One of the great things as a Staff Member at SFFWorld is that we get asked to do all sorts of things. Many of them, we have to reluctantly decline, as time is short and there’s just not enough hours in the day, etc. However, I’ve recently been invited to write articles for Galactic Journey (http://galacticjourney.org/ ) and this time I’ve taken the opportunity to be involved. I thought you might find it interesting to know why.
The premise of the Serling Award-winning website is that we live in 1962 – day by day, like everyone else, just time-shifted exactly 55 years in the past. We write about the cultural, science and science-fictional events as they happen. We have no knowledge of the future (although there are occasional sidelong winks). The purpose is writing in context, albeit with an admittedly progressive viewpoint.
What makes it most interesting for me is that 1962 is a time of global change, with the Russians already in space – Sputnik 1 was five years ago – and the US beginning their race to catch up – Freedom 7, piloted by Alan Shepard, was a year ago. Telstar was launched in this year as the world’s first telecommunications satellite, heralding the beginning of the ‘global village’.
Politically, John F Kennedy is in power in the USA and by the end of the year will make that famous speech committing Americans to go to the Moon by the end of the decade. There are major global events about to occur which have ramifications today in the 21st century, with the Cold War at its chilliest, and Kennedy and USSR Premier Nikita Khrushchev constantly at loggerheads, leading in 1962 to the closest there has ever been a nuclear war to date.
On the ‘Home Front’, in 1962 Britain was still involved in potential space exploration. Jodrell Bank was assisting the US Space Program and with the launch of the Ariel 1 satellite in June 1962, Britain was seen as an essential part of the world space program, although obviously not as much as the Russians and the Americans. There was a certain degree of optimism (some might say imperial arrogance!) that us Brits, in some way, would be involved in the race for space.
https://www.britishpathe.com/video/u-k-1-rocket-preparations-aka-uk1-rocket/query/satellites
This is reflected also in terms of the state of science fiction in 1962. The 1960’s generally are also a changing time, and hopefully this will be shown in what I read. The interest in space travel begun in the 1950’s led to a plethora of science fiction novels and magazines, but by 1962 this initial frantic interest has been reduced to a more select clientele. After there being over twenty mainly available magazines in the late 1950’s, by 1962 there are really about six: Astounding (now Analog), The Magazine of Fantasy & SF, Galaxy, Fantastic, Amazing Stories and If (now being edited by Frederik Pohl). The emphasis is now on quality rather than quantity, with works like Alfred Bester’s The Demolished Man and Tiger! Tiger! being considered as benchmark s-f, rather than the planet-smashing adventure tales of the 1930’s and 40’s. In terms of Awards, The Hugo and Nebula Awards mainly go to Analog and The Magazine of Fantasy & SF, although Galaxy and Amazing have their moments. The Hugo Award winner for Best Novel in 1962 was A Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein.
In pop culture, the growth of rock and roll was in the ascendant. Elvis was globally popular not only in music but also had over ten movies completed. Movies in 1962 included It Happened at the World’s Fair, “Girls! Girls! Girls!” and G.I. Blues. The Beach Boys were to release their debut album in October, singing surfing songs about cars and girls. ‘Flower Power’ and the Summer of Love was still five years away, although the idea of ‘the Space Age’ was still in many people’s cultural consciousness in 1962 – the track Telstar, by The Tornados, was a Number 1 hit in both the UK and the US in that year, and The Spotnicks, from Sweden, used space in many of their records to international success.
Apart from Elvis’, other movies of 1962 were Lawrence of Arabia, the first James Bond movie, Dr. No, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Longest Day, The Manchurian Candidate and Lolita. For those needing their genre fix, there was an overabundance of movies with exclamation marks – Panic in Year Zero! and The Brain That Wouldn’t Die!
In Britain most people still listened to the radio for entertainment, though there was a rapidly growing market for the relatively new mass-produced invention called television. There was no national specifically designated pop radio channel yet – Radio 1 was not to happen until 1967. The Beatles were yet to make it globally big (next year would be their first single, Love Me Do), but were making a name for themselves playing gigs in Hamburg. Britain’s ‘answer to Elvis’, Cliff Richard, was doing well, as were his instrumental musical partners, The Shadows. For contrast, however, the best-selling record of the year was the distinctly non-rock-and-roll number, I Remember You, sung by Frank Ifield.
