Man at the Crossroads will include not just Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky, but DeLeon, Debs, Foster, and Sinclair possibly too.
The Great Crusade (Reds! Part 3)
- Thread starter Aelita
- Start date
Man Rockefeller was a dick for destroying the first Man at the Crossroads.
It's likely that Rivera would also include Thomas, given his history as the main revolutionary martyr.
Trotsky moved to the UASR either before or directly after the revolution, and I believe he helped draft the Basic Law/Constitution. Jello has said that he will become an American citizen, and he'll definitely influence the early stages of the Cold War. the UASR is semi-Trotskyist, with its emphasis on World Revolution.
Trotsky's exile takes him to the new world. Essentially, he packs his bags and heads from his Norway exile straight to the new world on the first ship he can smuggle himself aboard.
If I remember correctly, he did come to Mexico, as OTL, but left to join the revolution.
Here's what I imagine the entry for the Franco-British ruling politically party, the People's Alliance, would be in the UASR's version of Conservapedia:
Trotsky didn't have to go to Mexico, and Luxembourg also survived somehow and is currently in the UASR.
Trotsky didn't have to go to Mexico, and Luxembourg also survived somehow and is currently in the UASR.
Last edited:
I'm pretty sure Trotskyism is the ideology of the right wing of the UASR (although that's purely in relative terms).
The Stars Flew by
So, I wrote this little piece on the development of Science fiction before the Golden Age in this period. It was passed through official channels (I sent it to Jello), and it was approved. So, without adieu...
Excerpt from “H.G. Wells in America: His effect on the Culture of the UASR” by Professor Sergei Pavilov (Cambridge: University of America, Harvard Press, 1981)
“…. Wells’ later novels, particularly those that dealt with utopian themes would later sell very well in the UASR. The socialist leanings and optimistic speculations obviously would appeal to the newly revolutionized American people. His books would become classics, taught in many schools to this day, for their socialist themes and ideals. Wells’ popularity didn’t just extend to literature. During the First Cultural Revolution, many of his novels would be adapted (or planned to be adapted) into films. These included ‘The Shape of Things to Come’ (1935), ‘War of the Worlds’ (1938) (1), ‘The Time Machine’ (1940), and ‘Men Like Gods’ (1947). These films would come to distinguish themselves, with magnificent special effects and excellent production values, from the stop-motion Tripods of ‘War of the Worlds’ (curtesy of Willis O’Brien), to the stunning depiction of 802,701 AD in “The Time Machine.” Wells himself would visit the UASR in 1937, visiting various landmarks in construction. In a speech before the Brooklyn Museum of Science and Technology, he praised the success of UASR, and noted that it could be viable model for a future world government… “
Excerpts from “Science Fiction: an In-Depth Look” by Peter Nicholls and John Clute (London: New Worlds Press, 1996) (2)
“American science fiction had a long tradition from the 19th century, from penny dreadfuls about boy inventors to rip-offs of well-known science fiction stories from Wells or Verne. However, the man considered to have invented the modern form of science fiction is Hugo Gernsbeck. Born Hugo Gernsbacher in Luxemburg, the amateur radio enthusiast would release his first book, Ralph 124C 41+, in 1911. Fifteen years later, he would create Amazing Stories, the first magazine dedicated to science fiction. This pulp magazine would help herald a new era of science fiction as a codified genre. However, all was not well. Gernsbeck was known for his unscrupulous ways, including his tendency never to pay the full amount for stories (if he paid at all). Many authors were repelled by this, and moved on to other, well-paying pulps, like Weird Tales. Tales featured more fantasy based tales, like the Conan series by Robert E. Howard. However, other authors like H. P. Lovecraft would interject science fiction into his work, which is shown in his stories, such as “The Color out of Space,” and “God in the Depths.” (3) Another problem was that the stories quickly deteriorated in the same formula. They often featured bland men with their gadgets saving the day from the bad guy, like most pulp plots. There were several standouts from this formula, including Armageddon 2413 A.D. by Philip Francis Nowlan. (4) However, a far worse scourge was the degeneration of space opera. Whilst starting out well with Edgar Rice Burroughs and his Barsoom series, it quickly devolved into a genre of Barsoom rip-offs, filled with “bugged eyed monsters,” and scantily clad women. Despite all this, Amazing trudged on, and eventually, new magazines were made as competition, starting the market for science fiction magazines in the early 30’s. However, than came the revolution…
[…]
After the Civil War, American society sought to rebuild itself from the ground up. It would overturn traditions, and create Marxist counterparts. Everything, from music to sport to education, was changed to fit the new status quo, becoming more about the group and collective. Businesses become collectives, run by employees without a boss. In this climate, the growing field of science fiction would inevitably evolve to fit into this new mold, and would soon enter what many would dub “The Golden Age.”
