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Pulp Science Fiction

Like many people far older than myself, I loved pulp science-fiction when I was growing up. I'd get anthologies of stories first published between the nineteen thirties and fifties from second hand stores or libraries, and just devour them. Bradbury, Asimov, you name 'em, I read em. On holidays in Ireland in the seventies, I even found small, A5-sized booklet reprints of a quality I didn't find again until I discovered Italian graphic sci-fi on a ski trip a few years ago.

The stories were fun, and often scientifically defensible. For example, Asimov once wrote of an anti-gravity game of pool that would have pleased Aristotle's ideas of inherent essences. In short, it involved billiard balls that kept accelerating to light speed once their mass was displaced and they were allowed to escape Einstein's equation. I half got it at the time, and but loved the conceit.

My collectivism went with the magic-rationalist fetish; for a school prize once, I requested The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists and The Foundation Trilogy.

Often, life is a pleasant exercise in nostalgia. On the train to Bath today (the seminar was on Napoleon, Burke and Rousseau and I had a high old time with my students), I found myself idly knocking off a mad crazy story that came from those years, and some knotted corner of my head. In my late night Thursday, ersatz tradition, I have gone and put it up on Counterfactual Fun. I used to love painting, and I was better at it than I am at writing, but having the freedom to do this sort of thing makes me love blogland even more. The story is called To Mars By Atom Bomb, 1996.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Anonymous coward here.

Modern science fiction lacks that vague promise of possibility, most of the time. For what its worth, my four favorite scifi authors aren't very scientific. Orson Scott Card explores narcissism, Cory Doctorow focuses on people's rights and some futurism, Neal Stephenson enjoys scientific history, and D. F. Wallace conveys something interesting but tough to describe.

If you're not already a fan, I bet you could get into Neal Stephenson's Baroque trilogy or cycle or whatever he calls it.
6:54 am
Martin Meenagh said…
Hi AC

I agree with you. I think science fiction is a fairly good mirror of aspiration, and as energy runs down and money shifts back to India and China, the west's stories are going to be much more limited. But it's still nice to recall the dreams of possibilities that never were. I'm an amateur at this sort of thing now, and knew about Cory Doctorow, but not the other three--I'll certainly try them out! Thank you for that.

I have a very good public library very near me. I discovered Keith Laumer's 'Imperium' series in there the other weekend. They'd now be classed as counterfactual or time travel fiction, and follow on I suppose from a mini boom that The Man in The High Castle kicked off, but I did like them. Over two days and three hours on the treadmill--that's how long they kept me on for!-- I read the first one.

Hope all is well with you, thanks for the comment.

M
7:38 am
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