The interviews are extraordinarily interesting. Seems like many of the situations we see today have been around all along. I copied some of the quotes that struck me as something to consider.
The Space Merchants - "and suddenly comes this realistic extrapolation of what American life, American advertising, American ecology and American psychosis will lead to eventually."
Said in 1978, - "Science fiction has replaced quote mainstream fiction unquote, completely."
- "science fiction is the poetry of literature"
- "minister of a church in Los Angeles used to sell copies of Galaxy and the other science-fiction magazines outside the church after services, because he said it was the only free speech in America."
1978 -"1,200 science-fiction books published in America last year"
Standard publishing, mags, tv, movies, - "They can’t afford to permit people to experiment,"
-"The constraints of commercial fiction in the States in television, in films, in radio, you name it, are so severe that there is very little you can do."
- "radio and television and national magazines have priced themselves out of experiment."
Science Fiction - "It seems to be affected by events like Star Trek and Star Wars and Close Encounters — they bring in a lot of people to the films, but they don’t have much to do with the main body of science fiction."
This was said when you could see what was what, before there were millions of choices for everything. The words are still relevant, and perhaps go a long way towards explaining why things are the way they are.
The idea that science fiction replaced fiction because it was full of radical new ideas that involved all levels of society, that it looked like poetry compared to plain old fiction is an interesting idea. That style of fiction where anything could happen spread across all types of fiction and somewhere along the way science was once again on the outside looking in.
