Gateways to Forever
The Story of the Science-Fiction Magazines, 1970-1980
Distributed for Liverpool University Press
528 pages
|
6 x 9
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© 2007
In the 1970s science fiction exploded into the popular consciousness, appearing everywhere along the cultural spectrum—from David Bowie’s alien stage persona to the massively successful global juggernaut that was Star Wars. With the American involvement in Vietnam reaching its bitter conclusion, the Apollo moon program ending, and awareness of humanity’s destructive impact on the environment increasing, our planet began to seem a smaller, lonelier, more fragile place—and the escapist appeal of science fiction grew.
Corresponding with these tumultuous events was a period of significant American economic decline, and, as Mike Ashley shows in Gateways to Forever, the once-enormously-popular science fiction magazines struggled to survive. The third volume of this award-winning series chronicles the publications’ most difficult period so far. The decade began with the death of John Campbell Jr., the man who launched the magazine Astonishing, and with it science fiction’s prominence as a genre. The widespread popularization of sci-fi imagery reflected a newly diversified market—new anthologies, fanzines, role-playing games, comics, and blockbuster films all fought for the attention and money of sci-fi fans. Ashley shows how the traditional magazines coped with these setbacks but also how they, as always, looked to the future, as the decade closed and the earliest precursors to the Internet emerged.
Mike Ashley’s groundbreaking history is a monument to science fiction’s evolution. As the genre continues to infiltrate mainstream literature, Gateways to Forever is essential reading for anyone interested in seeing how it all began.
Corresponding with these tumultuous events was a period of significant American economic decline, and, as Mike Ashley shows in Gateways to Forever, the once-enormously-popular science fiction magazines struggled to survive. The third volume of this award-winning series chronicles the publications’ most difficult period so far. The decade began with the death of John Campbell Jr., the man who launched the magazine Astonishing, and with it science fiction’s prominence as a genre. The widespread popularization of sci-fi imagery reflected a newly diversified market—new anthologies, fanzines, role-playing games, comics, and blockbuster films all fought for the attention and money of sci-fi fans. Ashley shows how the traditional magazines coped with these setbacks but also how they, as always, looked to the future, as the decade closed and the earliest precursors to the Internet emerged.
Mike Ashley’s groundbreaking history is a monument to science fiction’s evolution. As the genre continues to infiltrate mainstream literature, Gateways to Forever is essential reading for anyone interested in seeing how it all began.
Times Higher Education Supplement
"The repercussions of Campbell's death provide merely one context for Ashley's study, which addresses all the major influences on the genre. As such, it is both extraordinary in scope and meticulous in detail, given the range of magazines and stories described. Despite Ashley's own occasionally subjective assertions and the sometimes partisan opinions of cited writers and critics, Gateways is relentlessly informative. . . . Ashley should be congratulated for his achievement. He has rendered material that might have read like a list into a rich and vibrant history. Indeed, his engaging style reawakens the very essence of science fiction: the sense of wonder."
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgements
List of Tables
Chronology
Chapter One: Goodbye to all That: The Old Gateways
Chapter Two: All This and Elwood Too: The Rival Gateways
Chapter Three: Small but Dangerous: The Alternate Gateways
Chapter Four: Back to the Future: The Final Gateways
Chapter Five: Looking Back: The Gateways in Perspective
Appendix 1: Non-English Language Science Fiction Magazines
Appendix 2: Summary of Science-Fiction Magazines
Appendix 3: Directory of Magazine Editors and Publishers
Appendix 4: Director of Magazine Cover Artists
Appendix 5: Schedule of Magazine Circulation Figures
Select Bibliography
Index
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