I think that science fiction is dead. I think that
what we see published under that label today is a kind of zombie
genre, kept alive more by the commercial demands of the media –
publishing, movies, TV, comics and journalism – than by the urgent
questions that formed the seeds of the genre as it emerged last
century.
I’m conflicted by doubt of course: is SF really dead or am I just a
miserable old git? Many other signs point to the latter being so.
For my own
peace of mind I need to know. I need to understand what has changed
and why: is the genre dead or have I simply lost my capacity for
wonder? To test the vital signs of science fiction today, I need a
solid idea of what those vital signs are. I need to make sure I’ll
know them when I see them before I declare them absent from the
contemporary scene. For that reason, I’ve been looking for a way to
re-familiarise myself with classic SF.
I came across this set of three volumes in a
second hand bookshop in New Zealand, a snap at forty dollars for all
three. Each volume covers a decade, starting with the foundation of
Amazing Stories in
1926, with the third ending in 1955. (There’s a fourth volume,
covering 56 to 65, which would have been handy to have, but it looks
like that one didn’t a proper distribution and is hard to come by.)
