A Guide to Speculative Fiction at Gustavus Library: 1950 to 1965 : The Rise of the SF Paperback

"This is the second of three volumes [Librarian's note: now five] that chart the history of the science fiction magazine from the earliest days to the present. The first volume, Time Machines, traced the development of the science fiction magazine from its earliest days and the creation of the first specialist magazine, Amazing Stories. This book takes up the story to reveal a turbulent period that was to witness the extraordinary rise and fall and rise again of science. It charts the science fiction boom years in the wake of the nuclear age that was to see the ‘The Golden Age’ of Science Fiction, with the emergence of magazines such as Galaxy, Startling Stories, and Fantastic, as well as authors like Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick, and Frank Herbert. The book then goes on to explore the bust years of 1954–1960, followed by the renaissance in the 1960s led by the new wave of British authors such as Michael Moorcock and J. G. Ballard, and the rise in interest of fantasy fiction, encouraged by The Lord of the Rings and the Conan books of Robert E. Howard. It concludes with an examination of the newfound interest in science fiction magazines during the late 1960s and the incredibly influential roles Star Trek, the film 2001: A Space Odyssey and, above all, the first manned Moon landing played in transforming the science fiction magazine." - from the publisher

"In this groundbreaking cultural history, Lisa Yaszek recovers a lost tradition of women’s science fiction that flourished after 1945. This new kind of science fiction was set in a place called galactic suburbia, a literary frontier that was home to nearly 300 women writers. These authors explored how women’s lives, loves, and work were being transformed by new sciences and technologies, thus establishing women’s place in the American future imaginary." - from the publisher

"A tense prophetic novel of one woman's world--after the bomb!" - Jacket

"Shadow on the Hearth tells the story of 'a Westchester woman and her two children after the explosion of a series of atomic bombs on New York'. Merril described it as 'a very political novel, ... written for political reasons'. Lisa Yaszek writes that Shadow on the Hearth 'is one of the only postwar holocaust narratives that manages to work its way out from under the paralyzing shadow of the mushroom cloud and to imagine the possibility of women -- and men -- working together to build a more peaceful and rational future'. Judith Merril: A Critical Study notes that 'contemporary critics respect Merril's novel for its originality in domesticating nuclear attack -- hence the story's power and darkness'. David Seed reports the novel is 'universally praised . . . for its understated method, avoidance of melodrama and unusually oblique description of nuclear attack'. M. Keith Booker declares that Shadow on the Hearth is 'a relatively daring novel' and 'a useful corrective to the heroic vision of post apocalypse life'." - from Wikipedia

"In 1951 John Wyndham published his novel The Day of the Triffids to moderate acclaim. Fifty-two years later, this horrifying story is a science fiction classic, touted by The Times (London) as having 'all the reality of a vividly realized nightmare.' Bill Masen, bandages over his wounded eyes, misses the most spectacular meteorite shower England has ever seen. Removing his bandages the next morning, he finds masses of sightless people wandering the city. He soon meets Josella, another lucky person who has retained her sight, and together they leave the city, aware that the safe, familiar world they knew a mere twenty-four hours before is gone forever. But to survive in this post-apocalyptic world, one must survive the Triffids, strange plants that years before began appearing all over the world. The Triffids can grow to over seven feet tall, pull their roots from the ground to walk, and kill a man with one quick lash of their poisonous stingers. With society in shambles, they are now poised to prey on humankind. Wyndham chillingly anticipates bio-warfare and mass destruction, fifty years before their realization, in this prescient account of Cold War paranoia." - from the publisher

"It was in the 1950s also that [Frederik Pohl] cemented his growing reputation with his first novel in collaboration with Kornbluth: the classic Satire, The Space Merchants (July-August 1952 Galaxy as 'Gravy Planet'; rev and cut 1953). The savagely gaudy image here painted of a Dystopian future crippled by Overpopulation and Ecological degradation, dominated by Advertising and de facto ruled by private corporations, now seems remarkably prescient (see Media Landscape); in the two final chapters of the tale, which appear only in the magazine version, the advertising executive who has emigrated to Venus discovers a new life form which there, on being fed anything, can Terraform the planet." - Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, "Pohl, Frederic"

"Mission of Gravity, one of the best-loved novels in sf, is set on the intriguingly plausible high-gravity planet of Mesklin (see Sense of Wonder), inhabited by Clement's most interesting Aliens. The plot concerns the efforts of the Mesklinite Captain Barlennan and his crew to assist a human team in extracting a vital component from a crashed space probe; the humans cannot perform the feat, because Mesklin's Gravity varies from 3g at the equator to 700g at the poles. Barlennan's arduous trek is inherently fascinating, but perhaps even more engaging is Clement's presentation of the captain as a kind of Competent Man in extremis, a born engineer, a lover of knowledge. Though less vividly than in the depiction of Barlennan, these characteristics permeate the texts of everything that Clement wrote, even those stories whose protagonists are no more than pretexts for the unfolding of the genuine text – which is the physical Universe itself." "For half a century, Clement almost unfalteringly sought to maintain the relevance and seriousness of Hard-SF sf focused rigorously on the physical sciences; and his vividness of imagination – his sense that the Universe is wonderful – generally overcame the awkwardness of his narrative technique. He is a figure of importance to genre not only for the ingenuity of his applications of science to the universe, but also for the vividness of his imagination, which in his best work overcame any awkwardnesses of narrative technique. What Clement best conveys from the Golden Age of SF is something of continuing relevance: a sense that the Universe is wonderful." - from The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, "Clement, Hal"

Librarian's note: Hal Clement's Mission to Gravity is considered a pioneering work in the Hard SF subgenre. Robert Crossley in Imagining Mars describes Clement's novels as the first to truly grapple with the practical scientific and engineering challenges of traveling to (and on) other worlds.

