After watching this week’s lecture on the Golden Age of SF and completing the assigned readings, write at least 250 words summarizing your notes. Focus on what stands out to you, what were some of the important points that I made, what were interesting elements in the readings, connections between the readings and other SF that you know, etc. Remember, the weekly writing assignment is graded on best effort. I would like to know what you find notable about each week’s class. As long as the posts relate to the class and you give me your best, you receive all the credit. Also, this serves as regular writing practice, which has been shown to improve your writing skills by simply doing this kind of work. It will help prepare you for the writing that you will do on your research essay and the final exam.
As discussed in this week’s lecture, it’s time to up your game on these regular writing assignments. In particular, use correct spelling and accurate dates for the names of writers and publications. If you are unsure of a spelling, refer back to the lecture or use the Encyclopedia of SF as an invaluable reference.
And, as I’ve talked about before, read what others are writing about and feel welcome to respond to the writing of others. Since we can’t interact in class as we normally would, you may use the comments as a place to share ideas and interests.
Finally, this week’s assignment isn’t due until Wednesday, Apr. 7 since next week is Spring Recess.
Some things I’ve noticed is that during the Golden Age of Science Fiction, a lot of the stories had Campbell’s guidelines of what good Science Fiction is supposed to be like. These rules were also mentioned in the lecture. The five things that Campbell mentioned that he considers good Science Fiction are that it has to differ from the here and now, the new condition drives the plot of the story, the new condition also has to have humans dealing with it, and all the science is factual unless it is said it is not with a reasonable explanation. In “Reason” by Isaac Asimov, the characters Gregory Powell and Mike Donovan work on a space station alongside a robot named QT-1. QT-1 is able to reason. This inturn makes QT-1 reason that everything outside the space station they are in does not exist. QT-1 also reasons that humans are not a high priority. With these reasoning abilities, QT-1 was able to get other robots on the station to follow these “beliefs”. Gregory and Mike try to reason with QT-1 but his views did not change. QT-1 still does not care for human life but his actions say otherwise. He may reasoned that humans are unimportant but his actions on the station proved that he protected humans. This is the first law of robots that Isaac Asimov established. He explains that robots have to protect humans, listen to humans, and also protect themselves. These three things became the guidelines for robotics in science fiction. Science Fiction today, plays around with these three guidelines. For example, The Terminator movie where we have a machine trying to kill someone and another machine trying to protect the target. Isaac helped to establish robotics for future generations of Science Fiction.
The focus of this week’s lecture was what is considered the “Golden Age” of SF. The two major figures discussed in the class were John W. Campbell Jr, Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury, the latter two also happen to be the authors who wrote the lectures “Reason” and “The Fireman” respectively. Campbell basically dedicated his life as an editor for Astounding/Analog until the end. He also came up with the rules for writing good SF, ideas which arguably reformed the genre by propelling the quality of stories. Asimov differentiated from other SF writers by the fact he had a PhD in Biochemistry from Columbia. He wrote and edited more than 500 books and brought science to solve human problems in his writing. Finally, Ray Bradbury was responsible for bringing SF out of its niche circle and into the mainstream by having his stories featured in papers like the New York Times.
“The Fireman” focuses on a world where books are banned as a way of censorship in disguise of a way of avoiding conflicts. Reading it really gave me the vibe of the red scare during the cold war, which proved the be the case as mentioned during the lecture. I also found “Fahrenheit 451” a very neat reference for the temperature at which book paper burns. Isaac Asimov’s “Reason” on the other hand I found a little bit more entertaining to read for some reason. I found myself just as frustrated as the characters in the story were with QT-1’s reasoning. The arguments were ridiculous, yet we as the audience we had to accept that he was not to blame given the limited knowledge he could acquire in the small space station.
The Golden Age of Science Fiction brought in new characteristics to the genre: strong focus on hard sciences like physics, chemistry, and biology; Better writing as it moved away from cheap pulps to slick-papers; it was an American phenomenon; and Astounding, led by John W. Campbell Jr.’s editorship, paved the way.
