Science Fiction Rebels: The Story of the Science-Fiction Magazines from 1981 to 1990

495 Pages·2016·6.198 MB·English

by  Mike Ashley

Science Fiction Science Fiction
Rebels
Rebels
Mike Ashley
THE STORY OF THE SCIENCE-FICTION
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MAGAZINES FROM 1981 TO 1990
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Mike Ashley’s acclaimed history of science-fi ction magazines comes O
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to the 1980s with Science Fiction Rebels: The Story of the Science-Fiction Yn
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Magazines from 1981 to 1990. This volume charts a signifi cant
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revolution throughout science fi ction, much of which was driven by Tc
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the alternative press, and by new editors at the leading magazines. Ee
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The period saw the emergence of the cyberpunk movement, and C
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the drive for what David Hartwell called ‘The Hard SF Renaissance’, N
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which was driven from within Britain. Ashley plots the rise of many Ei
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new authors in both strands: William Gibson, John Shirley, Bruce I
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Sterling, John Kessel, Pat Cadigan and Rudy Rucker in cyberpunk; Tt
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and Stephen Baxter, Alistair Reynolds, Peter Hamilton, Neal Asher N
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and Robert Reed in hard sf. He also shows how the alternative o
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magazines looked to support each other through alliances, which
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allowed them to share and develop ideas as science fi ction evolved.
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‘The information Mike Ashley has put together is really astonishing: F
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researchers of the fi eld, and anyone who’s interested in popular fi ction O
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of the period, are going to fi nd this book an immense help.’ 19b
Andy Sawyer, University of Liverpool 8
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Mike Ashley has specialized in the history of science fi ction and fantasy for 19l
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more than 30 years. He is the author and editor of over a hundred books that in 0s
total have sold over a million copies worldwide.
ISBN 978-1-78138-260-8
Mike
Ashley
www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk
Cover illustration by Dreyfus, from the front cover
9 781781 382608
of Back Brain Recluse #16 (Summer 1990).
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Liverpool Science Fiction Texts and Studies
Editor David Seed, University of Liverpool
Editorial Board
Mark Bould, University of the West of England
Veronica Hollinger, Trent University
Rob Latham, University of California
Roger Luckhurst, Birkbeck College, University of London
Patrick Parrinder, University of Reading
Andy Sawyer, University of Liverpool
Recent titles in the series
30. Mike Ashley Transformations: The Story of the Science-Fiction Magazine
from 1950–1970
31. Joanna Russ The Country You Have Never Seen: Essays and Reviews
32. Robert Philmus Visions and Revisions: (Re)constructing Science Fiction
33. Gene Wolfe (edited and introduced by Peter Wright) Shadows of the
New Sun: Wolfe on Writing/Writers on Wolfe
34. Mike Ashley Gateways to Forever: The Story of the Science-Fiction Magazine
from 1970–1980
35. Patricia Kerslake Science Fiction and Empire
36. Keith Williams H. G. Wells, Modernity and the Movies
37. Wendy Gay Pearson, Veronica Hollinger and Joan Gordon (eds.)
Queer Universes: Sexualities and Science Fiction
38. John Wyndham (eds. David Ketterer and Andy Sawyer) Plan for Chaos
39. Sherryl Vint Animal Alterity: Science Fiction and the Question of the Animal
40. Paul Williams Race, Ethnicity and Nuclear War: Representations of Nuclear
Weapons and Post-Apocalyptic Worlds
41. Sara Wasson and Emily Alder, Gothic Science Fiction 1980–2010
42. David Seed (ed.), Future Wars: The Anticipations and the Fears
43. Andrew M. Butler, Solar Flares: Science Fiction in the 1970s
44. Andrew Milner, Locating Science Fiction
45. Joshua Raulerson, Singularities
46. Stanislaw Lem: Selected Letters to Michael Kandel (edited, translated and
with an introduction by Peter Swirski)
47. Sonja Fritzsche, The Liverpool Companion to World Science Fiction Film
48. Jack Fennel, Irish Science Fiction
49. Peter Swirski and Waclaw M. Osadnik, Lemography: Stanislaw Lem in
the Eyes of the World
50. Gavin Parkinson (ed.), Surrealism, Science Fiction and Comics
51. Peter Swirski, Stanislaw Lem: Philosopher of the Future
52. J. P. Telotte and Gerald Duchovnay (eds), Science Fiction Double Feature
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Science Fiction Rebels
The Story of the Science-Fiction
Magazines from 1981 to 1990
The History of the
Science-Fiction Magazine
Volume IV
MIKE ASHLEY
LIVERPOOL UNIVERSITY PRESS
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First published 2016 by
Liverpool University Press
4 Cambridge Street
Liverpool
L69 7ZU
Copyright © 2016 Mike Ashley
The author’s rights have been asserted by him
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior
written permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication data
A British Library CI P record is available
ISBN 978-1-78138-260-8 cased
Typeset by BBR, Sheffield
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY
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Contents
List of Tables vii
Preface viii
Note on Terminology xiii
Acknowledgements xiv
Chronology xvi
Chapter 1: Before the Revolution: Bastion of Excellence 1
Chapter 2: The First Revolution: Cyberpunk Days
The McCarthy Years 18
The Impact of Omni 37
Cyberpunk Daze 46
The Analog Dimension 56
Dozois in Charge 71
Amazing Rebirth 78
Chapter 3: The First Interlude: The Dark Corners
Twilight Zone 92
Horror Struck 105
Chapter 4: The Second Revolution: The British Hard-SF Renaissance
Out of the Wilderness 115
Interzone 119
Beyond Interzone 134
Chapter 5: The Second Interlude: Other Worlds
Éire 148
Canada 151
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vi CONTENTS
Australia 158
Far Corners 164
Chapter 6: The Third Rebellion: The SF Underground
SF Renegades 167
Dangerous Pulphouse 183
Chapter 7: Postlude: Back to Basics
Stuck on the Launch Pad 189
Shared Worlds 195
Small-Press Endeavours 199
Magazine with a Mission 212
A Qualified Success 217
A Problem Shared … 222
Chapter 8: Epilogue 230

