That's twelve
June 14, 2013 3:14 PM Subscribe
Science fiction writer/fan Jamie Todd Rubin went on a holiday in the Golden Age, by reading through vintage issues of Astounding Science Fiction, starting with the July 1939 issue.
My dad had stacks of Science Fiction digest issues from the 50's and 60's and they were awesome. I envy Mr. Rubin!
posted by Joey Michaels at 4:06 PM on June 14, 2013
posted by Joey Michaels at 4:06 PM on June 14, 2013
I dunno. I recently got a copy of "The Early Asimov" and a similar tome of the earliest Philip Dick stories from my local library... they were really mediocre stories. Dick wasn't bad, but man, Asimov wrote some dull, lifeless science fiction in his early days.
The odd part is how wrong many of the stories were - they were still straightfaced discussing characters breathing on Mars, etc. I don't begrudge them not knowing, but it was a bit weird. Stuff that's flat-out fantasy now was hard sci-fi once upon a time.
posted by GuyZero at 4:14 PM on June 14, 2013 [2 favorites]
The odd part is how wrong many of the stories were - they were still straightfaced discussing characters breathing on Mars, etc. I don't begrudge them not knowing, but it was a bit weird. Stuff that's flat-out fantasy now was hard sci-fi once upon a time.
posted by GuyZero at 4:14 PM on June 14, 2013 [2 favorites]
Oh, though Sturgeon is OK. For whatever reason, my library has all 13 volumes of his collected short stories.
I have to hand it to those Golden Age guys - they knew how to keep churning 'em out.
posted by GuyZero at 4:18 PM on June 14, 2013
I have to hand it to those Golden Age guys - they knew how to keep churning 'em out.
posted by GuyZero at 4:18 PM on June 14, 2013
90%± of all sci fic, hard or otherwise, new or old is fantasy . And thgats fine. I actually kinda like older sci fgic just because there is no longer any pretense of it being future telling. The only hangups for me are the gender/(sometimes racial) norms of the time bleeding through. Sometimes I can be more forgiving than others if the undergoing story is just damn good. Bester's first few novels and Lem's stuff for example.
posted by edgeways at 4:21 PM on June 14, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by edgeways at 4:21 PM on June 14, 2013 [2 favorites]
No review of "Black Destroyer" is complete without a mention of the displacer beast.
(The cover art of that first issue is gorgeous, BTW.)
posted by The Tensor at 4:38 PM on June 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
(The cover art of that first issue is gorgeous, BTW.)
posted by The Tensor at 4:38 PM on June 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
90%± of all sci fic, hard or otherwise, new or old is fantasy . And thgats fine. I actually kinda like older sci fgic just because there is no longer any pretense of it being future telling. The only hangups for me are the gender/(sometimes racial) norms of the time bleeding through. Sometimes I can be more forgiving than others if the undergoing story is just damn good. Bester's first few novels and Lem's stuff for example.Harlan Ellison fixed this a couple decades ago. Just call it speculative fiction. Same acronym, fewer fights.
posted by deathpanels at 5:39 PM on June 14, 2013
> Harlan Ellison fixed this a couple decades ago. Just call it speculative fiction.
Actually, the term "speculative fiction" goes back to 1889 (Lippincott's Monthly Magazine: "Edward Bellamy, in 'Looking Backward,' and George Parsons Lathrop, in a short story, 'The New Poverty,' have followed the example of Anthony Trollope and Bulwer in speculative fiction put in the future tense"). And in the modern era it was used by Heinlein in 1947: "There are at least two principal ways to write speculative fiction..." There's no need to aid and abet Harlan Ellison in his ongoing quest to establish himself as the greatest and only real writer who ever lived.
> My dad had stacks of Science Fiction digest issues from the 50's and 60's and they were awesome.
I have stacks of sf magazines from the '40s through the '70s and they are indeed awesome—envy me!
posted by languagehat at 5:45 PM on June 14, 2013 [4 favorites]
Actually, the term "speculative fiction" goes back to 1889 (Lippincott's Monthly Magazine: "Edward Bellamy, in 'Looking Backward,' and George Parsons Lathrop, in a short story, 'The New Poverty,' have followed the example of Anthony Trollope and Bulwer in speculative fiction put in the future tense"). And in the modern era it was used by Heinlein in 1947: "There are at least two principal ways to write speculative fiction..." There's no need to aid and abet Harlan Ellison in his ongoing quest to establish himself as the greatest and only real writer who ever lived.
> My dad had stacks of Science Fiction digest issues from the 50's and 60's and they were awesome.
I have stacks of sf magazines from the '40s through the '70s and they are indeed awesome—envy me!
posted by languagehat at 5:45 PM on June 14, 2013 [4 favorites]
I am 1/3 of the way through a quest to acquire every issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Pity my bank account.
posted by goatdog at 7:08 PM on June 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by goatdog at 7:08 PM on June 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
You all do know that a large number of the Amazing Stories magazines are available over on archive.org, right?
Amazing Stories
posted by jgaiser at 8:48 PM on June 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
Amazing Stories
posted by jgaiser at 8:48 PM on June 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
Oh, though Sturgeon is OK. For whatever reason, my library has all 13 volumes of his collected short stories.
Read Sturgeon's story "And Now the News". It's in the volume so titled.
posted by neuron at 10:47 PM on June 14, 2013
Read Sturgeon's story "And Now the News". It's in the volume so titled.
posted by neuron at 10:47 PM on June 14, 2013
Ooo, I did this, only I traveled to the mid-'80s for a while, via back issues of Analog. I found it amazing how prescient some of those stories were.
posted by limeonaire at 8:37 AM on June 15, 2013
posted by limeonaire at 8:37 AM on June 15, 2013
Weird... I'm kind of doing that now. After reading yet another lukewarm potboiler that was on sale at Amazon, I installed FBReader, set up the Gutenberg library, and for the next six months I've vowed to read only public domain books.
I started last night with Arthur Machen's The Hill of Dreams, and I'm planning on following that up with some Lord Dunsany, maybe some Sax Rohmer, James Branch Cabell, Henry James...
Maybe I should do a year.
posted by MrVisible at 9:28 AM on June 15, 2013
I started last night with Arthur Machen's The Hill of Dreams, and I'm planning on following that up with some Lord Dunsany, maybe some Sax Rohmer, James Branch Cabell, Henry James...
Maybe I should do a year.
posted by MrVisible at 9:28 AM on June 15, 2013
At Project Gutenberg stories can be read without e-reader. Html is available too.
posted by RobHoi at 10:21 AM on June 17, 2013
posted by RobHoi at 10:21 AM on June 17, 2013
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