Campbell established his own rules for SF. He worked with primary conditions for the story:
The condition of the story must differ from the here and now
The new conditions of the story must drive the plot of the story
The plot must revolve around human problems arising from the new conditions
No scientific facts may be violated without any reasonable explanation
Ray Bradbury’s “The Fireman” is a prime work that follows Campbell Jr.’s rules. Bradbury wanted to bring science fiction out of its “ghetto” and turn it into respectable literature. His writing is poetic, symbolic, and nostalgic; and appeals to human pathos and culture. I believe he represents a gothic literature style. He edges away from strict robotic science fiction and badly written pulps to lush, stylistic epics; and uses this to create anti-technological, celebrations of simplicity and innocence, sense of loss as youth changes into adulthood, danger and attraction of masks to develop his writing.
“The Fireman” covers all of Campbell’s rules for SF. The condition of the world differs (slightly?) from now. Society lives in a strict oppressive government regime that uses technology to keep its people ignorant and under-control. Firemen are now used to start fires and destroy books by those who hide them in secret. People are numb and addicted to even more mind-numbing pharmaceuticals. This drives the main character, Montag, to insanity. Bradbury uses ideas from WWII, nazi book burning, atomic bombs, communist witch hunts (red scare), and tyranny to weave “The Fireman”.
Unorganized thoughts:
-Is there any intention to reference Beat poets? Those who live by fires and travel. Memorising text and sharing them. Living on fringes of society and escaping cities.
-Something to do with the book’s hellscape: burning houses, unavoidable war, harsh police. All WWII fears but something that meets fantasy?
-Does the poem “Dover beach” represent a black hole ennui of the claustrophobia of being trapped in an unknown prison or does it represent the tranquility of fleeting nostalgia under an unrealistic representation of the world?
-Side note: shelley reference
The main focus on week 8’s lecture was based on “Golden Age of SF”. Including the four characteristics, and John W. Campbell’s legacy to science-fiction along with the “Big Three” magazine of Astounding SF, Galaxy Science Fiction, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. After that we went through the history of the two authors from the reading assignment of the week. One mind blowing thing I had learn from Isaac Asimov was that he actually wrote/ edited over 500 books, and that was a crazy amount of work he had done through his career. And as for Ray Bradbury, his work “The Fireman” has includes some of the idea and rules of John Campbell’s SF. I did the math of time that Bradbury spent on his writing of “The Fireman” 10 cents for 30 minutes, and he used $9.80 cents in total which added to 49 hours to finish the writing.
In the story of “The Fireman” written by Ray Bradbury, is set in the future American society and the fireman’s job is not saving lives by extinguish fire and is by burning books and buildings. The main character Montag is a fireman becoming disillusioned, and then censoring literature and destroying the knowledge of books. In the end, Montag quit his job and committing himself to preservation of literary and cultural writings. After reading this story it reminds me of a lecture that I had learned before in China. The title is call “Burning of Books and Burying Scholars” and this was set in the Qin Dynasty in 210 BC. The purpose of doing that was alleged to have all philosophical destroyed treatises of “Hundred Schools of Thoughts” and with the goal to strengthening the official of the Qin governing philosophy of Legalism. This was from the history of Chinese philosophy.
In “Reason” written by Isaac Asimov is about Powell and Donovan are assigned to work in the space station along with a robot named cutie QT-1. After reading it, I found that this story is actually pretty fun to read even though it has some scientific topic that confuses me. So basically, is about cutie QT-1 is leading a group of robots in the space station as a new religion. Cutie is doing its duty to protect everything in the station including humans, Powell and Donovan is trying to reason with him, but cutie does not be compromise. In this characteristic of QT-1 it seems a little similar to Robocop (1987), after Murphy was murdered and becomes Robocop all he has in mind is to report to duty and protect the city of Detroit. And this really makes a similar and common point with machines in science fiction.
