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| SFReader Forums > SF Fiction and Art > Science Fiction > I miss the good old days | Forum Quick Jump
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Jaqhama
Adventurer
      
Date Joined Oct 2007
Total Posts : 510
| Posted 3/22/2008 6:18 AM (GMT -5) |   | | I miss the 70's publishing boom that we had in Britain in my youth.
When publishers like NEL. New English Library; published a whole range of genre novels.
The George G. Gilman westerns. The Fox naval series. Tully Zetford's sci-fi series Hook: Whirlpool of Stars. Plus the entire re-printed series of ERB John Carter of Mars. Carson of Venus. At the Earth's Core etc.
They also did the Wolfshead series and a biker/skinhead series. And a Dracula series, plus assorted vampire/horror/thrillers.
Mayflower was doing the same kind of thing, including Andrew Quiller's Vulpus the Fox gladiator series.
The original Orbit books published a lot of sci-fi. Including Lin carter's Jandar of Callisto.
Maybe there was no great literary genius in the writings but they were good fun, easy reads.
The majority of the serials ran to about 5 novels but some, like the Edge westerns and the Fox naval series ran far past that.
But then NEL and Mayflower and Orbit all but disappeared in terms of mass produced cheap to buy and fun to read action/adventure tales.
I've still got hundreds of those books and as time goes by I'd much rather re-read them than most of the books I've purchased in the years since.
I think the 70's was the best decade for both action adventure novels and sci-fi and fantasy.
Alastair Maclean was constantly in print. As were the early Wilbur Smith novels. The H. Rider Haggard books had just been re-issued, as had ERB.
Writers like Karl Wagner and Michael Moorcock became hugely popular.
John Norman reached his peak in planatery adventure with Nomads of Gor and Assassin of Gor. Say what you like about his treatment of women in his books but few writers have surpassed the action and excitment of the great Tarn race above the city of Ar. (Assassins of Gor.)
Philip Jose Farmer's World of Tiers novels were coming out.
Alan Burt Aker's original Dray Prescott of Kreegan books also.
I consider myself extremely fortunate that I discovered books at an early age and that there was a huge resurgence in good old fashioned action adventure stories when I was a young teen.
Adult's raved about The Lord of the Rings...yeah? Compared to Elric and Stormbringer LOTR was slow, boring and wayyyyy too long.
The REH Conan books were re-released and school kids all over Britain were beginning to discover that reading could actually be fun and enjoyable, compared to the crap books local schools had us reading.
By the 80's the great book resurgence seemed to die out. All of those great publishers just disappeared.
I go into mainstream bookshops now and there's hardly anything like the above to choose from...
What happened???
You can read some of my stories here:
Swamp Story. Down South. Florida Haze.Wild Justice...
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erazmus
Master
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 4539
| Posted 3/24/2008 3:16 PM (GMT -5) | | I think on both sides of the pond the seventies were the last decade when it was okay to publish books for unsophisticated readers. That means books that were just fun, books you'd hide under your bed so your Mom wouldn't know you were reading them, books you could enjoy over a long afternoon.
You know, the stuff we all read then. The paperback for less than a buck that couldn't be used as a doorstop because the door would pass right over it.
Westerns, Crime novels, murder mysteries, Sword and Sorcery where the cover was mild compared to the action inside. If the writing wasn't very good that was okay, you'd be done in a couple of hours-- less time than you'd spend today before deciding your new x-box game is crappy and go trade it for some other.
This is why I often rant (see past threads on this board) that we are losing readers today, there is nothing coming out to hook people into reading. Everything is too high brow, too well written, to well developed, too damn long. And way too acceptable, I haven't seen a genre book from a mass distributed publisher come out in twenty years that a kid would have to Hide to read. Not one-- except maybe some of John Ringo's Action adventure stuff-- Ghost and Kildare and stuff like that. Even that is mild compared to the shocking things happening on an X-box.
You think John Norman was bad? Have you played any Grand Theft Auto? I shouldn't pick on GTA but I don't play such games and my Kids do, and its the only title that sticks. But publishers whine that they can't compete with Cable and video games and then fail to even try. John Norman knew how to compete with Doom, Mack Bolan knows how. Publishers really just don't want to get thier hands dirty pushing crap, even though its the crap that we're missing, the crap everything else has that drowns us out.
Its a pretty sad day when fiction publishers feel outclassed by Survivor reruns. If you want to save reading, give a teen a dirty paperback.