In terms of science fiction, there was a growing acceptance of its values to the mainstream. Journey into Space and its sequel radio serials had been very popular in the 1950’s and seem to have fed an interest in the genre. The most successful s-f television programme in Britain to date was Quatermass, written by Nigel Kneale, which had been a phenomenal success in the 1950’s. Its most recent incarnation, Quatermass and the Pit, had the Professor portrayed by Andre Morell in 1958-59. This had paved the way for other series like A For Andromeda, based on the book by scientist Fred Hoyle in 1961, which were more adult than earlier series.
In terms of television, although colour TV programmes were beginning to be widely available in the USA, most programmes were in black-and-white. Colour television was a good five years away in the UK. Programmes like the Twilight Zone were building a reputation, on its third season on Friday nights, and highly regarded in the US, though not shown on one of the UK’s two television channels, BBC 1 and ITV. The Avengers (nothing to do with Marvel at this stage) was in its second season on ITV but was yet to have Mrs. Peel arrive to help Steed – another Bond-girl-to be, Honor Blackman, was the leather-clad heroine at this time, as Cathy Gale. In June 1962 ITV began to transmit its famous (though now mostly lost) s-f anthology series, Out of This World. However the legendary BBC serial Doctor Who was a year away, still in its secret planning stages.
With this background, my purpose at Galactic Journey is to act as European correspondent, giving a Sixties view from across the Atlantic.
The importance and relevance of science fiction in Britain compared with the American experience is different at this time. Understandably, there is less of a global distribution than today, with US magazines rare to get and often only available after being used as ballast in ocean ships. To reduce transportation and import costs, magazines like Analog are reprinted here in Britain, albeit in a reduced format (to save paper) and often with material in a different order – even from different issues – to that of the American edition.
The best-selling monthly British s-f (that’s what they called it) magazine was New Worlds Science Fiction. Begun intermittently in the 1930’s, it was reborn in 1954 as a monthly publication from Nova Publications, edited by John (aka Ted) Carnell. It was a magazine with limited funds but high ambitions – to create a magazine that showed the best British talent, with some occasional additions from those American writers. Names like Brian W. Aldiss, John Brunner, John Wyndham, James White, Philip E. High, and J. G. Ballard have their early work published here. Along with its companion bimonthly magazine, Science Fantasy, these were the two leading British magazines of the time.
By 1962, more than most of its American counterparts, New Worlds was trying to move away from the Buck Rogers-style s-f of the past and more into softer sciences and introspection – less ‘outer space’ and more ‘inner space’, if you like. There was more stories dealing with adult themes such as sex and religion – two taboos that were yet to be properly broken in the US* – and a feeling, at least by some, that science fiction deserved to be seen more critically, as with J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, or the writings of John Updike, Vladimir Nabokov and William S. Burroughs. There was a feeling that s-f had to grow up, that it should broaden the mind and the intellect, challenge the reader and not just inspire. This will lead to the New Wave movement which reached the US in earnest in the late-sixties.
Hopefully my perusal of these issues, month by month, will reflect this transformation. 1962 seems like a good place to jump in at, with there being a growth in these new ideas and a determination, not always successful, to change. There will be bad stories, as well as good, and possibly even great. There will be good old-fashioned tales of heroism and danger in outer space but also more experimental and more perplexing work, as we see the birth of a new s-f sub-genre. It should be great fun – that’s why I accepted the challenge!
My first review is of the September 1962 issue. (LINK)
Changes are about to happen. I hope you can join us.
*although it was starting to emerge: Philip Jose Farmer’s The Lovers was first published in 1952 and Theodore Sturgeon’s novel Venus Plus X had first appeared in 1960.
Welcome aboard, Mark!
One has to wonder if Britain will make any substantive contributions to music or science fiction in the 1960s. Thus far, the prospect looks dim… but you never know!