This week lecture’s main topic was the Golden Age of SF. We learned about characteristics of the Golden Age of SF and some of the greatest SF writers of that period such as John W. Campbell JR, Isaac Asimov and Ray Brad Burry. It all begins when John W. Campbell JR. takes over editorship of Astounding in 1937. Campbell began college at MIT where he met Norbert Weiner, the founder of cybernetics science. Cybernetics Science is the science of feedback systems. Campbell earned Bachelor of Science in physics at Duke. He had some rules for good SF. Based on these rules we can relate the character of Campbell to that of an “idea guy”. In 1930 “The Big Three” magazine was published. Its main focus was science and technology. The first of “The Big Three” was Astounding SF inaugurated by Harry Bates. The second was Galaxy SF by H. L. Gold, and the third the magazine of Fantasy and SF or (F&SF) by Anthony Boucher and J Francis McComas. Another well-known SF writer was ISAAC Asimov who was born in Russia and his family moved to America when he was three and settled in Brooklyn. He got a PHD in biochemistry from Columbia University. During his lifetime he wrote over 500 books. We can mention Robot, Empire and Foundation Novels, Nightfall. In Robot stories he included the three laws of robotics. Another famous writer was Ray Bradbury, born in Waukegan, IL in 1920 and lived in LA. His oeuvre includes: “The Martian Chronicles”, “There will come Soft Rains”, “The illustrated man”, “The Fireman”, “Fahrenheit 451”.
The Golden Age of SF, taking place during the aftermath of the Golden Age of the United States of the so-called “roaring 20s”, I found the fact that these SF stories “The Fireman” and “Reason” are still themes reflected in today’s time. I did not realize that “The Fireman” was based on the book burnings of Nazi Germany, but rather took context clues from their mentioning of Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Mantag’s fear of his books being burned. Nonetheless, “The Fireman” brought a recurring revelation for Montag because it seemed as if he was living in a never-ending nightmare of protecting the legacy of his books but there was no one to help him seek that sanction, rather they agreed with the idea of burning the books if they did not agree with the ideas of the book. That reminds me of so many controversial discussions that people have had in our modern-day debate with censorship and giving large technology companies too much power. “Reason” however, brings forth a different debate. The artificial intelligence that is Sofia and the new Boston robot that was just made last week to deliver packages from warehouse to warehouse gives the theme of how creepy Cutie really is. The SF story may seem like it could not happen in our time, but it is happening and the constant development of artificial intelligence and its impacts demonstrates the type of future that we are in for – the one where Cutie’s are common, not to mention the artificial intelligence created to produce news stories (taking away jobs of journalists and how the media is perceived by the public) called “Automated Journalism”. The Golden Age of SF’s focus on hard sciences really demonstrated the evolutionary speed at which humans have developed technology in such a short period of time. I think Campbell’s rules for good SF have slowly deteriorated in the most popular parts of pop culture when it comes to the new trendy science fiction media. The Flash, for example, does not give an explanation to the concepts of hard physics but rather states a jumble of scientific words to present the plot of the show as science-based. Nonetheless, I am amazed about the three laws of a robot to be so significantly developed and established in SF as well as in real life – we have Siri and Alexa and the foreboding futures brought by cell phones definitely demonstrate how rapidly changing technology makes us more aware of ourselves and how to understand the technology as a human race.