Gernsback saw the writing on the wall, as the Red Army marched through New York. He and his shady business practices (including never paying writers) would not fair particularly well in the UASR. He along with editor T. O’Connor Sloane, took Amazing, and fled to Cuba, along with other members of the American bourgeois. However, his business was failing even in the US, and Amazing, when it eventually declared bankruptcy in 1934, was sold to Street and Smith. (5) Gernsback would move to England later that year, and launch Thrilling Stories, which was moderately successful for several years. Meanwhile, Sloane would continue to run Amazing much as he did in the US. However, the magazine became unprofitable, and the new owners sought to revamp it. Sloane resigned in 1937, and to replace him, Street and Smith brought in another expatriate science fiction writer named John Wood Campbell. Campbell would expand on Sloane’s notions of science fiction as an educational tool. Having scientific training himself, he demanded that stories to be scientifically accurate. However, he also demanded that they should be good stories as well. This would become the main philosophy of the new Amazing, a science fiction magazine, which would eschew the “alien and women” model, and replace it with hard, cerebral stories exploring technology and society. Campbell also began to publish many British authors and, progressively, (English fluent) Cuban authors (primarily due to many of the previous pool of American science fiction authors remaining in the UASR and there not being many American writers in Cuba), particularly from fanzines. Anglo-French Interplanetary Society Chairman and science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke would comment that “Campbell’s style of science fiction was more mature than many earlier magazines, and, I think, that helped shatter the perception that science fiction was little more than entertainment for teenage boys, at least here in England.” However, Campbellian Science fiction was also a reflection of the exiled regime. The heroes were almost always white males, working for a bureaucracy modeled on MacArthur’s Cuba, fighting either communist-inspired aliens, or communists themselves. Campbell’s own 1938 story “The Thing under the Ice” (6) is an example: a group of white male scientists in Antarctica fighting an alien that assimilates people to form a collective organism. Clarke acknowledged that “many leftists would criticize Amazing as little more than MacArthurist propaganda, which it probably was.” Despite this, Clarke states that “Amazing, under Campbell, helped make a form a unique version of science fiction, one which helped evolve science fiction, sometimes as much as Pohl’s version did.” (Several of Clarke’s earliest stories were published in Amazing, including his most famous “The Sentinel” in 1948, as well as several editorials displaying AFIS missions. However, he eventually moved on to American publications in 50’s, due to their growing avant-garde ideals more fitting the tone of his later tales). One of the American writers to work for Amazing, another refugee from Communism, was a mysterious man, who had a tendency towards the theatrical, and a minor talent for pulp writing, who would become good friends and partners with Campbell over the years. That man’s name was L. Ron Hubbard….
