Science Fiction Fandom - Science Fiction Societies

Science Fiction Societies

See also category: Science fiction organizations

In the United States, many science fiction societies were launched as chapters of the Science Fiction League and, when it faded into history, several of the original League chapters remained viable and were subsequently incorporated as independent organizations. Most notable among the former League chapters which were spun off was the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society, which served as a model for subsequent SF societies formed independent of the League history.

Science fiction societies, more commonly referred to as "clubs" except on the most formal of occasions, form a year-round base of activities for science fiction fans. They are often associated with an SF convention or group of conventions, but maintain a separate existence as cultural institutions within specific geographic regions. Several have purchased property and maintain ongoing collections of SF literature available for research, as in the case of the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society, the New England Science Fiction Association, and the Baltimore Science Fiction Society. Other SF Societies maintain a more informal existence, meeting at general public facilities or the homes of individual members, such as the Bay Area Science Fiction Association.

Read more about this topic:  Science Fiction Fandom

Famous quotes containing the words science, fiction and/or societies:

    “... my one aim and concentrated purpose shall be and is to show that women can learn, can reason, can compete with men in the grand fields of literature and science ... that a woman can be a woman and a true one without having all her time engrossed by dress and society.”
    —M. Carey Thomas (1857–1935)

    “Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today—but the core of science fiction, its essence ... has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all.”
    —Isaac Asimov (1920–1992)

    “The metaphor of the king as the shepherd of his people goes back to ancient Egypt. Perhaps the use of this particular convention is due to the fact that, being stupid, affectionate, gregarious, and easily stampeded, the societies formed by sheep are most like human ones.”
    —Northrop Frye (b. 1912)