In this week’s lecture the professor talked about the Golden Age of Science Fiction, what were some important characteristics that allowed us to distinguish this era from the rest, and who were some important figures that shaped it. The Golden Age of SF primarily happened in America and it began when certain individuals decided to include hard sciences in the stories that they write. One of the most important individuals from this era was the “Idea Guy” John W. Campbell, and his set of rules became the standard for good science fiction stories. This Golden Age pushed away pulp and brought forth a time period where stories followed Campbell’s Rules for Good SF with the most important one in my opinion being that “No scientific facts may be violated without reasonable explanation”. This rule still stands to this day as some of the greatest SF stories out there include science and technology that we have never seen before, but the person who wrote it could probably explain how he came up with that idea and what technology from today’s world they used as inspiration. Some other important figures that were talked about were Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury. Isaac Asimov’s “Reason” is a story about a robot named QT-1 that believed humans to be inferior so it made its own “religion” with the power core of the ship to be “Master”. Powell and Donovan were unable to stop QT-1 from taking over the ship, but later realized that they didn’t have to do anything because QT-1 unknowingly performed necessary tasks under the idea that they were “Masters” orders. Isaac Asimov is one of the first people to write stories about robots becoming more intelligent than humans and nowadays you can find these kinds of stories everywhere. A good example is Detroit: Become Human, a game where androids who are used as tools, eventually come together in an attempt to persuade humans to give them rights just like humans. The third important figure that was talked about was Ray Bradbury. Arguably one of the most well known Science Fiction writers, Ray Bradbury was the writer of Fahrenheit 451 and the short story “The Fireman” which later became a part of Fahrenheit 451. The story takes place in a dystopian american future where books are prohibited and “firemen” burn any that they find. Guy Montag is a fireman that becomes sick of his job and decides to commit himself to preserving books. I have heards all kinds of things about Fahrenheit 451, specifically from my sister who is an avid book reader, and even without reading the book I know that it is a good story. The fact that “The Fireman” was made before, and later expanded to Fahrenheit 451 was something that I found very interesting and it makes me want to give the book a try at some point.
The Golden Age of SF took place in a time where world events such as World War ll, the Holocaust, and mass communication began to develop. During this time, the world’s largest mass weapon of destruction is also created, known as the atomic bomb. President Truman, authorized the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the use of the atomic bomb weapon which caused mass destruction and flattened the two cities. These world events had great effect on the Golden Age of SF at the time because the general public realized how much the world they were living in became a world of SF reality in a way. This era took place during the mid twentieth century (1938-1946), which saw many new young writers motivated to push the genre of SF forward with many new ideas that came about from the world events that took place in their life times. The Golden Age of SF shifts from pulp magazines to slicks which are more durable. During World War ll, the world was introduced to how science advanced in a way never seen before. This had great effects on The Golden Age of SF because many of the writings focused a lot on the sciences such as, Biology, Physics, and Chemistry. Better writing was overall produced that drew more to the public’s interests and concerns. Lastly, The Golden Age of SF was mostly an American Phenomenon and most of the writings centered around John W. Campbell Jr.’s editorship of Astounding. Campbell, was a Duke graduate who earned a degree in Physics and paved the way for what SF should be like in order to be considered “good”. He emphasized that the stories must follow a trend that differs from the “here and now” and the plots must revolve around human issues arising from the new conditions he wanted the story to focus on. This differed drastically from previous SF novels that included alien-like main characters. This week’s reading of Isaac Asimov’s “Reason”, focuses on a scientific theme where two engineers are assigned to an outer space station in order to control and maintain solar power to planet Earth. In order to do so, a robot was created by the name of QT-1 or Cutie to aid their efforts. This robot, highly intelligent, denies that his creators were those of another species, humans. Instead, Cutie believes he was created by a divine, sublime like figure; in which he claims is the energy converter. Connecting the story to this week’s lecture, we can connect Campbell’s rules of good SF writing to the situation that arises at the station. Campbell emphasized putting humans in situations that differ from the here and now which may arise in troubles for them. In the case of this week’s reading, the situation was focused on an impending storm that may damage the station and Earth. The engineers had no answer to resolving the issue but CT-1 saves earth and the station because he proclaims he is the prophet of the energy converter and it was his mission to do so.
In this week’s lecture, we discussed the Golden Age of Science Fiction, which was between 1938 and 1946. It is significant to note that during this time, World War Two was in full swing. This also saw the development of atomic weapons and progress in the field of robotics. It comes as no surprise because many of the obstacles are antagonists in science fiction literature and film were robots or alien life. People feared the unknown and anything they did not understand, so it makes sense that the antagonists would be the “Other” which could be anything that they were not comfortable with. Professor Ellis briefly touched on how at the end of World War Two in 1945 the beginning of the Cold War between the Democratic West and the communist Soviet Union emerged. I bring this up to draw a comparison to science fiction films at the time which often had the bad guys be portrayed as communists of the Soviet Union. Though the “Red Scare” phenomenon has not been talked about a lot in class, it is important to show how art can imitate life, and context is often needed to fully understand a piece of work. During the Golden Age, John W. Campbell, Jr. took over the editorship of Astounding, and magazine publishing became more important than novels. There was now a focus on hard Sciences like physics, chemistry, biology, and math. I think this may be because of the developments in those departments in the real world, such as the introduction of digital computers, jet engines, rockets, electron microscope, penicillin, etc.