However, American science fiction was going through even more of a renaissance. Several science fiction magazines and fanzines in New York, including Clayton’s science fiction magazine Astounding and Weird Tales, were quickly collectivized into the “Speculative Fiction Publishing Collective,” which published the new magazine “Speculative Worlds.” The leading council for Spec. Worlds would consist of an older author: E. E. “Doc” Smith, author of the Skylark series, and two younger ones: Donald A. Woldhiem, and a younger member associated with the worker’s party: Fredrik Pohl, a member of the Young Worker’s League in Brooklyn, and founder of the Futurian Club. It is Pohl who would come to symbolize the Golden Age. He would soon bring many different writers, often members of Futurian themselves, into the fold. Together, they would make a new type of science fiction. This science fiction would expel Gernsback’s influence. They would return to the traditions of HG Wells, telling tales more of societies and people than gadgets. These stories would also follow the philosophy of “Social Realism,” which forced stories to abandon ray guns, and, like Campbell, allow stories to be both scientifically plausible, but also competent. Another more recent influence was British author Olaf Stapleton, whose book, the Nebula Maker (7), was released to public acclaim in 1937. His dark, alien depictions, as well as his reverent tone, would help inspire various stories. More inspiration came from Tsiolkovosky and the experiments of Robert A. Goddard, which brought closer the then fantasy of space travel. The stories from this era would become classics, featuring themes that fit very well into a Marxist state of mind. Stanley G. Weinbaum’s “A Martian Odyssey” was a prime example of the heavy Wellsian and Stapledonian influence in American science fiction. Three Mars explorers (one American, one Soviet, one Chinese) find a strange creature called Tweel. At first, they consider it a dangerous animal, but find that it was truly intelligent, though in a way not like a man, and slowly learn through their adventures it was more like them than they thought. This story would win several Retro World Science Fiction Awards.(8) Even older writers were reimagining themselves. HP Lovecraft, (who had transitioned from a staunch aristocrat to a socialist sympathizer) wrote “At the Mountains of Madness.” Here, a crew of Antarctic scientists (mixed gendered, unlike the “Thing”, though Lovecraft’s racism didn’t quite leave him yet) find a civilization of Shoggoths, who had overthrown their decadent, capitalist like masters, “The Elder Things,” and created a functioning society. However, the shoggoths also fell into decadence, causing their civilization to fall as well. Eventually, they find a single shoggoth, who proceeds to chase them out, and drives one of them insane. The other scientist is determined not to allow humans to fall into the same course of action. Other writers in Pohl’s Speculative Worlds included A. E. de Vogt, Damon Knight, Andre Norton, C L Moore, James Blish, Judith Merrill, L. Sprague de Camp (whose 1939 book “Lest Darkness Falls,” about a man who travels back to the early European dark ages, and introduces Socialism, is considered a classic of the sub-genre "alternate history," ), and a young Columbia student named Isaac Asimov, who wrote short stories of societies where robots and humans work in tandem in improve conditions, both in space and on Earth. (9) Asimov was also working on a story centered on a Galactic empire declining, modeled on the fall of the Roman Empire. The September, 1937 issue of Spec. Worlds, featuring the first story of de Vogt and Asimov, is considered the beginning of the Golden Age of Science Fiction.
Across the country, in Los Angeles, another science fiction collective formed. This time, it was more of a fandom vehicle. “The Los Angeles Science Fiction Society” collective was founded by Robert A. Heinlein (of Star Trek fame) and Forrest J. Ackerman in 1935. It consisted of local authors, publishing “Fantastic Science,” (later known as Sci-Fi¬) However, in addition to stories, (including some of Heinlein’s first, including “Lifeline,” and some of his early juveniles) there was also several fandom articles, detailing news, or having reviews of stories from Spec. Worlds, and occasionally, from Amazing (the latter of which almost garnered universally negative reviews). Authors would meet and discuss what was happening, and what would go in. Authors in this collective included Jack Williamson, Leigh Backett, Henry Kuttner, Fredric Brown, and a young Ray Bradbury (10). In a 1970 interview with the Daily Worker, Bradbury described the early meetings of the club:
“We would meet up at Clifton’s Cafeteria, and discuss what would go into FS. Sometimes, it would be a story from one of the authors, including me, to be published. Sometimes, we would read over the latest issue of Spec. Worlds, and find stories to review, or find a book or movie to review. Sometimes, a copy of Amazing would come via smuggling, and we all know what happened then (laughs). Being in LA, sometimes we would even get an interview with an actor starring in a sci-fi film. Forrey [Ackerman] particularly liked that. It was great...”
Spec Worlds and FS would arise as the primary science fiction magazines of the new country. However, there was no rivalry between the two. Often, authors from one would publish in the other at times. Some of Heinlein’s finest works came in Speculative Worlds. Asimov, after having his famed story “Nightfall,” rejected from Spec. Worlds, would later take it to FS, who accepted and published it. Often, members of one were associated with the other. Jack Williamson would go to replace Pohl for a brief time, when the latter left to serve in the Second World War. However, after World War II, these magazines would not be the only ones.
