book cover of Gateways to Forever
 

Gateways to Forever

(2007)
The Story of the Science Fiction Magazines from 1971 to 2000
A non fiction book by

 
 
In the 1970s science fiction exploded into the popular consciousness, appearing everywhere along the cultural spectrum—from David Bowie's alien stage persona to the massively successful global juggernaut that was Star Wars. This proliferation of other worlds and alternative futures reflected the uncertain mood of the times. With the American involvement in Vietnam reaching its bitter conclusion, the Apollo moon program ending, and awareness of humanity's destructive impact on the environment increasing, our planet began to seem a smaller, lonelier, more fragile place—and the escapist appeal of science fiction grew.
Corresponding with these tumultuous events was a period of significant American economic decline, and, as Mike Ashley shows in Gateways to Forever, the once enormously popular science fiction magazines struggled to survive. The third volume of this award-winning series chronicles the publications' most difficult period so far. The decade began with the death of John Campbell, Jr., the man who launched the magazine Astonishing, and with it science fiction's prominence as a genre. The widespread popularization of sci-fi imagery reflected a newly diversified market—new anthologies, fanzines, role-playing games, comics, and blockbuster films all fought for the attention and money of sci-fi fans. Ashley shows how the traditional magazines coped with these setbacks but also how they, as always, looked to the future, as the decade closed and the earliest precursors to the Internet emerged.
Unique in its depth of analysis, Mike Ashley's groundbreaking history is a monument to science fiction's evolution. As the genre continues to infiltrate mainstream literature—witness acclaimed novelists like Kazuo Ishiguro and Jonathan Lethem freely employing sci-fi tropes—Gateways to Forever is essential reading for anyone interested in seeing how it all began.



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