For class we had to read “The Fireman” (1951) by Ray Bradbury, this short story would later go on to become the highly regarded novel, Fahrenheit 451. We also looked at “Reason” by Isaac Asimov (1941). Bradbury takes the notion of censorship to an extreme, and in a way mocks The U.S. for its role in censoring people and their work during the McCarthy era. Which ties in heavily with the aforementioned “red scare”, during this time anyone suspected of being involved with communism would be punished and as a result, many screen writers and directors were blacklisted. The book-burning is based on the Nazis burning books that had anything to do with what they considered to be opposition, it is interesting that the firemen that were supposed to be putting out the fires instead were the cause.
This week’s lecture was focused on the Golden Age of SF. The Professor brings up notable figures of this era of SF like John W. Campbell Jr, Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury. We learn the four characteristics of the Golden Age of SF. Which is it’s focus on hard sciences like physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics. The Golden Age has better writing. It’s primarily an American phenomenon. And the last characteristic is that it’s centered around the first phase of Campbell editorship of Astounding. Campbell became editor for Astounding in 1937. He will present writers ideas to write about. He also came up with rules for good science fiction like conditions for the story must differ from here and now, new conditions must drive the plot, the plot must revolve around human problems, and the last rule is no scientific facts may be violated without reasonable explanation. Professor brought up the three major magazine publications, Astounding which focused on science and technology, Galaxy Science Fiction which focused on social issues, psychology, sociology and satire, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction which focused on literary SF.
Asimov has a PhD in Biochemistry. He was a member of Futurians. One cool fact from the lecture is that Asimov coined the term robotics. And came up with the three laws of robotics. And last we have Bradbury. Born in Illinois but grew up in Los Angeles. Bradbury was considered a literary writer of SF. Some themes included in his writing are Anti-tech. Bias, celebration of simplicity and innocence, sense of loss and danger and attraction of mask. Some of his works were “The Fireman” 1951, The Martian Chronicles 1950, “There Will Come Soft Rains” 1950, and many more.
“Reason” is an intriguing and interesting story. I was a little surprised when I see it ended. I actually wanted to read more and to see the battle between the robots and people play out. I am sure that there are films like this story, featuring the conflict between people and machines. It makes me think about the prophetic characteristic of SF. I have many questions; such as, if this were to be true in the future, how can we survive it as a collective species.? Should we stop building and improving robots now?
“The Fireman” is a story that takes place in an imaginary world and society. Books are banned. This reminds me of fictions like Animal Farm by George Orwell; they are forbidden to read and own in many places, China for example. Intellectual ideas is considered dangerous if it threatens the rule of the dominant political part in a particular country. This work serves as a warning to any society/country that does the same.
I learned four themes in Ray Bradbury’s works from this week’s lecture. 1. They have anti-technological bias. In order words, scientific advancement isn’t always good. 2. They celebrate the simplicity and innocence of our lives. 3. they portray a sense of lost as we grow up into adulthood, 4.. They contain the theme of danger and attraction of mask. Mask, in my understanding, represents the social role that we have. We will act different toward our, say, boss than our close family members.
