Early Modern Science Fiction (c. 1930-38): dominated by Hugo Gernsback and the first pulp magazines

• Hugo Gernsback
• Contemporaries of Gernsback
  

Isaac Asimov divided the history of modern science fiction, i.e., works written after 1926, into four types of stories:

• 1926-38--adventure dominant
• 1938-50--science dominant
• 1950-65--sociology dominant
• 1966-present--style dominant

In some respects Hugo Gernsback (1884-1967) can be called the Father of Science Fiction.

Born in Luxembourg where he received a technical education, Gernsback
emigrated to the United States in 1904.

He was the publisher of Modern Electronics, the world's first radio magazine.

In 1911 he serialized his own novel, Ralph 124C41+: A Romance of the Year 2660, a gadget tale very badly written.

Ralph 124C41+ is considered the first pure science fiction novel.

The novel met with great success so Gernsback continued to publish science fiction in his magazine.

In April, 1926, Gernsback launched Amazing Stories, the first magazine devoted completely to science fiction.

He maintained control for 37 issues, until 1929.

The magazine reprinted Jules Verne, Edgar Allen Poe, and H.G. Wells.

Gernsback coined the term "science fiction" when his own preferred term "scientification" was ignored.

He sponsored the SF League, one of the first fan organizations.

As testimony to his influence, the annual Hugo Awards voted by fans are named after Gernsback.

Though Gernsback laid great emphasis on the need for scientific accuracy in his stories, his limitations were to haunt science fiction for years to come.

• As an editor he lacked any literary understanding;
• He was interested only in technical marvels and gimmicks;
• He introduced a deadening literalism into fiction that often read like a diagram.

"Doc" Smith (1890-1965) was the father of the space opera--cops and robbers or cowboys and Indians in space.

Key publications include:

• Skylark of Space (1928) in Argosy
• the Gray Lensman series

Karel Capek, a Czechoslovakian, is most noted as the author of R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) (1920), a play which introduced the word "robot," a Czech word for "work," into the English language.

His other notable work is the novel War With the Newts (1936).

C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), a scholar and essayist well known for his writings on Christianity, also wrote the Perelandra trilogy which asks whether Christ died for aliens as well as humans.

• Out of the Silent Planet (1938)
• Perelandra (1943)
• That Hideous Strength (1945)

A series of novels for children, The Chronicles of Narnia, begun with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950), are Christian allegory as juvenile fantasy.

Stapledon (1886-1950) turned scientific concepts into vast epic prose poems. Key works include:

• Last and First Men: A Story of the Near and Far Future (1930)
• Starmaker (1937), his masterpiece
• Odd John (1935), a more accessible superman tale

As the decade of the 1930s progressed, there came the establishment of magazines that specialized in science fiction.

This specialization created a science fiction ghetto with a core of uncritical readers (i.e., geeks) willing to accept Gernsbackian tales with leaden prose and more science than character.