Golden Age Science Fiction Authors.

[Ukulele_Ike]

Kuttner wrote the short story “Mimsey Were the Borogroves,” which is totally excellent and is the basis of the movie The Last Mimzy, which is being released on Friday.

I JUST finished Philip Wylie’s 1951 The Disappearance, which I thought was top-notch. And a co-worker loaned me some lovely vintage late-'50s paperback originals by John Wyndham, including The Kraken Wakes, Re-Birth, and Trouble with Lichen.

No wonder I opened this thread.

[Voyager]

[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase]
If you’re going to start the Golden Age with Campbell’s influence then you have to date the end of the Golden Age in 1949-50, when F&SF and Galaxy magazines started. Both deliberately sought a wider range of styles, authors, and subjects than Campbell did for Astounding.

[/quote]

And both offered a breath of fresh air, which I’m sure helped in their success. As I said, the late '40s Astoundings were no where near as good as the early '40s ones.

Both Bester’s “The Demolished Man” and Smith’s “The Game of Rat and Dragon” were originally published in Galaxy. Campbell wouldn’t have touched them.

Bester had a number of stories in early '40s Astoundings, but nothing of the quality of “The Demolished Man.” Smith flourished in the late '50s and early '60s, and I’d say he’s later than any reasonable definition of Golden Age.

The boundaries are utterly arbitrary, as I said. You can make a case for the 50s as part of the Golden Age, as a transition period out of the Golden Age, or as the beginning of a Silver Age when a new group of writers either came into the field or, like Bester and Frederik Pohl, started flourishing after being of second-tier importance.

But if you want to live with Campbell, you have to die with Campbell. He and Astounding were never the same after real competition entered the field with equally strong personalities like Anthony Boucher and Harold Gold and their magazines.

It depends if you want to define Golden Age as good stuff or as Campbellian good stuff. Boucher/McComas F&SFs are my favorite run of magazines. I think I like them better than the Gold Galaxys just because I’m a bit too young to get the full impact of the satire. I agree that either was far better than the Astoundings of the period.

And we shouldn’t forget the smaller markets which would publish stuff too far out for the big three - like Farmer’s early work, for instance.

[Myron_Van_Horowitzski]

[QUOTE=WordMan]
Just came in to mention **Cordwainer Smith **- his short story collection Best Of is a favorite of mine. The Ballad of Lost C’mell, Scanners Must Die! and so many other amazing stories, with inventive twists.
[/QUOTE]

Nitpick: it’s “Scanners Live in Vain.”

[WordMan]

[QUOTE=Myron Van Horowitzski]
Nitpick: it’s “Scanners Live in Vain.”
[/QUOTE]

I knew it was wrong, but couldn’t recall the right title and was too lazy to look it up - you da best Myron!

[Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor]

[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase]

It all depends on what you want to do with your definition. Sounded to me like Bosda wanted a list of good authors to read, so I tried to steer him to a listing that would include as many big names as possible. If he comes back with and says he had a different idea in mind, then I’d be happy to modify things accordingly.
[/QUOTE]

Mapcase, you are so on target!

Many thanks!