ORBIT – Otherworldly Reads, Bold Ideas, and Tales. SF & F Short Stories and Novelettes discussion

There is an idea to systematize the fiction we read (and plan to) by 'eras', when the topics, styles, and approaches change significantly. In terms of SF usually two eras stand out - the Golden Age (roughly 1926-1960) and the New Wave (1962-1980). However, as one of our members correctly noted
Stephen wrote: "I think there has been a definite change at some point in the last 10-15 years. I don’t know how useful it would be for our purposes to recognize that."

So, what eras do you see in SF & fantasy?

Here is what AI says on the subject:
Certainly! Here’s a breakdown of the **eras of science fiction short stories**, focusing on the evolution of the form and its key themes, authors, and movements:

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### 1. **Early Beginnings (Pre-1900s)**
- **Proto-Science Fiction**: Early short stories explored speculative ideas and scientific concepts.
- Examples:
- Nathaniel Hawthorne’s *"Rappaccini's Daughter"* (1844) – a tale of scientific experimentation.
- Edgar Allan Poe’s *"The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall"* (1835) – a satirical moon voyage.
- Fitz-James O’Brien’s *"The Diamond Lens"* (1858) – a story of microscopic worlds.

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### 2. **Pulp Era (1920s-1930s)**
- **Pulp Magazines**: Short stories dominated the era, with a focus on adventure, wonder, and escapism.
- Key Authors:
- H.P. Lovecraft (*"The Call of Cthulhu"*, 1928) – blending SF with cosmic horror.
- Clark Ashton Smith (*"The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis"*, 1932) – planetary romance and weird fiction.
- Edmond Hamilton (*"The Man Who Evolved"*, 1931) – exploring rapid human evolution.
- Themes: Space exploration, alien encounters, and futuristic technology.

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### 3. **Golden Age (1940s-1950s)**
- **Hard SF and Problem-Solving Stories**: Short stories focused on scientific rigor and logical problem-solving.
- Key Authors:
- Isaac Asimov (*"Nightfall"*, 1941) – a story about a civilization facing eternal darkness.
- Arthur C. Clarke (*"The Nine Billion Names of God"*, 1953) – a blend of SF and philosophical inquiry.
- Ray Bradbury (*"The Veldt"*, 1950) – exploring the dangers of technology.
- Themes: Space travel, robotics, and the impact of science on society.

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### 4. **New Wave (1960s-1970s)**
- **Literary Experimentation**: Short stories became more experimental, focusing on inner space (psychology, sociology) rather than outer space.
- Key Authors:
- J.G. Ballard (*"The Terminal Beach"*, 1964) – surreal and dystopian.
- Harlan Ellison (*"I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream"*, 1967) – dark, existential SF.
- Philip K. Dick (*"We Can Remember It for You Wholesale"*, 1966) – exploring memory and identity.
- Themes: Dystopia, entropy, and the human condition.

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### 5. **Cyberpunk (1980s-1990s)**
- **High Tech, Low Life**: Short stories explored the intersection of technology, society, and rebellion.
- Key Authors:
- William Gibson (*"Burning Chrome"*, 1982) – a foundational cyberpunk story.
- Bruce Sterling (*"Swarm"*, 1982) – blending biology and technology.
- Pat Cadigan (*"Pretty Boy Crossover"*, 1986) – exploring virtual reality and identity.
- Themes: Hacking, corporate control, and virtual worlds.

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### 6. **Post-Cyberpunk and New Space Opera (1990s-2000s)**
- **Diverse and Nuanced SF**: Short stories expanded beyond cyberpunk tropes, exploring new themes and styles.
- Key Authors:
- Ted Chiang (*"Story of Your Life"*, 1998) – blending linguistics and alien contact.
- Greg Egan (*"Learning to Be Me"*, 1990) – exploring consciousness and identity.
- Charles Stross (*"Lobsters"*, 2001) – the first story in his *Accelerando* series.
- Themes: Post-humanism, AI, and the ethics of technology.

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### 7. **Contemporary SF (2000s-Present)**
- **Diverse Voices and Themes**: Short stories reflect a wide range of perspectives and global concerns.
- Key Authors:
- N.K. Jemisin (*"The Ones Who Stay and Fight"*, 2018) – a response to Ursula K. Le Guin’s *"The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas"*.
- Ken Liu (*"The Paper Menagerie"*, 2011) – blending SF with emotional and cultural depth.
- Rebecca Roanhorse (*"Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™"*, 2017) – exploring identity and virtual reality.
- Themes: Climate change, social justice, and the impact of emerging technologies.

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### Notable SF Short Story Magazines and Anthologies:
- **Magazines**: *Astounding Science Fiction* (later *Analog*), *The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction*, *Clarkesworld*, *Lightspeed*, and *Tor.com*.
- **Anthologies**: *The Science Fiction Hall of Fame* series, *The Year’s Best Science Fiction* (edited by Gardner Dozois), and *The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy*.

Each era of short stories reflects the cultural, scientific, and technological concerns of its time, showcasing the versatility and enduring appeal of the form.

