISBN 978-0-8108-7884-6.
  31. ^ Booker, M. Keith; Thomas, Anne-Marie (2009). "Glossary: Golden Age". The Science Fiction Handbook. John Wiley & Sons. p. 326. ISBN 978-1-4443-1035-1.
  32. ^ a b Budrys, Algis (October 1965). "Galaxy Bookshelf". Galaxy Science Fiction. pp. 142–150.
  33. ^ Roberts, Adam The History of Science Fiction, pp. 196–203, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. ISBN 0333970225
  34. ^ Budrys, Algis (August 1965). "Galaxy Bookshelf". Galaxy Science Fiction. pp. 186–194.
  35. ^ Roberts, Adam The History of Science Fiction, pp. 210–218, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. ISBN 0333970225
  36. ^ Tremaine, F. Orlin (1964). "Editorial Number Two: "in absentia"". In Rogers, Alva (ed.). A Requiem for Astounding. With editorial comments by Harry Bates, F. Orlin Tremaine, and John W. Campbell. Advent:Publishers. pp. xvii–xviii. ISBN 978-0-911682-08-3. LCCN 64-57082. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
  37. ^ 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.
  38. ^ Stableford, Brian (2004). "Golden Age of SF". Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction Literature. Scarecrow Press. p. 139. ISBN 978-0-8108-4938-9.

Further reading

  • Google Books – 'Age of Wonders Chapter One: The Golden Age of Science Fiction is Twelve', David G. Hartwell (1996)
  • YouTube.com – Isaac Asimov on the Golden Age of Science Fiction
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