Golden Age of Science Fiction - From Gernsback To Campbell

From Gernsback To Campbell

One leading influence on the creation of the Golden age was John W. Campbell, who became legendary in the genre as an editor and publisher of many science fiction magazines, including Astounding Science Fiction, to the point where Isaac Asimov stated that "...in the 1940s, (Campbell) dominated the field to the point where to many seemed all of science fiction." Under Campbell's editorship, science fiction developed more realism and psychological depth to characterization than it exhibited in the Gernsbackian "super science" era. The focus shifted from the gizmo itself to the characters using the gizmo. Most fans agree that the Golden Age began around 1938-39; the July 1939 issue of Astounding Science Fiction containing the first published stories of both A. E. van Vogt and Isaac Asimov is frequently cited as the precise start of the Golden Age. Science fiction writer John C. Wright said of Van Vogt's story, "This one started it all." The August issue of the same magazine contained the first story by Robert A. Heinlein.

There are other views on when the Golden Age occurred. Robert Silverberg in a 2010 essay argues that the true Golden Age was the 1950s, saying that “Golden Age” of the 1940s was a kind of "false dawn." "Until the decade of the fifties," Silverberg writes, "there was essentially no market for science fiction books at all"; the audience supported only a few special interest small presses. The 1950s saw "a spectacular outpouring of stories and novels that quickly surpassed both in quantity and quality the considerable achievement of the Campbellian golden age."