http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Science_Fiction_%28Bookshelf%29
Had not visited Project Gutenberg lately, and noticed that it has filled out some with mid-20th-century SF which is supposedly not currently copyrighted in the USA.
Last visit, quite awhile ago, I only recollect some H.G. Wells and Jules Verne, which are still there and well worth a free read if you never read them and you can tolerate convoluted prose.
Project Gutenberg has quite a few early-SF 'classics', or at least their mid-20th-century stories seem representative of what it was like back then.
Of particular interest may be the ten complete issues of "Astounding Stories of Super-Science" from 1930. This was the first year, seven years before John Campbell Jr became editor. The name was later changed to Analog and persists today. One of the few SF mags that still persist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_Science_Fiction_and_Fact
The early SF stories are an acquired taste. Most of the pulp SF before about 1939 could never be sold today. The prose is rough, characterization nil, stereotypical plots, with quaint science in most stories (not all). But in 1930 perhaps these plots were not so worn-out, and the concepts may have been 'cutting edge mind-blowing' at the time.
Another interesting factor is the embedded racism, sexism and gingoism in many stories, to have been published by educated people living in 'the center of the world, New York City'. That was just the culture of the time. For the folk of the time to notice 'normal' racism would have been like a fish noticing 'normal' water. Scholarly liberals were full of it too. So maybe that would be a problem enjoying the stories if one is rigidly politically correct. Racism is not a main theme in the stories. It is just an assumed background in many of the stories. The authors and editors likely considered themselves open-minded. At that time, perhaps it was true.
I find the stories charming in spite of such flaws. Some folks inspired by this literature went on to design the tech world we live in today. They were not dumb.
Today we may suffer from information overload, but back then it may have been information deprivation. Books and magazines were relatively expensive. Even circa 1960, as a kid I would visit the main libraries in Atlanta, St. Louis, New Orleans, to marvel that buildings so big contained so few books (relatively speaking). Many of the books were so old and worn they would try to fall apart in the hand, and had that funky old rotten paper smell. It was pretty easy to find references to ancient greece in the moldy stacks, but difficult to find references to atomic power. Fifteen years after the bomb!
In the 1930's it must have been 'worse'. In such an evironment, pulp stories of space travel with colorful lurid covers may have been mind-expanding. Not because the readers were dumb. Just because it was a relatively rare commodity compared to today. Even circa 1960 when I would visit Gramps' farm, they had the modern stuff like AM radio, small B&W TV with three fuzzy channels, a small shelf of well-worn books. Old EE Smith's Lensman Series was so much more interesting than cows and corn. Though in hindsight that may have been a priority inversion. Live and learn.
Had not visited Project Gutenberg lately, and noticed that it has filled out some with mid-20th-century SF which is supposedly not currently copyrighted in the USA.
Last visit, quite awhile ago, I only recollect some H.G. Wells and Jules Verne, which are still there and well worth a free read if you never read them and you can tolerate convoluted prose.
Project Gutenberg has quite a few early-SF 'classics', or at least their mid-20th-century stories seem representative of what it was like back then.
Of particular interest may be the ten complete issues of "Astounding Stories of Super-Science" from 1930. This was the first year, seven years before John Campbell Jr became editor. The name was later changed to Analog and persists today. One of the few SF mags that still persist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_Science_Fiction_and_Fact
The early SF stories are an acquired taste. Most of the pulp SF before about 1939 could never be sold today. The prose is rough, characterization nil, stereotypical plots, with quaint science in most stories (not all). But in 1930 perhaps these plots were not so worn-out, and the concepts may have been 'cutting edge mind-blowing' at the time.
Another interesting factor is the embedded racism, sexism and gingoism in many stories, to have been published by educated people living in 'the center of the world, New York City'. That was just the culture of the time. For the folk of the time to notice 'normal' racism would have been like a fish noticing 'normal' water. Scholarly liberals were full of it too. So maybe that would be a problem enjoying the stories if one is rigidly politically correct. Racism is not a main theme in the stories. It is just an assumed background in many of the stories. The authors and editors likely considered themselves open-minded. At that time, perhaps it was true.
I find the stories charming in spite of such flaws. Some folks inspired by this literature went on to design the tech world we live in today. They were not dumb.
Today we may suffer from information overload, but back then it may have been information deprivation. Books and magazines were relatively expensive. Even circa 1960, as a kid I would visit the main libraries in Atlanta, St. Louis, New Orleans, to marvel that buildings so big contained so few books (relatively speaking). Many of the books were so old and worn they would try to fall apart in the hand, and had that funky old rotten paper smell. It was pretty easy to find references to ancient greece in the moldy stacks, but difficult to find references to atomic power. Fifteen years after the bomb!
In the 1930's it must have been 'worse'. In such an evironment, pulp stories of space travel with colorful lurid covers may have been mind-expanding. Not because the readers were dumb. Just because it was a relatively rare commodity compared to today. Even circa 1960 when I would visit Gramps' farm, they had the modern stuff like AM radio, small B&W TV with three fuzzy channels, a small shelf of well-worn books. Old EE Smith's Lensman Series was so much more interesting than cows and corn. Though in hindsight that may have been a priority inversion. Live and learn.
