Description
Book SynopsisThis third volume in Mike Ashley’s four-volume study of the science-fiction magazines focuses on the turbulent years of the 1970s, when the United States emerged from the Vietnam War into an economic crisis. It saw the end of the Apollo moon programme and the start of the ecology movement. This proved to be one of the most complicated periods for the science-fiction magazines. Not only were they struggling to survive within the economic climate, they also had to cope with the death of the father of modern science fiction, John W. Campbell, Jr., while facing new and potentially threatening opposition. The market for science fiction diversified as never before, with the growth in new anthologies, the emergence of semi-professional magazines, the explosion of science fiction in college, the start of role-playing gaming magazines, underground and adult comics and, with the success of Star Wars, media magazines. This volume explores how the traditional science-fiction magazines coped with this, from the death of Campbell to the start of the major popular science magazine Omni and the first dreams of the Internet.
Trade ReviewThis will undoubtedly form the definitive history of SF from the pulp to the paperback. * The Guardian *
It is an amazing book, both for the enormous amount of information it summarizes, and for the quiet authority with which it does it. * Science Fiction Studies *
Table of Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- List of Tables
- Chronology
- Chapter One: Goodbye to all That: The Old Gateways
- One Step...Forwards?
- The Gatherings at the Gate
- The King is Dead...
- ...Long live the King
- The Forgotten Editor
- How the Mighty Fall
- Sex and Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll
- The Anchor Mag
- New Blood, New Clothes
- Chapter Two: All This and Elwood Too: The Rival Gateways
- The Threat from Within
- The British Dimension
- Experiments in Orbit
- The Depths of Infinity
- From Nova to Quark
- Universe and New Dimensions
- The New Generations
- Select Bibliography
- Index
- The Female Perspective
- The Elwood Factor
- Heroes and Villains
- The Threat from Without
- Chapter Three: Small but Dangerous: The Alternate Gateways
- Little Wonders
- The Fantastic Dimension
- Graphic Developments
- Rival Roles
- Spawn of the Weird
- Under Scrutiny
- Chapter Four: Back to the Future: The Final Gateways
- The Rise and Fall of Galileo
- A Fate Worse than Death
- The Cosmos Experience
- Asimov Triumphs
- Asimov Expansion
- Amazing Days
- Star Mags
- Super Science
- SF Destiny
- Chapter Five: Looking Back: The Gateways in Perspective
- Select Bibliography
- Index
