Entries tagged with rosemary harris

by Gideon Marcus

It's not quite time for a funeral, yet!

Nearly a decade ago, the Chicken Littles of our genre scribbled at length in our magazines and buttonholed each other at conventions to voice their fears that science fiction was dying. Well, it is true that we are down to just six American sff digests per month, off of the 40 magazine peak of 1953. On the other hand, I'd argue that we're not that much worse off for having lost the lesser monthlies. Moreover, sff novels still seem to be doing a brisk trade.

In the three years since I started this column, I've seen a cadre of new writers burst onto the scene; clearly, no one told them that their field is dead! And while sff continues to be something of a man's world, this fact is changing, slowly but surely. Since just last year, when I wrote 18 mini-biographies of the women authors of science fiction, I've become exposed to a whole new crop of female bylines. Some of them are just new to me, having been in the biz for a long time. Others are genuinely fresh onto the scene.

Without further ado, the supplemental list for early 1962:

(see the rest at Galactic Journey!)

by Gideon Marcus

Just what is the Galactic Journey? Who is this mysterious "Traveler"?

Every so often, it's good idea to remind my readers who I am and why I do what I do. This weekend, I am presenting at a local science fiction gathering, so it makes sense that the first article they see makes sense of all of this.

My twin passions are science fiction and outer space. I live with my wife and daughter in San Diego, the fairest city in the Golden State of California. From 9 to 5, I run a mid-sized electronics company. In my off time, I maintain this column, writing about current books, magazines, movies, and science news (as well as other miscellany).

Oh yes. I live in 1961.

Normally, I wouldn't have cause to mention this fact. For the longest time, I was the under the impression that we all lived in the same time. Some of the mail I've been getting, however, suggests that a few of you come from the future -- 55 years, to be exact.

It's quite exciting to have a fan-base from the far-flung time of 2016. They report on all sorts of far out advances, some of which have been conceived in science fiction, others of which are beyond our wildest dreams.

Happily, they report that global overpopulation has not been realized. On the other hand, global warming has. They say that Pluto is not a planet; well, that's nothing new.

I suspect, of course, that this is all a fannish game. No one really can know the future. The best we can do is write down our speculations and hope we're right (or in the case of scary visions, wrong!)

And that leads nicely into the subject of this article, the September 1961 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

(See the rest at Galactic Journey!)

[February 14, 1962] St. Valentine's Update (The Second Sex in SFF, Part V)

[August 26, 1961] Introduce Yourself! (September 1961 Fantasy and Science Fiction)