Science fiction's influence didn’t just extend to pulp magazines. Comic strips and the new medium of comic books were introducing science fiction heroes. Flash Gordon debuted in 1934, to compete with the then-popular 2419 AD strip (11), where he would fight fascist enemies, like Adolf the Abominable of Doitsu, (12) in space. Film serials featuring Buster Crabb as Flash debuted in 1936, and became popular during World War II, where they became propaganda films. Hyperion also had in the works an animated adaptation. Another popular character was Superman, alien turned working class hero fighting for “Truth, Justice, and Socialism,” along with regular workers against enemies like counter-revolutionary scientist and eugenicist Lex Luthor. Superman’s co-creator, Joe Shuster developed another popular series, Star Squadron, in 1939, showing tales of exploration on other planets, in scientifically plausible tales not unlike those of Spec. World. It was quickly forgotten after World War II. (Recently, author Alan Moore revived the series in 1990, putting a darker spin on it, but still keeping the idealistic tone of the piece). (13) And of course, there was film. Many adaptations of H. G. Wells’ stories were made, including the iconic “War of the Worlds,” and “Time Machine.” Red Star, a 1908 novel by Alexander Bogdonov was adapted to film in 1939, which would come to influence both American and Soviet film makers. Other films included King Kong (1935) (14), Gladiator, based off the novel by Phillip Wylie (1938), and Voyage to the Moon, a 1940 remake of a 1935 Soviet film called Kosmicheskiy reys (Cosmic Journey)(15).
However, this would only be the beginning of the Golden Age….
(1) Look at the year and see if you can find a connection with War of the Worlds.
(2) Writers of the "Encyclopedia of Science Fiction"
(3) The story known OTL as the Call of Cthulhu
(4) The debut story of Buck Rogers. However, the original story title provides the name of the franchise in this world, 2419 AD
(5) OTL, Amazing went bankrupt in 1929 (either due to the machinations of pulp mogul Bernarr McFadden, or Gernsbeck himself bankrupting the company to pay off debts). Out of more narrative intrigue with Gernbeck, it lasts slightly longer, but still Gernsbeck still sells it once settled in Cuba.
(6) John W. Campbell classic story “Who Goes There,” later adapted into “The Thing from Another World,” (1951), and “The Thing” (1982). Very similar, but The Thing is more of a Borg like organism, which assimilates life, to make it more of an allegory for communism.
(7) The name of an early draft of Stapleton’s “Star Maker” (1937). The story here is a mixture of that early draft and parts of Star Maker.
(8) As Hugo Gernsbeck less than perfect nature is common knowledge in this universe, as well as his fleeing to Cuba, the award for best science fiction is not called the Hugo.
(9) Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics are not a thing here, as part of those laws involve a robot’s total obedience to its masters, something that would be frowned upon. It was only formed after it was pointed out that Asimov wrote using a set of rules for his robots. Here, the stories are more about robots workers fighting for their own unions, and working with humans to better advance society.
(10) The collective is based in part on the “Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society” which had these members. The magazine is somewhat like Galaxy, with a bit of “Famous Monsters of Filmland” thanks to Ackerman’s influence.
(11) See 3
(12) A reference to an earlier update, though whether it is still in canon, I’m not sure.
(13) Another reference to an earlier update
(14) Delayed two years due to revolution and subsequent reshoots
(15) The latter is an actual Soviet film. Interestingly, it was taken off distribution, due to Soviet censors feeling that cosmonauts bouncing on the moon was antithetical to “Social Realism.” Somewhat ironic now, given the now famous role the USSR played in the space race.
So, I wrote this little piece on the development of Science fiction before the Golden Age in this period. It was passed through official channels (I sent it to Jello), and it was approved. So, without adieu...
