Yeah, I saw a lot of them were authors. The fact that working authors in the sixties thought that SF’s target demographic was twelve-year-olds may be why I don’t think of that time period as a golden age.
Totally–but it’s inadvertantly about quality, also. It’s suggesting that older people wouldn’t see much good in SF, because SF isn’t really deep or interesting or complex enough for mature readers. That speaks to the quality of what was being written then.
I think “The Golden Age is twelve” doesn’t mean that SF readers are stuck at age 12 - it means that when you’re 12, and old enough to read a full-length novel, you have access to all the great SF written up to that point, so naturally that year seems more magical than today, when the only books that are new to you are the recent ones. As an example - when I was 13 or so, I read Foundation, Rendezvous with Rama, the Moon is a Harsh Mistress, the Man Who Counts, The Lord of the Rings, and many other things - but I was mining several decades worth of books, and not encountering the hundreds of lesser works that had been forgotten by the time I was 13. Today, there are no doubt more good books being published than there were in 1970 - but I don’t have the advantage that the bad ones have been forgotten and the good ones identified.
That’s a really interesting read of the quote, and makes it less dreadful. I’m not sure that’s what it originally meant, but I’ll go with it!
I always considered it to be more about nostalgia. Virtually everything was better when you were 12, as long you don’t revisit it and encounter the suck fairy. It is a time of sensawunda.
That’s true too.
That’s my interpretation as well. The Left Hand of Darkness was published in 1969, pretty much New Wave, I’d say. How old were you when you (presumably, given your nym) read it?
Without in the least dismissing or belittling earlier writers and work, I think it is fair to say that science fiction changed around 1960, and that the change tended toward an increase in the number of writers and readers, the breadth of subject, the depth of treatment, the sophistication of language and technique, and the political and literary consciousness of the writing. The sixties in science fiction were an exciting period for both established and new writers and readers. All the doors seemed to be opening.[29]
– Ursula K. Le Guin
that and starwars brought the fiction part of it back into vogue between 67-77 there was too much science that people were bored … and TV had way too many cheap tv shows … I mean was space 1999 really different that star trek except they were on the moon and not a starship?
Of course star wars spawned its own cheap imitators its self
Case in point, Adam Savage (who, himself, has created a ton of amazing SciFi prop content)
Is reviewing two space suits from two different shows… Adam Savage Examines The Battlestar Galactica Viper Flight Suit! - YouTube
They look amazing, and unique, and for the most part, plausible…and not at all like a football helmet with a bad paintjob and an orange windbreaker with some tape and vacuum cleaner hose…and they’re a fraction of Dozens, if not hundreds of similar space suit props.
There’s a cottage industry making stormtrooper uniforms, and a club of cosplayers was tapped to be extras in Star Wars to add realism to the series… The Cool Way The Mandalorian Added Fans To A Major Season 1 Moment | Cinemablend
Bad sci-fi is actually good sci-fi. Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster is one of my all time favorites. The original Blade Runner is amazing even if it is good sci-fi, as is the original Rollerball. Have to mention The Day the Earth Stood Still too.
Maybe my favorite is Ex Machina. That is one scary film. While watching it, we forget that we’re empathizing w/ an artificial human. The illusion is so convincing it’s incredible. Especially when she slips that dress on.
So when what happens in the end happens, suddenly we realize, oh yes, this is not a human, so why did we expect it to act as a human. And then we realize how fooled we were the entire movie! It really is brilliant, and very, very frightening.
I must be the only nerd in the world who doesn’t like science fiction.