VI.

Contemporary Science Fiction

A.

The 1960s

In the United Kingdom a movement known as the new wave entered science fiction primarily through the British magazine New Worlds, when Michael Moorcock became editor in 1964. This movement was committed to introducing the literary styles and attitudes of modernist literature into science fiction. Moorcock broke with science-fiction tradition, declaring all earlier science fiction to be obsolete. British science-fiction writers Brian Aldiss and James Graham Ballard were the new models. Their writings often focused on the near future, and they preferred to call what they wrote “speculative fiction.” In the United States a great deal of new wave science fiction was published in anthologies of original work—in particular Knight’s Orbit series (1966-1980) and Harlan Ellison's anthologies, beginning with Dangerous Visions (1967).

Many top science-fiction authors first became prominent in the 1960s, including Walter M. Miller (A Canticle for Liebowitz, 1960), Philip K. Dick (The Man in the High Castle, 1962), Ursula K. Le Guin (The Left Hand of Darkness, 1969), Samuel R. Delany (Dhalgren, 1975), and Roger Zelazny (Lord of Light, 1967). Perhaps the most famous of all was Frank Herbert, whose Dune chronicles include Dune (1965), Children of Dune (1976), and God Emperor of Dune (1981).

B.

The 1970s

Integrating older science-fiction traditions with newer styles and attitudes became popular in the 1970s. It was a decade in which feminism was introduced as a theme of science fiction, and a time in which science fiction became a significant presence—and a force—in other media. It was also the first decade to produce science-fiction bestsellers, leading to profound changes in the position of the genre in the publishing industry.

The 1970s saw new female science-fiction writers in far greater numbers than ever before. Some of these authors were outspoken feminists—most notably writer and critic Joanna Russ, whose novel The Female Man (1975) challenged the tradition of male chauvinism in science fiction. The presence of women in a literary area historically dominated by men began to change the culture of the genre, particularly by raising the literary standard of characterization of both male and female characters in the works.

C.

The 1980s

In the 1980s science fiction grew in prestige and completed a decades-long transition from a short-fiction magazine field to a novel and book-publishing field. The magazines that survived lost much of their prestige and nearly all of their economic dominance. The money was now in publishing books.

The science-fiction subgenre that drew the most attention during this decade was cyberpunk, which depicts frightening near-future worlds that are dominated by computer technology and large, multinational corporations. The first cyberpunk novel to appear was Neuromancer (1984) by William Gibson, who also wrote the cyberpunk novels Count Zero (1986), Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988), and Virtual Light (1993). Bruce Sterling was the spokesman of the movement, writing Schismatrix (1985) and Islands in the Net (1988) and editing the influential Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology (1986). A useful overview of this period is Michael Swanwick’s essay, “A User’s Guide to the Postmoderns,” which gives added context to the cutting-edge science fiction of the 1980s.

D.

The 1990s and Beyond

The 1990s saw revivals of interest in the subgenres of hard science fiction (stories based on solving a problem using knowledge of science or technology) and space opera (stories set in outer space), as well as the flowering of alternate history fiction (stories set in a world resulting from a key event or decision that differs from what actually happened in history). Philip K. Dick, who died in 1982, and the eminent Ray Bradbury became the first authors from the science-fiction field to be widely recognized simply as important writers. Many of their older and out-of-print works were re-released in new editions and simply labeled “fiction.”

By the 1990s the technology to create special effects for television and movies had become dazzling. These media, especially the Star Wars and Star Trek franchises (see Science Fiction In Other Media), along with video games, radio plays, and other multimedia products, all competed heavily with science-fiction literature for the major share of popular attention. The cutting-edge, nonprint media in many cases drew ideas and imagery from the older science-fiction stories and illustrations of the 1930s and 1940s. The literature remained vigorous and innovative. Some of the era’s newer science-fiction writers include Vernor Vinge, Dan Simmons, Harry Turtledove, Lois McMaster Bujold, Orson Scott Card, and Connie Willis. As the 21st century began, science fiction seemed to become more vital—and more real—every day.