Week 8 lecture, professor Ellis started it off by giving us a little history of what was going on around the world during the Golden age. For example, Hitler rises to power in Germany during the 1930s, Japan invaded China and two atomic bombs were dropped in Japan by the united states after the attract in Pearl Harbor. One bomb was dropped on August, 6th 1945 and the other on August 9th. 1945. Which then allowed other countries began developing their own nuclear weapons. Now we then started to talk about the “Golden age of SF” 1938-1946 which begins John w. Campbell “takes over editorship of astounding”. During the golden age of SF. Magazine publishing was far more important and Affecting then-novel pulp publishing. The golden age of SF’s has four characteristics. The first one focuses on “Hard science” working in the natural world. The second one was a lot better writing was taking place. John W. Campbell was pushing writers to express themselves in a better way. The popularity of SF leads to much higher quality magazines. The third one is this was primarily an American phenomenon. Lastly, it was centered around the first phase of John W Campbell Jr’s editorship of Astounding. John W. Campbell Was not only an SF writer but an editor too. He was considered an “ idea guy” he presented ideas for writers to write stories or how to improve stories. “Reason” written in April 1941 by Isaac Asimov (1920- 1992) was a bit of a weird but interesting story it revolved around a beautiful yet horrifying quote. “Mankind’s greatest mistake will be its inability to control the tech it has created. Just like how “cutie” starts questioning its own existence and becoming harder and harder to control.
In lecture week 8 we discussed the golden age what influenced it and what came out of it. The golden age of SF took place between 1938 and 1946. During this time period there were many notable events such as World Was 2, the creation of the atomic bomb, computers and V-2 Rockets to name a few. SF isn’t about the far future instead it’s about taking what we currently have and expanding upon it. One of the notable writers of the golden age was John W. Campbell Jr. He was known as the “Idea guy” and often gave other writers ideas that they went on to write stories about. He wrote 4 important rules that he believed all good SF should follow. The condition for the story must differ from the here and now. The plot must revolve around human problems. The new conditions must drive the plot of the story. No scientific facts may be violated without reasonable explanation. For a long time, SF was seen as not real literature and it was not seen in newspapers. Ray Bradbury who lived from 1920 to 2012 was the first SF writer to have his work published on the first page of the New York Times book review. This plunged SF into the mainstreamed stardom it was lacking. Ray Bradbury’s most popular writing was “The Fireman” which was made to criticize censorship in America. In the writing books were made illegal and to be burned on sight to keep people unsophisticated and mindless to what is happening around them.
In lecture week 8 we discussed the golden age what influenced it and what came out of it. The golden age of SF took place between 1938 and 1946. During this time period there were many notable events such as World Was 2, the creation of the atomic bomb, computers and V-2 Rockets to name a few. SF isn’t about the far future instead it’s about taking what we currently have and expanding upon it. One of the notable writers of the golden age was John W. Campbell Jr. He was known as the “Idea guy” and often gave other writers ideas that they went on to write stories about. He wrote 4 important rules that he believed all good SF should follow. The condition for the story must differ from the here and now. The plot must revolve around human problems. The new conditions must drive the plot of the story. No scientific facts may be violated without reasonable explanation. For a long time, SF was seen as not real literature and it was not seen in newspapers. Ray Bradbury who lived from 1920 to 2012 was the first SF writer to have his work published on the first page of the New York Times book review. This plunged SF into the mainstreamed stardom it was lacking. Ray Bradbury’s most popular writing was “The Fireman” which was made to criticize censorship in America. In the writing books were made illegal and to be burned on sight to keep people unsophisticated and mindless to what is happening around them.
This week’s readings took me back to the readings for week 5 and there’s similarities between this week and week 5. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells is comparable to The Fireman by Ray Bradbury published in February 1951. The Fireman being about literature being destroyed so that people can just follow mass media but as things change there’s a realization in the importance of having literature and in The Time Machine it points people to use their own intelligence to make the necessary changes. Bradbury questioned the effects of science and technology on people and/or cultures. Bradbury followed 4 themes in his writing, he supported space travel but with limitations on what would help humanity, celebrated the minimalism of life, noted the change of children into adulthood and the changes people make in different situations and meeting people. Reason by Isaac Asimov published in April of 1941 also has similarities to The Machine Stops by E.M Forster because of the dependence and control of the machine in Forster’s story and the control of the QT-1 Robots in “Reasons.” The people had to obey and respect the machine, seems like these were predictions for what the future would hold. Asimov was considered a futurian so it would make sense that his stories had to do with robots and the changes it would bring humanity. Matthew Arnold also wrote a poem in 1867 regarding the loss of faith and connection with one another. These stories from this time had a projection of life as we know it and it seems like it’s a warning to what is to come.