Mike
Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com
"Dutchman Rescue"in Continuum SF #6
www.continuumsciencefiction.com/orders.htm
"An Incident at Black Tongue Tavern" in _Bash Down the Door and Slice Open the Badguy_ from Fantasist Enterprises:
www.fantasistent.com/books/anthologies/BASH.php
"Stains" in Tales of the Talisman 3-1 www.zianet.com/hadrosaur/index.html
"Morning Coffee" in Every Day Fiction
www.everydayfiction.com/morning-coffee-by-michael-d-turner/
"The Jewel Below" in Flashing Swords
flashingswords.sfreader.com/issues/issue8/vol2-iss8-05.htm
"Happy Landings" in Every Day Fiction
www.everydayfiction.com/happy-landings-by-michael-d-turner/
"Teller of Tales" in Every day Fiction
www.everydayfiction.com/teller-of-tales-by-michael-d-turner/
Read "Silver Shells" In Every Day Fiction
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darkbow
Rabbit lord
Date Joined Oct 2005
Total Posts : 1696
| Posted 3/25/2008 8:21 PM (GMT -5) | | I've played Grand Theft Auto. I love Grand Theft Auto. It would never make me give up reading. But I'm from a different generation, one where reading was placed before me as an option for entertainment long before my dad bought my first Atari 2600.
I think part (just part) of the problem is that everything is so corporatized. Editors can't take a chance on something that isn't "very good," or they won't be an editor too long. I do remember reading a lot of junk in the 70s and early 80s, but ya know what? Even that junk didn't bore me, and there were always the gems that shined through. A lot of the early Mack Bolan books, specifically those by Don Pendleton, were pretty rough reading sometimes, but they kept me entertained.
www.tyjohnston.blogspot.com
http://radiodarkbow.blogspot.com Two songs a day, every day.
"Walking Between the Rain" Every Day Fiction on March 21, 2008
"Beneath a Persian Sun" upcoming in Carnivah House's "Infinity Swords" anthology
"Deep in the Land of the Ice and Snow" in "The Return of the Sword" anthology
"Hot Off the Press" Ray Gun Revival #25, 2007 | | Back to Top | | |
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erazmus
Master
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 4539
| Posted 3/26/2008 3:27 PM (GMT -5) | | You would think that "corporate" thinking you define "good" as "selling well", not "looks pretty, reads well".
I started reading grown up books when I was eight years old, in 1970. That was "The Silent Seven" by 'Maxwell Grant", a Shadow novel then out in paperback-- I had to get permission from my mother to take it out of the library. (I settled that issue the next week, when my father accompanied me to the library and they issued me a card with "Any Book Okay" stamped across the front.) Before I was twelve I had read an awful lot of junk, and some really great writing as well. I'd read Capote's "In Cold Blood" and Tolstoy's "War and Peace" as well as Don Pendleton's Mack Bolan series and Lin Carter's Thongor of Lemuria, John Norman's Gor books (three or four of them anyway), Dray Prescott's scorpio adventures, The berkeley Howard paperbacks, (or was it Zebra?), Ray Chandler, Louis L'Amour, Dash Hammett, John Steinbeck, Jack London, Ambrose Bierce, Poe, and Otis Albert Kline. I read every comicbook marvel published after the creation of the fantastic four and owned most of them.
I read an awful lot of crap, some of which was reviled as crap and some of which was held up to be great lit. I read a lot of things my Mother may not have wanted me to read, certainly I read a lot of things that shocked my teachers. I failed reading in the fifth grade (age nine and some) because I wouldn't sit in a circle and read out loud from a Dick-and-Jane manual (the teacher was senile, which caused a variety of problems for most of the students).
You couldn't have pulled me out of a book with a crane. My taste in reading never really refined, I still read a lot of "junk". How ever you want to define it.
An awful lot of what I read as a kid has disappeared from the bookshelves. We have plenty of books for kids, but nothing a kid would want to read. Not like what I wanted to read.
After all, I didn't want to be a kid. I wanted to be a grown-up. Universally the books I read were about grown-ups. It wasn't until I discovered Heinlien that I read books about kids-- Febuary 9, 1975, I was still twelve and I picked up Pokayne of Mars. (and by June had got through "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", "Starship Troopers" "The Man Who Sold the Moon" and was about to open up "Stranger in a Strange Land", which my mother would really not want me reading at twelve-- her sister gave it to me).
But what is the equivalent today of "A Warrior of Scorpio"? That was a big find for me in '73. Almost as big as the pile of old pulp magazines in my grandmother's storage room. Where do kids find trashy stories today?
Is there any fiction out there my twelve year old self would have wanted to read that my mother wouldn't want him too?
If there is I must have missed it.
Mike
Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com
"Dutchman Rescue"in Continuum SF #6
www.continuumsciencefiction.com/orders.htm
"An Incident at Black Tongue Tavern" in _Bash Down the Door and Slice Open the Badguy_ from Fantasist Enterprises:
www.fantasistent.com/books/anthologies/BASH.php
"Stains" in Tales of the Talisman 3-1 www.zianet.com/hadrosaur/index.html
"Morning Coffee" in Every Day Fiction
www.everydayfiction.com/morning-coffee-by-michael-d-turner/
"The Jewel Below" in Flashing Swords
flashingswords.sfreader.com/issues/issue8/vol2-iss8-05.htm
"Happy Landings" in Every Day Fiction
www.everydayfiction.com/happy-landings-by-michael-d-turner/
"Teller of Tales" in Every day Fiction
www.everydayfiction.com/teller-of-tales-by-michael-d-turner/
Read "Silver Shells" In Every Day Fiction
www.everydayfiction.com/silver-shells-by-michael-d-turner/ | | Back to Top | | |
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darkbow
Rabbit lord
Date Joined Oct 2005
Total Posts : 1696
| Posted 3/26/2008 5:50 PM (GMT -5) | | Ha! TA, I sent out 8 stories last night, 4 of them horror, after browsing Ralan's. I noticed what you noticed.