Excerpt from “H.G. Wells in America: His effect on the Culture of the UASR” by Professor Sergei Pavilov (Cambridge: University of America, Harvard Press, 1981)
“…. Wells’ later novels, particularly those that dealt with utopian themes would later sell very well in the UASR. The socialist leanings and optimistic speculations obviously would appeal to the newly revolutionized American people. His books would become classics, taught in many schools to this day, for their socialist themes and ideals. Wells’ popularity didn’t just extend to literature. During the First Cultural Revolution, many of his novels would be adapted (or planned to be adapted) into films. These included ‘The Shape of Things to Come’ (1935), ‘War of the Worlds’ (1938) (1), ‘The Time Machine’ (1940), and ‘Men Like Gods’ (1947). These films would come to distinguish themselves, with magnificent special effects and excellent production values, from the stop-motion Tripods of ‘War of the Worlds’ (curtesy of Willis O’Brien), to the stunning depiction of 802,701 AD in “The Time Machine.” Wells himself would visit the UASR in 1937, visiting various landmarks in construction. In a speech before the Brooklyn Museum of Science and Technology, he praised the success of UASR, and noted that it could be viable model for a future world government… “
Excerpts from “Science Fiction: an In-Depth Look” by Peter Nicholls and John Clute (London: New Worlds Press, 1996) (2)
“American science fiction had a long tradition from the 19th century, from penny dreadfuls about boy inventors to rip-offs of well-known science fiction stories from Wells or Verne. However, the man considered to have invented the modern form of science fiction is Hugo Gernsbeck. Born Hugo Gernsbacher in Luxemburg, the amateur radio enthusiast would release his first book, Ralph 124C 41+, in 1911. Fifteen years later, he would create Amazing Stories, the first magazine dedicated to science fiction. This pulp magazine would help herald a new era of science fiction as a codified genre. However, all was not well. Gernsbeck was known for his unscrupulous ways, including his tendency never to pay the full amount for stories (if he paid at all). Many authors were repelled by this, and moved on to other, well-paying pulps, like Weird Tales. Tales featured more fantasy based tales, like the Conan series by Robert E. Howard. However, other authors like H. P. Lovecraft would interject science fiction into his work, which is shown in his stories, such as “The Color out of Space,” and “God in the Depths.” (3) Another problem was that the stories quickly deteriorated in the same formula. They often featured bland men with their gadgets saving the day from the bad guy, like most pulp plots. There were several standouts from this formula, including Armageddon 2413 A.D. by Philip Francis Nowlan. (4) However, a far worse scourge was the degeneration of space opera. Whilst starting out well with Edgar Rice Burroughs and his Barsoom series, it quickly devolved into a genre of Barsoom rip-offs, filled with “bugged eyed monsters,” and scantily clad women. Despite all this, Amazing trudged on, and eventually, new magazines were made as competition, starting the market for science fiction magazines in the early 30’s. However, than came the revolution…
[…]
After the Civil War, American society sought to rebuild itself from the ground up. It would overturn traditions, and create Marxist counterparts. Everything, from music to sport to education, was changed to fit the new status quo, becoming more about the group and collective. Businesses become collectives, run by employees without a boss. In this climate, the growing field of science fiction would inevitably evolve to fit into this new mold, and would soon enter what many would dub “The Golden Age.”
