Science Fiction in the 1930s

At the Kirk Center John Tuttle remarks on the influence that C. S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy, beginning with Out of the Silent Planet had on the maturing of science fiction:

The 1930s was a decade sprinkled with literature of all sorts that related fantastic tales concerning the goings-on of Mars and its inhabitants. Throughout the thirties, there were several installments of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s book series John Carter of Mars. Around this time, other historic literary figures took up an interest in the Red Planet and set fictional plots in revolution around this alien world. Among these was C. S. Lewis.

So it happened that 1938 witnessed a bit of a boom in the sensationalization of Martian fiction. For one, it was that year that Orson Welles delivered his radio dramatization of The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells. A sizeable portion of its American audience mistook the news-like broadcast to be a literal invasion of some kind. In addition to this, C. S. Lewis had his first science fiction novel published that year. It was called Out of the Silent Planet, and the alien world on which the protagonist finds himself is, in fact, Mars.

To my eye the author overstates Lewis’s influence considerably. Edgar Rice Burroughs’s science fantasies hadn’t been considered mainstream science fiction for decades by that time. By and large his works were published in adventure magazines not science fiction magazines. Ironically, I can’t help but wonder if Mr. Tuttle has actually read Burroughs’s Mars series, since Lewis’s Malacandra is remarkably similar to Burroughs’s Barsoom rather than a contrast with it.

Eschatology had been treated in science fiction since the early 19th century. That certainly wasn’t an innovation of Lewis’s. Neither was the theme of “Man as invader”—that had been a commonplace theme in mainstream science fiction at least since the 1920s.

I don’t think you can present a complete account of the transformation that took place in science fiction in the 1930s without mentioning two names: Stanley G. Weinbaum and John W. Campbell.

By the 1930s “space opera” dominated science fiction. Space opera is, essentially, westerns transplanted into outer space and other worlds. The usual comparison between space opera and horse opera is usually something like this:

Horse Opera Space Opera
“Hoofs pounding, Arizona Slim rode into the dusty streets of Alkali Flats, leapt from his horse Diablo and drew his six gun to face the desperados.” “Jets blasting, Trooper Bill Johnson emerged from his spacecraft on the desolate world of Altair IV, drew his blaster, and squared off against the space pirates.”

The movies are still dominated by space operas: both Star Trek and Star Wars are space operas.

Stanely G. Weinbaum, who died at the tender age of 32, began to change that in the mid-1930s. His short story, “A Martion Odyssey” and his few other published works were, essentially, fusions of mainstream fiction with science fiction, very different in tone and style from the dominant space operas. Although John W. Campbell’s greatest influence was as the editor of Astounding Science Fiction later renamed Analog which continues to be published to this day, as a writer his stories emphasize character, mood, and scientific plausibility. His story, “Who Goes There?” was dramatized into the movie The Thing From Another World and remains a favorite. Their work really reflects the changes in science fiction that were emerging during the 1930s.

11 comments… add one
  • Grey Shambler Link

    “Burroughs’s Mars series in adventure magazines” I don’t know about that but as I remember, Our small town library had three hardcovers in that series which I only read because I’d exhausted the Tarzan series.

    Like most pure science fiction, they were way too busy for me. I mean keeping up with a wide range of characters and invented names for creatures and places. Might be my memory is not up to snuff. The Harry Potter stuff loses me too.

  • The Mars stories were primarily serialized in All-Story, Argosy, and Blue Book. Those were adventure magazines. It wasn’t until 15 years after the first Mars story, Under the Moons of Mars, that the first Mars story was published in a science fiction magazine—the granddaddy of them all, Amazing. They were basically seen as H. Rider Haggard adventure romances set on another planet.

    That doesn’t mean I’m not fond of them. I own all of them in first edition hardbacks. But I have a realistic assessment of their position in literature.

    I don’t recall whether I’ve written about it but much of Under the Moons of Mars was cribbed from other sources. Barsoom was cribbed from A Gulliver of Mars and the character of John Carter was cribbed from an odd little novel called Phra the Phoenician. Burroughs’s gift was not originality but the ability to put together elements from non-original sources into great yarns.

    If you’re a fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs, I strongly suggest you look up the two novels of his Apache series, Apache Devil and The War Chief. IMO they’re his best work. I also like The Mucker. Burroughs, like many writers, was best in writing about things that he knew.

