Search Results for: Golden Age

From the Golden Age of TV Anthologies: Boris Karloff’s Thriller, Season One

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William Shatner in “The Grim Reaper,” in Season One of Boris Karloff’s Thriller (1961) The late fifties/early sixties was THE golden age TV anthology genre series. Best remembered, still wildly popular and influential today is The Twilight Zone, of course, followed by Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Outer Limits. There were others, including the interesting TZ precursor One Step Beyond, and a show hosted by one of the legends of classic horror cinema: Boris Karloff’s Thriller. Like Outer Limits, Thriller…

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The Golden Age of the Novella: The Singing Hills Cycle by Nghi Vo

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All three volumes in The Singing Hills Cycle: The Empress of Salt and Fortune, When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain, and Into the Riverlands (Tor.com, 2020-2022). Covers by Alyssa Winans Happy book birthday to Into the Riverlands, the third volume in Nghi Vo’s acclaimed The Singing Hills Cycle! In its review of the second volume, When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain, The Chicago Review of Books said “We are in a golden age of the novella,” and boy,…

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Rebecca Diem on The New Golden Age of the SFF Novella

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I complain frequently about modern publishing (where did mass market anthologies go, damn it!?) but  really, there’s a lot to like. One of the most positive recent trends has been the resurgence of the novella. We’ve spent a lot of time at Black Gate covering popular new novellas like Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone’s This Is How You Lose the Time War and Tor.com‘s exciting release schedule (in Intergalactic Wars, Ancient Gods, and Living Ships: New Novellas from Tor.com, among others), but we’re not…

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The Golden Age of Science Fiction: The 1973 Ditmar Award for Best Dramatic Presentation: Aussie Fan, directed by John Litchen

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John Litchen in Tahiti, 1964 My previous article about the 1973 Ditmars covered the winner for Best Australian Fiction, “Let it Ring!”, by “John Ossian.” That story was written in part in support of the bid for an Australian Worldcon to be held in Melbourne in 1975. That bid was eventually successful. I was surprised to see that “Let it Ring!” beat out three novels for its award, and I was likewise surprised to see that an obscure movie called…

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The Golden Age of Science Fiction: The 1973 Ditmar Award for Best Australian Fiction: “Let It Ring,” by John Ossian

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Infinity Three, edited by Robert Hoskins (Lancer Books, 1972). Cover by Jim Steranko 1973 was the fifth year of the Ditmars, awarded in Australia. I have already covered the Ditmars for International Fiction (The Gods Themselves) and for Australian Fanzine (Bruce Gillespie’s SF Commentary.) The Award for Best Australian Fiction went, curiously, to a short story, “Let It Ring”, by “John Ossian”. “John Ossian” was a pseudonym for the very well-known Australian fan and critic, John Foyster. The other nominees…

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The Golden Age of Science Fiction: The 1973 Locus Award for Best Short Fiction: “Basilisk,” by Harlan Ellison

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Deathbird Stories (Dell, 1976). Cover by Diane Dillon and Leo Dillon In this time period the Locus Award for fiction went to novels, novellas, and short fiction, presumably both novelettes and short stories. (I’m not sure where the exact boundary between short fiction and novella was set.) Perhaps appropriately, the winner of the 1973 award, Harlan Ellison’s “Basilisk” is perhaps 7,000 words long, quite close to the current border between “short story” and “novelette” for both the Nebula and Hugo…

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The Golden Age of Science Fiction: The 1973 Hugo Award for Best Novella: “The Word for World is Forest,” by Ursula K. Le Guin

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The Word for World Is Forest (Berkley Medallion, 1976). Cover by Richard Powers The great Ursula K. Le Guin won the Hugo Award for Best Novella in 1973, for “The Word for World is Forest,” which first appeared in Harlan Ellison’s anthology Again, Dangerous Visions. The story had been written several years earlier, and there exists a letter from Le Guin expressing her frustration with the time it took Ellison to get the story into print. “The Word for World…

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The Golden Age of Science Fiction: Short Fiction of 1979

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And finally, after looking at various award winners over the past year and articles about authors’ debuts and the novels published in 1979, it has come time to close out this series of articles with a look at some of the non-award winning short fiction published in 1979. By 1979, Philip José Farmer had published the first three novels in his Riverworld series as well as a novelette set in the same world, entitled “Riverworld.” When he reprinted the novelette…

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The Golden Age of Science Fiction: Gerald W. Page

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DeepSouthCon has presented the Rebel Award annually since 1965. The first Rebel Award was presented to Al Andrews. The 1980 award was presented on August 23 at DeepSouthCon 18/ASFICon in Atlanta, Georgia, which was chaired by Cliff Biggers. Gerald W. Page joined the Atlanta Science Fiction Organization in 1954. He was a member of the Southern Fandom Group during its three years of existence from 1960 through 1963.  In 1963, he began publishing short fiction with the story “The Happy…

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The Golden Age of Science Fiction: Amazons!, edited by Jessica Amanda Salmonson

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The World Fantasy Award was established in 1975 as part of the World Fantasy Convention. Seen as a fantasy version of the Hugo and the Nebula Awards (neither of which are strictly for science fiction), the nominees and winners are selected by a panel of judges, although currently, two positions on the ballot are opened up to nominations from members of the World Fantasy Convention. The Anthology/Collection Award was presented from 1977, when it was won by Kirby McCauley for…

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