Gernsback saw the writing on the wall, as the Red Army marched through New York. He and his shady business practices (including never paying writers) would not fair particularly well in the UASR. He along with editor T. O’Connor Sloane, took Amazing, and fled to Cuba, along with other members of the American bourgeois. However, his business was failing even in the US, and Amazing, when it eventually declared bankruptcy in 1934, was sold to Street and Smith. (5) Gernsback would move to England later that year, and launch Thrilling Stories, which was moderately successful for several years. Meanwhile, Sloane would continue to run Amazing much as he did in the US. However, the magazine became unprofitable, and the new owners sought to revamp it. Sloane resigned in 1937, and to replace him, Street and Smith brought in another expatriate science fiction writer named John Wood Campbell. Campbell would expand on Sloane’s notions of science fiction as an educational tool. Having scientific training himself, he demanded that stories to be scientifically accurate. However, he also demanded that they should be good stories as well. This would become the main philosophy of the new Amazing, a science fiction magazine, which would eschew the “alien and women” model, and replace it with hard, cerebral stories exploring technology and society. Campbell also began to publish many British authors and, progressively, (English fluent) Cuban authors (primarily due to many of the previous pool of American science fiction authors remaining in the UASR and there not being many American writers in Cuba), particularly from fanzines. Anglo-French Interplanetary Society Chairman and science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke would comment that “Campbell’s style of science fiction was more mature than many earlier magazines, and, I think, that helped shatter the perception that science fiction was little more than entertainment for teenage boys, at least here in England.” However, Campbellian Science fiction was also a reflection of the exiled regime. The heroes were almost always white males, working for a bureaucracy modeled on MacArthur’s Cuba, fighting either communist-inspired aliens, or communists themselves. Campbell’s own 1938 story “The Thing under the Ice” (6) is an example: a group of white male scientists in Antarctica fighting an alien that assimilates people to form a collective organism. Clarke acknowledged that “many leftists would criticize Amazing as little more than MacArthurist propaganda, which it probably was.” Despite this, Clarke states that “Amazing, under Campbell, helped make a form a unique version of science fiction, one which helped evolve science fiction, sometimes as much as Pohl’s version did.” (Several of Clarke’s earliest stories were published in Amazing, including his most famous “The Sentinel” in 1948, as well as several editorials displaying AFIS missions. However, he eventually moved on to American publications in 50’s, due to their growing avant-garde ideals more fitting the tone of his later tales). One of the American writers to work for Amazing, another refugee from Communism, was a mysterious man, who had a tendency towards the theatrical, and a minor talent for pulp writing, who would become good friends and partners with Campbell over the years. That man’s name was L. Ron Hubbard….
However, American science fiction was going through even more of a renaissance. Several science fiction magazines and fanzines in New York, including Clayton’s science fiction magazine Astounding and Weird Tales, were quickly collectivized into the “Speculative Fiction Publishing Collective,” which published the new magazine “Speculative Worlds.” The leading council for Spec. Worlds would consist of an older author: E. E. “Doc” Smith, author of the Skylark series, and two younger ones: Donald A. Woldhiem, and a younger member associated with the worker’s party: Fredrik Pohl, a member of the Young Worker’s League in Brooklyn, and founder of the Futurian Club. It is Pohl who would come to symbolize the Golden Age. He would soon bring many different writers, often members of Futurian themselves, into the fold. Together, they would make a new type of science fiction. This science fiction would expel Gernsback’s influence. They would return to the traditions of HG Wells, telling tales more of societies and people than gadgets. These stories would also follow the philosophy of “Social Realism,” which forced stories to abandon ray guns, and, like Campbell, allow stories to be both scientifically plausible, but also competent. Another more recent influence was British author Olaf Stapleton, whose book, the Nebula Maker (7), was released to public acclaim in 1937. His dark, alien depictions, as well as his reverent tone, would help inspire various stories. More inspiration came from Tsiolkovosky and the experiments of Robert A. Goddard, which brought closer the then fantasy of space travel. The stories from this era would become classics, featuring themes that fit very well into a Marxist state of mind. Stanley G. Weinbaum’s “A Martian Odyssey” was a prime example of the heavy Wellsian and Stapledonian influence in American science fiction. Three Mars explorers (one American, one Soviet, one Chinese) find a strange creature called Tweel. At first, they consider it a dangerous animal, but find that it was truly intelligent, though in a way not like a man, and slowly learn through their adventures it was more like them than they thought. This story would win several Retro World Science Fiction Awards.(8) Even older writers were reimagining themselves. HP Lovecraft, (who had transitioned from a staunch aristocrat to a socialist sympathizer) wrote “At the Mountains of Madness.” Here, a crew of Antarctic scientists (mixed gendered, unlike the “Thing”, though Lovecraft’s racism didn’t quite leave him yet) find a civilization of Shoggoths, who had overthrown their decadent, capitalist like masters, “The Elder Things,” and created a functioning society. However, the shoggoths also fell into decadence, causing their civilization to fall as well. Eventually, they find a single shoggoth, who proceeds to chase them out, and drives one of them insane. The other scientist is determined not to allow humans to fall into the same course of action. Other writers in Pohl’s Speculative Worlds included A. E. de Vogt, Damon Knight, Andre Norton, C L Moore, James Blish, Judith Merrill, L. Sprague de Camp (whose 1939 book “Lest Darkness Falls,” about a man who travels back to the early European dark ages, and introduces Socialism, is considered a classic of the sub-genre "alternate history," ), and a young Columbia student named Isaac Asimov, who wrote short stories of societies where robots and humans work in tandem in improve conditions, both in space and on Earth. (9) Asimov was also working on a story centered on a Galactic empire declining, modeled on the fall of the Roman Empire. The September, 1937 issue of Spec. Worlds, featuring the first story of de Vogt and Asimov, is considered the beginning of the Golden Age of Science Fiction.
