| Modern Science Fiction |
| • The 1950s • Key Post-War Authors • Cold War Thrillers • Mainstreaming • |
| The 1950s |
The
explosion of the atomic bomb in 1945 triggered an explosion of interest
in science fiction.
During
the years immediately following World War II, science fiction began to
be published in book form as hardcover anthologies of short stories.
- The
Other Worlds (1941), edited by Phil Strong
- Adventures
in Time and Space (1946),
edited by Raymond J. Healy and J. Francis McComas
Galaxy was founded in 1950. |
In
October 1957 the Soviet Union launched Sputnik,
the first satellite, and the Space Age officially began.
Ironically,
people now began to expect the unexpected. The
Future was Now. Science
fiction had to reach out for new subject matter.
Astounding changed its name to Analog in 1960. |
|
| Key Post-War Authors |
Key figures from the post-war era include:
- Alfred Bester
- James Blish
- Ray Bradbury
- Anthony Burgess
- Daniel Keyes
- Damon Knight
- George Orwell
- Frederik Pohl and Cyril Kornbluth
- Walter E. Miller
- John Wyndham
|
Some of these writers were marketed to a mainstream readership. They include:
- William Golding whose most famous work is Lord of the Flies (1955)
- George Orwell (1903-50), novelist, essayist, and critic whose socialist political beliefs are illustrated in his two most famous works:
- Animal Farm (1945)
- 1984 (1949)
- Nevil Shute whose most famous work On the Beach (1957) is one
of the first novels to portray the earth in the aftermath of nuclear war.
- Kurt Vonnegut who insisted that his novels be marketed as mainstream literature, though
his early works are indisputably science fiction. Key
Works:
- Player
Piano (1952)
- Sirens
of Titan (1959)
- Cat's
Cradle (1963)
- Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)
|
|
| Cold War Thrillers |
Best
sellers that dealt with the Cold War often had a science fiction edge.
The
most famous of these are:
- Fail-Safe by Burdick and Wheeler
- Seven Days in May by Fletcher
Knebel
|
|
| Mainstreaming |
During
the years following World War II, sales of magazines dropped dramatically
and were revived only after the release of the film Star Wars in 1977.
However,
by this time magazine science fiction had begun to spread into traditional
publishing. |
