Well here it is... the beginning of my digital online newsletter for Fans of Classic Science Fiction. My primary goal is to use the concepts of Webdesign that I have been learning in college coupled with .... well...CHEEZY FUN.

 

To the left you can see a picture of where I keep all my Classic Sci-Fi Mementos and the Vault Guard Robby.

 

The first Golden Age of Science Fiction — often recognized as the period from the late 1930s through the 1950s — was an era during which the science fiction genre gained wide public attention and many classic science fiction stories were published. In the history of science fiction, the Golden Age follows the "pulp era" of the 1920s and 30s, and precedes the New Wave science fiction of the 1960s and 70s.

 

One leading influence on the creation of the Golden age was John W. Campbell, who became legendary in the genre as an editor and publisher of many science fiction magazines, including Astounding Science Fiction and whose novela "Who Goes There?' later became the timeless 1951 Howard Hawk's Production of "The Thing From Another World". Under Campbell's editorship, science fiction developed more realism and psychological depth to characterization than it exhibited in the Gernsbackian "super science" era.

 

The focus shifted from the gizmo itself to the characters using the gizmo. Most fans agree that the Golden Age began around 1938-39; the July 1939 issue of Astounding Science Fiction containing the first published stories of both A. E. van Vogt and Isaac Asimov is frequently cited as the precise start of the Golden Age.Many of the most enduring science fiction tropes were established in Golden Age literature.

 

Isaac Asimov established the canonical Three Laws of Robotics beginning with the 1941 short story Liar!, as well as the quintessential space opera with the Foundation 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" 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 1950s novels, such as The Puppet Masters, Double Star, and Starship Troopers, express the libertarian ideology that runs through much of Golden Age science fiction.

 

The Golden Age also saw the re-emergence of the religious or spiritual themes—central used in so much proto-science fiction before 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; Clarke's Childhood's End; Blish's A Case of Conscience; and Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz.

 

As a phenomenon that affected the psyches of a great many adolescents during World War II and the ensuing Cold War, science fiction's Golden Age has left a lasting impression upon society. The beginning of the Golden Age coincided with the first Worldcon in 1939 and, especially for its most involved fans, science fiction was becoming a powerful social force.

 

The genre, particularly during its Golden Age, had significant, if somewhat indirect, effects upon leaders in the military, information technology, Hollywood and science itself, especially biotechnology and the pharmaceutical industry.

 

The impression of many parents at the time, however, was often tinged with dismay and intolerance, sometimes sparked by the racy cover illustrations of pulp science fiction.

 

The stereotypical cover of a science fiction pulp magazine depicted a brass-bikini-clad woman at the mercy of a bug-eyed monster.

 

Please check back regularly to see the changes unfolding.