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Ad Astra, v. 1, issue 2, July 1939
Page 5
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space and time from which to draw the stuff of which it's made, it cannot help but develop further. The "good old days" have served their purpose and are gone ... for which the editor, the writer and the reader may be grateful. We are moving toward a greater conception of science fiction and its possibilities. Let us, therefore, adopt a slogan: "Let's look to the future!" ----- FUTURE TRENDS IN FANTASY by Jack Williamson A fantastic thing seems to be happening in the history of fantasy. In the decade and more since these pioneers, Weird Tales and Amazing Stories, first appeared, the fantasy and science fiction fan has usually been forced to content himself with a small handful of magazines. For the last several months, however, new titles have been blooming out incredibly. There are now upwards of a dozen publications regularly publishing fantasy and science fiction. This is a situation without precedent. It is only natural for the interested fan to wonder what it is all leading to. Is the fantasy-science fiction field destined to remain on a par with the western and detective groups, with a large number of successful magazines? Or is the current boom merely the prelude to a dismal collapse? Well --- the reader must be warned, at this point, that these comments are not to be taken very seriously. Writing in a little shack on the Llano Estacado, a thousand miles from the nearest editor, I have no idea of the returns on anybody's May issue. Probably, even by the time this appears, the march of events will be overtaking my mistakes. But the prophet being not without folly, even in his own country, here are some speculations on what is to come. Recently, I was beginning to fear the results of the current multiplication in magazines. Obviously, the average reader is going to buy and peruse only a certain number of publications every month. Quite plausibly, too, after he has read a certain number of stories of any one type, he might tire of them and look for something new. It seems, in fact, that there are cycles in popular literature. At one time the westerns will be in the lead, at another, the detective books. Once there was a fad for gangster stories. Then the G-man rose in popularity, and the gangster books quietly vanished. I was beginning to be afraid that too great a flood of new magazines would bring on disaster. I feared that the magazines would cut into one another's circulations, that they would be forced to reduce rates and number of pages, and that, in the end,
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space and time from which to draw the stuff of which it's made, it cannot help but develop further. The "good old days" have served their purpose and are gone ... for which the editor, the writer and the reader may be grateful. We are moving toward a greater conception of science fiction and its possibilities. Let us, therefore, adopt a slogan: "Let's look to the future!" ----- FUTURE TRENDS IN FANTASY by Jack Williamson A fantastic thing seems to be happening in the history of fantasy. In the decade and more since these pioneers, Weird Tales and Amazing Stories, first appeared, the fantasy and science fiction fan has usually been forced to content himself with a small handful of magazines. For the last several months, however, new titles have been blooming out incredibly. There are now upwards of a dozen publications regularly publishing fantasy and science fiction. This is a situation without precedent. It is only natural for the interested fan to wonder what it is all leading to. Is the fantasy-science fiction field destined to remain on a par with the western and detective groups, with a large number of successful magazines? Or is the current boom merely the prelude to a dismal collapse? Well --- the reader must be warned, at this point, that these comments are not to be taken very seriously. Writing in a little shack on the Llano Estacado, a thousand miles from the nearest editor, I have no idea of the returns on anybody's May issue. Probably, even by the time this appears, the march of events will be overtaking my mistakes. But the prophet being not without folly, even in his own country, here are some speculations on what is to come. Recently, I was beginning to fear the results of the current multiplication in magazines. Obviously, the average reader is going to buy and peruse only a certain number of publications every month. Quite plausibly, too, after he has read a certain number of stories of any one type, he might tire of them and look for something new. It seems, in fact, that there are cycles in popular literature. At one time the westerns will be in the lead, at another, the detective books. Once there was a fad for gangster stories. Then the G-man rose in popularity, and the gangster books quietly vanished. I was beginning to be afraid that too great a flood of new magazines would bring on disaster. I feared that the magazines would cut into one another's circulations, that they would be forced to reduce rates and number of pages, and that, in the end,
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