Across the country, in Los Angeles, another science fiction collective formed. This time, it was more of a fandom vehicle. “The Los Angeles Science Fiction Society” collective was founded by Robert A. Heinlein (of Star Trek fame) and Forrest J. Ackerman in 1935. It consisted of local authors, publishing “Fantastic Science,” (later known as Sci-Fi¬) However, in addition to stories, (including some of Heinlein’s first, including “Lifeline,” and some of his early juveniles) there was also several fandom articles, detailing news, or having reviews of stories from Spec. Worlds, and occasionally, from Amazing (the latter of which almost garnered universally negative reviews). Authors would meet and discuss what was happening, and what would go in. Authors in this collective included Jack Williamson, Leigh Backett, Henry Kuttner, Fredric Brown, and a young Ray Bradbury (10). In a 1970 interview with the Daily Worker, Bradbury described the early meetings of the club:
“We would meet up at Clifton’s Cafeteria, and discuss what would go into FS. Sometimes, it would be a story from one of the authors, including me, to be published. Sometimes, we would read over the latest issue of Spec. Worlds, and find stories to review, or find a book or movie to review. Sometimes, a copy of Amazing would come via smuggling, and we all know what happened then (laughs). Being in LA, sometimes we would even get an interview with an actor starring in a sci-fi film. Forrey [Ackerman] particularly liked that. It was great...”
Spec Worlds and FS would arise as the primary science fiction magazines of the new country. However, there was no rivalry between the two. Often, authors from one would publish in the other at times. Some of Heinlein’s finest works came in Speculative Worlds. Asimov, after having his famed story “Nightfall,” rejected from Spec. Worlds, would later take it to FS, who accepted and published it. Often, members of one were associated with the other. Jack Williamson would go to replace Pohl for a brief time, when the latter left to serve in the Second World War. However, after World War II, these magazines would not be the only ones.
Science fiction's influence didn’t just extend to pulp magazines. Comic strips and the new medium of comic books were introducing science fiction heroes. Flash Gordon debuted in 1934, to compete with the then-popular 2419 AD strip (11), where he would fight fascist enemies, like Adolf the Abominable of Doitsu, (12) in space. Film serials featuring Buster Crabb as Flash debuted in 1936, and became popular during World War II, where they became propaganda films. Hyperion also had in the works an animated adaptation. Another popular character was Superman, alien turned working class hero fighting for “Truth, Justice, and Socialism,” along with regular workers against enemies like counter-revolutionary scientist and eugenicist Lex Luthor. Superman’s co-creator, Joe Shuster developed another popular series, Star Squadron, in 1939, showing tales of exploration on other planets, in scientifically plausible tales not unlike those of Spec. World. It was quickly forgotten after World War II. (Recently, author Alan Moore revived the series in 1990, putting a darker spin on it, but still keeping the idealistic tone of the piece). (13) And of course, there was film. Many adaptations of H. G. Wells’ stories were made, including the iconic “War of the Worlds,” and “Time Machine.” Red Star, a 1908 novel by Alexander Bogdonov was adapted to film in 1939, which would come to influence both American and Soviet film makers. Other films included King Kong (1935) (14), Gladiator, based off the novel by Phillip Wylie (1938), and Voyage to the Moon, a 1940 remake of a 1935 Soviet film called Kosmicheskiy reys (Cosmic Journey)(15).