Appendix 1: Non-English-Language Science-Fiction Magazines 237
Appendix 2: Checklist of English-Language Science-Fiction Magazines 347
Appendix 3: Directory of Magazine Editors and Publishers 376
Appendix 4: Directory of Magazine Cover Artists 399
Appendix 5: Schedule of Magazine Circulation Figures 440

Select Bibliography 443
Addenda and Corrigenda 446
Index 450
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List of Tables
Tables
1. Magazines with most story nominations, awards or ‘Year’s Best’
selections, 1981–90. 35
2. Comparative circulation data for Amazing Stories and The Dragon,
1981/82–1989/90. 86
3. Comparison of magazine totals between 1971–80 and 1981–90. 232
4. Average survival rates for new magazines first appearing between
1981 and 1989. 233
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Preface
This is the fourth volume of my history of the science-fiction magazines.
It covers the years from 1981 to 1990, though the end date is flexible to
allow coverage of certain relevant magazines that appeared or concluded
soon after.
It was a decade that saw science fiction undergo radical changes and
movements, the best known of which was cyberpunk. The title of this
volume, Science Fiction Rebels, is deliberately ambiguous. ‘Rebels’ works
both as a noun and a verb. So it refers on the one hand to the authors and
editors who, through their work, sought to rehabilitate science fiction to
make it more relevant to the new age of technological revolution and, in
some countries, social and political freedoms. It also refers to the form of
science fiction itself which, in the hands of many, seemed to rebel against
its strictures and broaden its remit to allow for a greater variety of interpre-
tation of the impact of change upon human beliefs, potential and abilities.
It was not the first time that science fiction (or ‘sf’ as I shall frequently
call it hereinafter) had rebelled. By its very nature sf is subversive and
radical and can be the literature of rebellion in portraying how people and
cultures may need change and how they will react to it. But, like all forms of
creative endeavour, it has its lowest common denominator and sf can easily
fall into a formulaic rut. When that happens there will always be those
creative souls who rebel against conformity and ring new changes.
The previous three volumes have charted these earlier revolutions, almost
all of which have been instigated in or by the sf magazines. In volume 1,
The Time Machines, which covered the years 1926 to 1950, we saw that sf had
all too easily settled into a rut by the early 1930s. Forward-thinking editors
such as David Lasser (in Wonder Stories), F. Orlin Tremaine and, in particular,
John W. Campbell, Jr (both in Astounding Stories), introduced their own
criteria to jolt sf out of its formulaic complacency. It was also the period
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PREFACE ix
that saw the first amateur magazine produced with the deliberate intent of
revitalizing sf, Marvel Tales, under William L. Crawford.
John W. Campbell’s innovations not only developed a new generation
of writers capable of reinvigorating the field—Isaac Asimov, Robert A.
Heinlein, Theodore Sturgeon, A. E. van Vogt and many more—they also
created what many now regard as a science fiction ‘Golden Age’ where
magazine sf matured from its playful infancy into a modern genre.
This growth continued after the Second World War where the start of
the Nuclear Age showed that science was not necessarily a global panacea
but could cause global destruction. Writers and editors responded to this
with sf that reflected humanity’s fears of a nuclear or cosmic catastrophe,
alongside other disaster scenarios such as alien invasions (with the rise
of interest in UFOs) and totalitarian societies. It was the latter, together
with its counterpart, the capitalist consumer society, which Horace L. Gold
encouraged his writers to explore in the pages of Galaxy SF. At the same time,
Anthony Boucher and J. F. McComas sought to make sf more literary in The
Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (F&SF). Alongside Campbell’s Astounding
(which became Analog in 1960), these were the leading sf magazines of the
1950s and 1960s and their influence upon the field was covered in volume
2, Transformations.
