ThePulp.Net: PulpWiki: FantasyGenre

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This is an old revision of FantasyGenre made by TpnEditor on 2006-05-07 14:37:19.

Fantasy/science fiction pulps

Here would be a 1-3 sentence summary of the pulp genre, or category.

Fantasy

Here would be an unbiased, detailed history of the fantasy pulp genre. With pertinent Wiki links to examples of magazines, contributors, etc., that involved this genre. Can be as long as necessary.

Science fiction stories have been around for centuries, though the term ìscience fictionî came about in the 1920s. MoskowitzSam Sam Moskowitz describes science fiction as ìa branch of fantasy identifiable by the fact that it eases the ëwilling suspension of disbeliefí on the part of its readers by utilizing an atmosphere of scientific credibility for its imaginative speculations in physical science, space, time, social science and philosophy.î

Science Wonder Stories, June 1929

While AmazingStories Amazing Stories was the first pulp featuring only science fiction stories, the genre had been around for centuries before. Early yarns that fall into the science fiction category were known as romantic stories (that was before the ìromanticî came to signify only love stories). Tales such as Homerís The Odyssey were clearly science fiction stories of their day.

Scientific romance stories flourished in the 1800s, such as Jules Verneís Journey to the Center of the Earth and H.G. Wellsí The Time Machine. Scientific romance was represented in the DimeNovels dime novels with stories such as Edward F. Ellisí The Steam Man of the Prairies or the Frank Reade Jr. series.

Early PulpMagazine pulps frequently contained a scientific romance story, such as those by BurroughsEdgarRice Edgar Rice Burroughs and MerrittA A. Merritt. Their popularly was increasing such that in 1926, GernsbackHugo Hugo Gernsback founded AmazingStories Amazing Stories. This magazine published what Gernsback called ìscientifiction,î but that term never caught on.

After a bankruptcy lawsuit, GernsbackHugo Hugo Gernsback lost control of his magazines, including AmazingStories Amazing Stories. In 1930, he founded ScienceWonderStories Science Wonder Stories in which he coined the term ìscience fiction.î

Science fiction stories continued in the pulps. Sometimes the magazines were dedicated to science fiction; other times, the science fiction story was just one of a variety of categories appearing in the magazine. CaptainFuture Captain Future was one all-science fiction magazine that also fell into the HeroPulpGenre hero pulp genre.