January journal: science fiction periodization
Jan. 21st, 2026 08:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ursulaglowingfish asked:The Golden Age of published science-fiction was more or less from 1955 to 1975 (lets say). Why did it end when it did? Do you think that science-fiction (or fantasy) published after 1975 was different, or do you just think it had less ability to become part of the "canon"?
This is really non-standard periodization! Wikipedia has the Golden Age of science fiction starting in the late 1930s, in connection with sci-fi magazine publishing history; the end of your period is solidly New Wave.
The counter-argument is the aphorism that the Golden Age of science fiction is twelve; by that rule, it's interesting to think about who was twelve in 1955-1975, or whatever guidelines you want to pick, and what influence they might have had on defining a canon, once they reached their twenties or thirties. The people who were twelve between 1955 and 1975 were mostly baby boomers, in the standard US generational framework; that was my parents' generation (and
glowingfish's parents', I'm guessing), and it makes sense that the stories they considered formative would seem quasi-canonized to our generation.