That volume also explored the next generation of rebels, the ‘New Wave’
writers of the 1960s, encouraged by Michael Moorcock, the new editor of
the British sf magazine New Worlds, but already allowed great latitude by the
previous editor John Carnell. These included such writers as J. G. Ballard,
Brian W. Aldiss, John Brunner and Moorcock himself, together with a new
generation of American luminaries—Thomas M. Disch, Samuel R. Delany,
Roger Zelazny and Norman Spinrad—who found the freedom offered by
New Worlds far more liberating than the American magazines.
Although the New Wave movement was seen by many as self-indulgent
and self-destructive, it encouraged a similar revolution in America, which
happened not so much in the magazines but in original anthologies,
notably Dangerous Visions edited by Harlan Ellison and the Orbit series edited
by Damon Knight. Some of these series, such as QUARK/, edited by Samuel
R. Delany and Marilyn Hacker, and Infinity, from Robert Hoskins, modelled
themselves as pocketbook magazines, and these encouraged the existing
magazines to revitalize and look to new horizons. Much of this change was
charted in the third volume, Gateways to Forever, which also showed how
the pocketbook revolution of the 1950s and 1960s was making significant
inroads into the sales of magazines, which were dropping. Major magazines
such as Galaxy stuttered and died while new titles, such as Galileo, looked for
new ways to attract readers, build markets and develop writers.
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x PREFACE
The 1970s was also the period of the feminist revolution in sf. There had
always been women sf writers but few received the level of attention of their
male counterparts, and feminist issues were rarely covered in sf. Authors
such as Ursula K. Le Guin, James Tiptree, Jr and Joanna Russ raised the
profile of women writers and brought attention to a wider range of gender
issues. This happened primarily in the sf magazines.
It was also a period that saw the sf magazine field split and become
more diverse. While the old-style traditional sf magazines—such as Analog
and F&SF—continued, they now had new rivals. There had, of course,
always been rivals, usually generated from the sf magazines themselves.
The original pulp sf magazines had helped inspire the hero pulps many of
which, such as Doc Savage and The Spider, were built upon an sf premise.
These in turn led to the birth of the superhero comics, notably Superman.
While these tended to appeal to a younger readership, they nevertheless
attracted readers that might otherwise have been drawn to the traditional
sf magazines.
The rivals continued to emerge. The pocketbook explosion of the 1950s
and 1960s saw sf novels, collections and anthologies repackaging material,
much of which had appeared first in the sf magazines, and presenting
them to a new readership who liked the convenience of the pocketbook
size over the cumbersome pulp magazine (most of which had ceased by
the mid-1950s or converted to the digest format), and saw no advantage in
seeking out the magazines.
By the 1970s there was further fragmentation. The improvement
in special effects in cinema and television and the popularity of the Star
Trek and Star Wars series saw the emergence of media magazines which
usually ran no fiction but appealed to the sf movie devotee. Before long
these magazines, such as Starlog and Fangoria, were calling themselves sf
magazines and were taking over both the display slots and the sales of the
conventional sf magazine. At the same time the rapid growth of interest in
role-playing games saw sales of gaming magazines such as The Space Gamer
and The Dragon soar. Finally, although many of the sf comics were faltering,
their adult equivalent, the graphic-story magazine, spearheaded by Heavy
Metal, brought a new dimension to the visual interpretation of sf.
Moreover, the 1970s saw a resurgence of interest in horror fiction, thanks
to the success of Stephen King, Dean R. Koontz, James Herbert and others.
Much of what was classified as ‘horror’ was based on science-fiction
ideas and plots, but with a new visceral treatment. Magazines began to
appear that continued to run a fair quota of science fiction but which were
marketed as horror.
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