galacticjourney

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!)