"In this genre-bending novel—among the first to have launched sci-fi into the arena of literature—one of the great imaginers of the twentieth century tells a story as mind-blowing as any controlled substance and as affecting as a glimpse into a stranger's soul. There's Lone, the simpleton who can hear other people's thoughts and make a man blow his brains out just by looking at him. There's Janie, who moves things without touching them, and there are the teleporting twins, who can travel ten feet or ten miles. There's Baby, who invented an antigravity engine while still in the cradle, and Gerry, who has everything it takes to run the world except for a conscience. Separately, they are talented freaks. Together, they compose a single organism that may represent the next step in evolution, and the final chapter in the history of the human race. As the protagonists of More Than Human struggle to find out who they are and whether they are meant to help humanity or destroy it, Theodore Sturgeon explores questions of power and morality, individuality and belonging, with suspense, pathos, and a lyricism rarely seen in science fiction. Winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and International Fantasy Awards." - publisher description of a later edition

"In a world policed by telepaths, Ben Reich plans to commit a crime that hasn't been heard of in 70 years: murder. That's the only option left for Reich, whose company is losing a 10-year death struggle with rival D'Courtney Enterprises. Terrorized in his dreams by The Man With No Face and driven to the edge after D'Courtney refuses a merger offer, Reich murders his rival and bribes a high-ranking telepath to help him cover his tracks. But while police prefect Lincoln Powell knows Reich is guilty, his telepath's knowledge is a far cry from admissible evidence." - from the publisher

"The great Swedish writer Harry Martinson published his masterpiece, Aniara, during the height of the Cold War -- right after the Soviet Union announced that it had exploded the hydrogen bomb. Aniara is the story of a luxurious space ship, loaded with 8,000 evacuees, fleeing an Earth made uninhabitable by Man's technological arrogance. A malfunction knocks the craft off course, taking these would-be Mars colonists on an irreversible journey into deep space. Aniara is a book of prophecy, a panoramic view of humanity's possible fate. It has been translated into seven languages and adapted into a popular avant-garde opera. This volume is the first complete English language version and received the prestigious American Scandinavian Foundation Award." - from the publisher

"They were green. They were little. They were bald as billiard balls. And they were everywhere. Luke Devereaux was a science-fiction writer, holed up in a desert shack waiting for inspiration. He was the first man to see a Martian... but he wasn't the last! It was estimated that a billion of them had arrived—one to every three human beings on Earth —obnoxious green creatures who could be seen and heard, but not harmed, and who probed private sex lives as shamelessly as they probed government secrets. No one knew why they had come. No one knew how to make them go away—except, perhaps, Luke Devereaux. Unfortunately Devereaux was going slightly bananas, so it wouldn't be easy. But for a science-fiction writer nothing was impossible." - from the publisher

"The Time Traders is a science fiction novel by American writer Andre Norton (pseudonym, née Alice Mary Norton), the first in The Time Traders series. It was first published in 1958, and has been printed in several editions. It was updated by Norton in 2000 to account for real world changes. It is part of Norton's Forerunner universe. The Time Traders introduces the premise: a confrontation between Western heroes and the 'Reds', AKA the Soviets, plus the 'Baldies', a mysterious alien race that has used time travel to alter Earth. This novel alternates among the present day, a trading tribal society in Britain, 2000 B.C., and a glacial outpost in the last ice age." - from the publisher

"Non-Stop remains a brilliant and ground-breaking work of imagination. Curiosity was discouraged in the Greene tribe. It's members lived out their lives in cramped quarters, hacking away at the encroaching jungle called “the ponics.” As to where they were―that had long ago been forgotten. But Roy Complain decides to find out, along with the renegade priest, Marapper. They move into unmapped territory, where they make a series of discoveries which turn their universe upside-down. They meet mutants and giants, regimented rats, telepathic rabbits, and the fabled Outsiders. And they confront a secret kept hidden for twenty-three generations―a secret whose discovery will reveal their origins and destiny even as it destroys their world." - from the publisher