I have a visceral antipathy to current AI products, but I’ll set that aside. For the moment I’ll concentrate on 21st century periodization.

I should also note that my views reflect my experience as a reader. As I’ve noted elsewhere, I didn’t read much in our genre between about 1982 and 2010. My personal “golden age” would be about 1968-1975. Sort of mature new wave.

Back to the current millennium. My sense is that the AI generated schema is correct that the 1990s period, however you characterize it, lasted well into the 2000s. “Diverse voices and themes” is a fair enough label for what has succeeded it. I would note the following specific trends. (1) more published writing by and perhaps for women; (2) more exploration of gender issues; (3) decline of traditional magazines as dominant publishers of short fiction; (4) continued rise of fantasy and concomitant decline of science fiction, within the larger “sff” genre; (5) increased interest in “voices” from outside the anglosphere; i.e. China, Africa and elsewhere (as opposed to English or American writers doing research and setting stories in such places.) My personal sense is that all these trends have become more and more dominant in the field since my return to more active reading in the genre, with a tipping point of a sort around the time of the Sad Puppies affair (2013-2016?)

Again, this looks suspiciously like it originates in my autobiography. But I might have an “Age of diversity” starting around 2010.

Decades rarely define eras. For example, I've heard it said that the period known as "the 60's" actually began with the Feb 1963 appearance of the Beatles on American TV or with JFK's assassination later that year. The 60's then lasted until Watergate (1974) or the end of the Vietnam War (1975). The 70's ended, perhaps prematurely, with the Reagan presidency starting in 1981.

The reference I looked up defined the Golden Age as 1938-1946. It was marked by Campbell emerging as a demanding editor at Astounding. One noted editor said that the 50s were "the true Golden Age", so I decided to make shelves for an Early Golden Age 38-46 and a Later Golden Age 47-59. The Pulp era was marked by by Gernsback's founding of Amazing Stories in 1926. So Pulps 1926-1935.

I kept the decades separate, i.e. the 60s & 70s are both labeled New Wave but I can consolidate if we just want to go with a broader New Wave category.

For the rest, I just marked decades, but I like your delineations above.

A quick note (which I'll add to my comments on the shelves): I'm looking at when the stories in the collection or anthology were written, not when the book was released. For example, a collection released in 1980 that's made up of stories from the late 70's is classified as 70s. If it's mixed, I mark multiple eras.

I actually caught people elsewhere using AI to generate posts, so I second your unease regarding the usage. However, in this particular case, I think the usage is justified - LLMs processed a lot of texts that categorized SF so their response is close to a supposed human gradation.

I disagree that Cyberpunk and Post-Cyberpunk are eras, because they are sub-genre of SF and there were other subgenres in parallel.

As for determining the date of 'ContemporarySF' for short stories I guess it can be done via Locus reading lists, finding the year when the share of top-3 magazines (Analog, Asimov's, F&SF) fell never to recover. Just see: the latest for 2024: https://locusmag.com/2025/02/2024-rec... 67 short stories, of them the mentioned three magazines 5
now 2004: https://www.locusmag.com/2005/Issues/...
73 stories 28 from those 3

Wow! You guys is smart. :-)

I'm not sure I think Cyberpunk (and maybe even Post-Cyberpunk and Space Opera) are particularly good labels when referring to ERAS because there are always other things going on. In other words, this descriptor is possibly inaccurate to refer to a time period because, as a subject, it denies other sorts of subjects. The earlier tags are more general in nature and refer to the era, not a subject matter that someone thinks is predominant (maybe because it's what THEY like.)

Sorry, Allan's and Acorn's posts were invisible when this post was written. When I refreshed the page, oops, there were several more posts.

But you can see we agree on cyberpunk. You all is just real smart and you sez it better

In that context, I didn't look at "Cyberpunk" literally as a sub-genre, more as a broader term pulling in the themes like high tech, hacking, corporate control, and virtual worlds. Same for Post-Cyberpunk.

I'm not sure I like "Contemporary" either, as that can mean any time, i.e. flappers were contemporary with gangsters in the 20s. "Modern" perhaps? But then I've always hated the term "Post-Modern", what is that? I wish there were more clear delineations since the 90s.

As it happened F&SF (1949) and Galaxy (1950) magazines commenced publication at the beginning of the 1950s, around the time Campbell got into Dianetics (Hubbard article in Astounding May 1950.). Possibly an “era” change happened around then.

Btw, my comments here aren’t specifically about Allan’s choices for the group shelves, just general musings on the subject.

Absolutely, Stephen, because we can call the shelves anything we want just so long as we can define it sufficiently. But I think that maybe some sort of sorting by eras would be helpful, rather than by genre or other things. We had that problem over in Hugo and Nebula novels because if you haven't read it, how do you know where it fits??

This doesn't help much but it is interesting about the older history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History...

Kateblue wrote: "Absolutely, Stephen, because we can call the shelves anything we want just so long as we can define it sufficiently. But I think that maybe some sort of sorting by eras would be helpful, rather tha..."

Good point about sorting by some criterion that doesn’t require reading the book first. And for a history-oriented group like this (I think it’s fair to say), period makes sense.