However, this would only be the beginning of the Golden Age….
(1) Look at the year and see if you can find a connection with War of the Worlds.
(2) Writers of the "Encyclopedia of Science Fiction"
(3) The story known OTL as the Call of Cthulhu
(4) The debut story of Buck Rogers. However, the original story title provides the name of the franchise in this world, 2419 AD
(5) OTL, Amazing went bankrupt in 1929 (either due to the machinations of pulp mogul Bernarr McFadden, or Gernsbeck himself bankrupting the company to pay off debts). Out of more narrative intrigue with Gernbeck, it lasts slightly longer, but still Gernsbeck still sells it once settled in Cuba.
(6) John W. Campbell classic story “Who Goes There,” later adapted into “The Thing from Another World,” (1951), and “The Thing” (1982). Very similar, but The Thing is more of a Borg like organism, which assimilates life, to make it more of an allegory for communism.
(7) The name of an early draft of Stapleton’s “Star Maker” (1937). The story here is a mixture of that early draft and parts of Star Maker.
(8) As Hugo Gernsbeck less than perfect nature is common knowledge in this universe, as well as his fleeing to Cuba, the award for best science fiction is not called the Hugo.
(9) Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics are not a thing here, as part of those laws involve a robot’s total obedience to its masters, something that would be frowned upon. It was only formed after it was pointed out that Asimov wrote using a set of rules for his robots. Here, the stories are more about robots workers fighting for their own unions, and working with humans to better advance society.
(10) The collective is based in part on the “Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society” which had these members. The magazine is somewhat like Galaxy, with a bit of “Famous Monsters of Filmland” thanks to Ackerman’s influence.
(11) See 3
(12) A reference to an earlier update, though whether it is still in canon, I’m not sure.
(13) Another reference to an earlier update
(14) Delayed two years due to revolution and subsequent reshoots
(15) The latter is an actual Soviet film. Interestingly, it was taken off distribution, due to Soviet censors feeling that cosmonauts bouncing on the moon was antithetical to “Social Realism.” Somewhat ironic now, given the now famous role the USSR played in the space race.
Last edited:
As a very passionate Asimov reader (in fact, I'm currently reading the Robots of Dawn right now), I have to say that there would probably be a big conflict between the Spacers (bourgeoisie), Robots (proletarians), as well as the Earthlings, with some of the Earthlings trying to make the Robots subservient to them (petite bourgeoisie), as well as some Earthlings who turn their oppression on the Robots (lumpenproletariat), and some Earthlings (probably including Lijie Baley, essentially a Marx analogue) telling the Robots and Earthlings the truth about their oppression, who then, led by Daneel Olivaw (Lenin/Trotsky), rise up against the evil Spacers. At the end of the whole series, the Robot-Earthling alliance finally defeat the Spacers. Some of the kinder Spacers (Theodore Roosevelt and other ATL Bourgeois-turned-Comunist analogues) choose to help the revolutionaries and become heroes, while some of the evil Spacers flee to one of the Spacer planets (Cuba), where they continue to oppress the Robots. Ultimately, of course, the Robots, Earthlings and some of the Spacers eventual expand to all the Galaxy, while maintaining a harmonious and equal society for everyone.
I think I accidentally just wrote the ATL plot for the Robot series.
Question, how much assistance did the USSR offer to the UASR around the revolution? Or was the American Revolution almost strictly homegrown?
Because it seems like that could be a potential point of friction between the two powers.
Because it seems like that could be a potential point of friction between the two powers.
bookmark95
Banned
So where's the war?
I know you've been asked this dozens of times, but when are you going to start writing about World War II? It's been months since you last brought it up.
I know you've been asked this dozens of times, but when are you going to start writing about World War II? It's been months since you last brought it up.
JB's been very busy, writing a sci-fi novel. However, she's working on the revisions, and then we'll be able to work on WWII.
bookmark95
Banned
Is a sci-fi story involving a society along the lines of libertarian socialism, like the one in Reds?
Whenever it comes out let us know since I'd be interested in reading it at least.