"Father Ruiz-Sanchez was a dedicated man — a priest who was also a scientist, and a scientist who was also a human being. He found no insoluble conflicts in his beliefs or in his ethics until he was sent to Lithia. There he came upon a race of aliens — reptilian in form — who were admirable in every way except for their total reliance on cold reason; they were incapable of faith and belief. On Lithia, Father Ruiz-Sanchez also found a scientific riddle, and he was presented with an ethical problem that reached across two worlds. Father Ruiz-Sanchez was then torn in a struggle between the teachings of his faith, the teachings of his science, and the inner promptings of his humanity. There was only one solution. He had to accept an ancient and unforgivable heresy — and, in accepting that heresy, he risked the futures of both worlds." - from the publisher

"Set in the next century, as the polar ice caps begin to melt, threatening to submerge the continents and destroy all terrestrial life. Secretly and illegally, a group of scientists has begun work on a scheme to force biological mutation on animals, and ultimately on the human fetus, to enable mammalian life to survive. The protagonist, Dr. Katsumi, a scientist who has created an information system so advanced that it can foretell human behavior, is drawn unwittingly into the conspiracy. As he gradually, risking his life, ferrets out the precise nature of the experiments in which his skills have been enlister, he is forced to choose between his desire for the survival of the human race and his horror of the ruthless and manipulative means by which the end is to be attained. This philosophical choice is translated into a matter of desperate personal immediacy when he discovers that the conspiracy poses a direct threat to his wife and unborn child." - from the publisher

Librarian's note: Japanese great Kobo Abe's 1959 novel has been described by critics as instrumental in bringing about the rise of sf fiction literature in Japan.

"In the depths of the Utah desert, long after the Flame Deluge has scoured the earth clean, a monk of the Order of Saint Leibowitz has made a miraculous discovery: holy relics from the life of the great saint himself, including the blessed blueprint, the sacred shopping list, and the hallowed shrine of the Fallout Shelter. In a terrifying age of darkness and decay, these artifacts could be the keys to mankind's salvation. But as the mystery at the core of this groundbreaking novel unfolds, it is the search itself—for meaning, for truth, for love—that offers hope for humanity's rebirth from the ashes."

"Robert Heinlein's Hugo Award-winning all-time masterpiece, the brilliant novel that grew from a cult favorite to a bestseller to a science fiction classic. Raised by Martians on Mars, Valentine Michael Smith is a human who has never seen another member of his species. Sent to Earth, he is a stranger who must learn what it is to be a man. But his own beliefs and his powers far exceed the limits of humankind, and as he teaches them about grokking and water-sharing, he also inspires a transformation that will alter Earth’s inhabitants forever..." - from the publisher

"Cat’s Cradle is Kurt Vonnegut’s satirical commentary on modern man and his madness. An apocalyptic tale of this planet’s ultimate fate, it features a midget as the protagonist, a complete, original theology created by a calypso singer, and a vision of the future that is at once blackly fatalistic and hilariously funny. A book that left an indelible mark on an entire generation of readers, Cat’s Cradle is one of the twentieth century’s most important works—and Vonnegut at his very best." - from the publisher

"In this Hugo Award–winning alternative history classic—the basis for the Amazon Original series—the United States lost World War II and was subsequently divided between the Germans in the East and the Japanese in the West. It’s America in 1962. Slavery is legal once again. The few Jews who still survive hide under assumed names. In this world, we meet characters like Frank Frink, a dealer of counterfeit Americana who is himself hiding his Jewish ancestry; Nobusuke Tagomi, the Japanese trade minister in San Francisco, unsure of his standing within the bureaucracy and Japan's with Germany; and Juliana Frink, Frank's ex-wife, who may be more important than she realizes. These seemingly disparate characters gradually realize their connections to each other just as they realize that something is not quite right about their world. And it seems as though the answers might lie with Hawthorne Abendsen, a mysterious and reclusive author, whose best-selling novel describes a world in which the US won the War... The Man in the High Castle is Dick at his best, giving readers a harrowing vision of the world that almost was." - from the publisher

"Hugo Award Winner: In backwoods Wisconsin, an ageless hermit welcomes alien visitors—and foresees the end of humanity . . . Enoch Wallace is not like other humans. Living a secluded life in the backwoods of Wisconsin, he carries a nineteenth-century rifle and never seems to age—a fact that has recently caught the attention of prying government eyes. The truth is, Enoch is the last surviving veteran of the American Civil War and, for close to a century, he has operated a secret way station for aliens passing through on journeys to other stars. But the gifts of knowledge and immortality that his intergalactic guests have bestowed upon him are proving to be a nightmarish burden, for they have opened Enoch’s eyes to humanity’s impending destruction. Still, one final hope remains for the human race . . . though the cure could ultimately prove more terrible than the disease. Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel, Way Station is a magnificent example of the fine art of science fiction as practiced by a revered Grand Master. A cautionary tale that is at once ingenious, evocative, and compassionately human, it brilliantly supports the contention of the late, great Robert A. Heinlein that 'to read science-fiction is to read Simak.'" - from the publisher

"Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, who would become the mysterious man known as Maud'dib. He would avenge the traitorous plot against his noble family-and would bring to fruition humankind's most ancient and unattainable dream. A blend of adventure and mysticism, environmentalism and politics, Dune won the first Nebula Award, shared the Hugo Award, and was the first book of a grand epic in science fiction."