It is generally accepted that the golden age commenced when John W. Campbell Jr. took editorial command of the magazine Astounding Science Fiction in 1938. Campbell had previously authored tales of super science for pulp publications. Upon his appointment as editor, he encouraged writers to produce stories that explored ideas instead of prioritizing action. Thus he developed a group of talented writers by feeding them interesting ideas for stories. One example of this is The Three Laws of Robotics used by Isaac Asimov in his series of robotics stories. Campbell did this by pointing out to Asimov that an expert engineer would build safety into his creations.
Years passed, and the readers became older and more sophisticated. As a result, more of a human element was demanded in the stories. So naturally, competition arose to fulfill the readers’ desires. As a result, a new magazine, Galaxy Science Fiction, made its appearance in October 1950. Being a sophisticated reader at twelve years of age, I immediately became a fan of Galaxy. Years later, after finishing graduate school, I spent New Year's Eve at the home of my closest friend's father. By that time, he was in his late fifties. My friend was out of the country working as a postdoc. His father told me that he enjoyed reading the old magazines left with him by his son, especially Galaxy. My unspoken thought was, why is he wasting his time reading such childish material? Now over 50 years later, I found the answer. Simply put, I am currently rereading those old stories and enjoying them immensely.
Galaxy began its life with an amusing ad designed to explain its style. I repeat it here for your enjoyment:
“Jets blasting, Bat Durston came screeching down through the atmosphere of Bbllzznaj, a tiny planet seven billion light years from Sol. He cut out his super-hyper-drive for the landing...and at that point, a tall, lean spaceman stepped out of the tail assembly, proton gun-blaster in a space-tanned hand.
"Get back from those controls, Bat Durston," the tall stranger lipped thinly. "You don't know it, but this is your last space trip."
Hoofs drumming, Bat Durston came galloping down through the narrow pass at Eagle Gulch, a tiny gold colony 400 miles north of Tombstone. He spurred hard for a low overhang of rimrock...and at that point a tall, lean wrangler stepped out from behind a high boulder, six-shooter in a suntanned hand.
"Rear back and dismount, Bat Durston," the tall stranger lipped thinly. "You don't know it, but this is your last saddle-jaunt through these here parts."
Sound alike? They should —one is merely a western transplanted to some alien and impossible planet. If this is your idea of science fiction, you're welcome to it! YOU'LL NEVER FIND IT IN GALAXY!”
Happily, many of the old Galaxy issues can be found online. I'll explain how to obtain them at the end of this piece.
The first three issues contained installments of a novel written by Clifford Simak, one of the great science fiction authors. The Science Fiction Writers of America gave him their Grand Master Award, the third one after Robert Heinlein and Jack Williamson. Simak was born in 1904. Aside from his work in science fiction, he was the editor of a prominent newspaper in Minneapolis. Brought up in rural Wisconsin, he added the flavor of rural America into his Galaxy spanning stories.
Simak's novel was titled Time Quarry in the magazine. It was later published as a hardcover book with the title Time and Again. Unfortunately, some parts of the story are dated by our current technology, but it is still a great read. The writing very much combines the human element with the wonder of a future world. In the eightieth century, the premise is that the human race dominates the Galaxy and its nonhuman inhabitants. The latter also includes robots and synthetically produced humans or androids. The humans are vastly outnumbered and maintain their dominance by a hair's breadth. Into this mix arrives Asher Sutton, a human agent that had been on a mission to penetrate a solar system that had mysteriously been off-limits to earlier exploration. His return threatens the balance that has kept humans in control of the Galaxy and holds promise for the subjugated inhabitants. In the story, one can see many comparisons to America's problems with race relations in the present. Rereading it after 70 years, I could see how I missed quite a lot in my first reading. Concentrating on the action, I ignored the many levels contained in the story.
If you want to get a feeling, as Fred Pohl puts it, for "the way the future was," I suggest you get a hold of those first three issues of Galaxy. You can download copies at:
https://archive.org/details/galaxymagazine?sort=-date&&and%5B%5D=year%3A%221950%22
These copies were produced by automatic means and contain many minor errors. I did not have trouble with them, but it took some effort to get used to reading the material.
Another route is to subscribe to scribd.com where you can find this and much other reading material. It costs about $9.00/month. Here you can find an enormous amount of golden age science fiction as well as general books and audiobooks. The copies of Galaxy are republished proofread versions. The novel Time and Again and the complete works of Simak are also available on Scribd.
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