LOA launches online companion for new collection of 1950s science fiction novels

What made science fiction in the 1950s so special? Barry N. Malzberg explains how various forces conspired to make those years the “golden decade” for science fiction novels:

[A]t the end of the nineteen-forties, science fiction accounted for perhaps fifty books, hardcover and paperback, published commercially in a year. The field supported perhaps seven magazines. . . . Five years later, there were forty magazines fighting for space on the various newsstands, hardcover and paperback novels and collections were coming out at the rate of two to three hundred a year, and one book editor, Donald A. Wollheim at Ace, was publishing more science fiction in a month than had appeared in all of 1943

Malzberg’s essay is included in the online companion to the much-anticipated two-volume boxed set, American Science Fiction: Nine Classic Novels of the 1950s, which will be published in October.

Curated by Gary K. Wolfe and hosted by The Library of America, the companion features appreciations that have been written exclusively for the site by contemporary science-fiction masters:

• Michael Dirda on The Space Merchants (1953) by Frederik Pohl & C. M. Kornbluth
• Kit Reed on More Than Human (1953) by Theodore Sturgeon
• Nicola Griffith on The Long Tomorrow (1955) by Leigh Brackett
• Peter Straub on The Shrinking Man (1955) by Richard Matheson
• William Gibson on The Stars My Destination (1956) by Alfred Bester
• Connie Willis on Double Star (1956) by Robert A. Heinlein
• James Morrow on A Case of Conscience (1958) by James Blish
• Tim Powers on Who? (1958) by Algis Budrys
• Neil Gaiman on The Big Time (1958) by Fritz Leiber

Among the many bonus materials on the site are:

• several of Fritz Leiber’s “Change War” short stories (which are thematically related to his novel The Big Time)
• a gallery of book and magazine covers from the period
• a detailed timeline that chronicles significant events in each year of the decade
• audio files of radio drama adaptations (such as the five Heinlein stories adapted for the NBC radio series Dimension X)
• video of television adaptations (such as the premiere episode of Tales of Tomorrow, which showcased Theodore Sturgeon’s story “Verdict from Space”

American Science Fiction: Nine Classic Novels of the 1950s will arrive from the printer soon, and copies can be purchased directly from the LOA website for delivery in August. The books will be available from stores on September 27.

Also of interest:

• Become a follower of The Library of America's new science fiction page on Facebook
• From Reader’s Almanac: What Robert Bloch owes to H. P. Lovecraft; What Philip K. Dick learned about women from Ursula K. Le Guin; and William Deresiewicz on The Sirens of Titan, when “Kurt Vonnegut has become Kurt Vonnegut”