  • TarsTarkas Link

    And now John Campbell (along with HP Lovecraft) have been cancelled by the wokeness crowd. Their names have been removed from science fiction fan awards they long graced because of their contemporary views on race and sex. The lives of writers now have to be 100% pure as well as their hyper-woke published works. We are seeing an increasing migration by fans and writers away from the SF establishment as it is taken over by the virtue-signallers.

    Your mentioning Burroughs’ Western novels reminded me that John Carter found his infamous cave from which he transmigrated to Barsoom in the Wild West while trying to escape from Indians. Writing about what he knew, eh?

    Many of the famous SF novels and novel series of the ‘classic’ period began as serials. Doc Smith’s Lensman series, Asimov’s Foundation series are two I can think of right off the bat. It’s an old tradition (think Dickens). Many newspapers, especially weeklies, carried serialized novels well into the 1940’s. And one of course can’t forget the famous cinema serials like Perils of Pauline, Buck Rogers, and many more that enthralled children of the time between main features.

    I agree that SF movies haven’t advanced beyond the space opera era. I’m not certain that they can and still retain a paying audience. The more contemplative authors don’t write stories that would grab viewers (PBS’ Lathe of Heaven being a rare exception). Others are simply too weird for the mainstream or even sidestreams. The shredding of mainstream movie production into tiny discrete genres that can appeal to narrow slices of fans is helping to get some good stories out, but at the same time limits their ability to appeal to wider audiences.

  • Writing about what he knew, eh?

    Burroughs served as an enlisted soldier in the cavalry in Arizona in the 1890s, participating in the campaigns against the Apache.

    When I have had occasion to introduce Burroughs to young readers I have gone to substantial lengths to put his views into context. He was racist and anti-Semitic. Those were commonplace views in the first quarter of the 20th century. Not good views but common ones. Burroughs’s Tarzan is not the inarticulate wild man portrayed by Johnny Weismuller. He spoke many languages fluently and moved freely in the highest of European society although he preferred the wild.

    But I think it’s more complicated than that. He portrayed some African blacks as debased but others as noble; some Asians as degenerate and others as elegant and sophisticated. His treatment of the Apaches is largely although not entirely sympathetic.

    John Clayton AKA Tarzan can be seen as a treatise in nature vs. nurture. When you combine the highest “type” of human, according to Burroughs English nobility, with the survival training he was given by the Great Apes who adopted him, the result is a sort of superman.

    The lives of writers now have to be 100% pure as well as their hyper-woke published works.

    Few will pass muster. Maybe none. Orwellian. The future is certain; it is the past that is changing

  • steve Link

    They renamed it the Astounding award for best new writer, naming it after Campbell without mentioning his name. Meh. Only moderately stupid. For my part, I usually forget that Campbell did more than edit.

    “I agree that SF movies haven’t advanced beyond the space opera era.”

    There is a significant body of sci-fi outside of the space opera mold, stuff like 2001, Gravity, Solaris, Starman and probably the most under-rated, most accurately predictive sci fi movie of all time, Idiocracy.

    Steve

  • PD Shaw Link

    Lewis presumably read at least one of the American pulps as he referenced Donald Wandrei’s “Collusus” in one of his own novels. “Collusus” appeared in Astounding in 1934.

    I agree with Dave that I don’t think Lewis was that influential in science fiction; the immediate future belonged to Asimov and Heinlein, and Asimov at least points to stories in the 1937-1938 issues of Astounding as a peak that changed everything for him, including “Who Goes There.”

  • Grey Shambler Link

    “If you’re a fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs”
    Well, I was at ten years. Our library didn’t have his westerns and I was unaware of them. Along the lines of being a man of his times, you had to see the Darwinian influence in his categorization of races of men and apes, and within them to nobility.

    I’ve raised this before, but he wrote of gorillas as lower than the “Great Apes” who raised him, but I can’t imagine what species he thought he refer to as “great Apes”. Baboons? Chimpanzees?

  • Our library didn’t have his westerns and I was unaware of them.

    I believe they’re available online at Project Gutenberg Australia.

    I can’t imagine what species he thought he refer to as “great Apes”. Baboons? Chimpanzees

    The Great Apes were an imagined species.

  • the immediate future belonged to Asimov and Heinlein

    both of whom were Campbell proteges, along with a cadre of others including Van Vogt and, of all people, L. Ron Hubbard.

  • Grey Shambler Link

    You see L Ron Hubbard as fiction?
    🤔

  • Before he founded a religion he was a science fiction writer. In the 1930s and 40s he wrote some of Astoundings’ best stories. In the early 1950s he wrote a lengthy non-fiction series for Astounding that was later reworked into his book, Dianetics.

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