Another thing I've noticed in the last 30 or so years is the lack of, and maybe the lack of interest in, what I think of as blue-collar fiction. Used to be you would see dock workers and typesetters and guys of the like with a battered paperback stuffed in their back pocket, maybe a Sacketts novel or some McBain or Pendleton or the like. You don't see that nowadays. Reading has nearly become to mean effiminate in some circles, with an underlying current of anti-intellectualism while there's little to no realization that one doesn't have to be an intellectual to read, not that there's necessarily anything wrong with being an intellectual ... or effiminate for that matter.
www.tyjohnston.blogspot.com
http://radiodarkbow.blogspot.com Two songs a day, every day.
"Walking Between the Rain" Every Day Fiction on March 21, 2008
"Beneath a Persian Sun" upcoming in Carnivah House's "Infinity Swords" anthology
"Deep in the Land of the Ice and Snow" in "The Return of the Sword" anthology
"Hot Off the Press" Ray Gun Revival #25, 2007 | | Back to Top | | |
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Jaqhama
Adventurer
Date Joined Oct 2007
Total Posts : 510
| Posted 3/27/2008 8:31 AM (GMT -5) | |
che2000 said...There was also Jubal Cade, Hawk, Claw, The Gringos, The Undertaker and a whole slew of Picadilly cowboy westerns, not to mention endless horror titles by Guy N. Smith and a whole host of Herbert wannabees. And the ongoing Pan Books of Horror which (in my opinion) reached their peak in the 70's and early 80's (which is when I remember reading them). I don't necessarily miss some of the bad writing that was produced during this time, but I do lament the loss of the spirit of adventure and willingness to publish almost any damn thing (as long as it was entertaining) that the period brought. Including (shudder) Eat Them Alive by Pierce Nace - a truly awful book about giant man-eating praying mantises (manti?) that would never, ever stand a hope of seeing print today.
Hey I've got that one. 
(And most of the others you mentioned.)
You can read some of my stories here:
Swamp Story. Down South. Florida Haze.Wild Justice...
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che2000
doc caliban
Date Joined Oct 2006
Total Posts : 496
| Posted 3/28/2008 9:00 AM (GMT -5) | | Yer spot on with the UK location (Derry in NI to be precise) and with the Philip Jose Farmer connection (A Feast Unknown – what a book!!!)
The Piccadilly westerns and the UK horror boom were a strange phenomena - partly explainable (I reckon) by the fact that the BBC started showing the Leone/ Eastwood films and a lot of Hollywood westerns in prime time and showed a hell of a lot of Hammer/ RKO films of a Saturday night during the summer months (t'was a glorious time for an impressionable young man and a lot of my literary and cinematic tastes stem directly from those influences).
This, of course, was back in the days when there were only 3 channels and oft times the choice boiled down to 'like it or lump it' (or indeed go lose yourself in a good book and, boy, did I ever get a shock the first time I read Dracula – where was Peter Cushing’s Van Helsing, where the hell was Christoper Lee’s Count?).
Of course, nostalgia ain't what it used to be, but looking back, one can almost see a certain 'punk aesthetic’ to the whole thing – it didn’t necessarily matter that much of the work was often simplistic and often downright derivative, but rather that it was getting written, getting published and getting onto the shelves of small bookshops, newsagents, even into service stations.
One of the things I particularly love from that period is that it was a time when you could most definitely judge a book by its cover – if there was a giant praying mantis dripping blood on the cover (al a Piece Nace) then you knew exactly what you were letting yourself in for, or if Josiah C. Hedges was glaring out at you, rifle in one hand and cut-throat razor in the other you could be sure that both would be used – frequently and graphically.
There was so much going on in the world of publishing at the time. Apart from the books already mentioned in this thread there was the boom in British comics with stuff like 2000 AD, Action, Starlord, Warlord, Battle, The Victor and endless Commando titles, again, quality and originality were variable quantities but, lord, they were fun!
Maybe it was more of a gold-leaf than golden age, but when you’re young you can’t tell the difference anyway.
"That blackguard Flashman, who never speaks to one without a kick or an oath--"
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Jaqhama
Adventurer
Date Joined Oct 2007
Total Posts : 510
| Posted 3/28/2008 10:35 AM (GMT -5) | |
che2000 said...Yer spot on with the UK location (Derry in NI to be precise) and with the Philip Jose Farmer connection (A Feast Unknown – what a book!!!) The Piccadilly westerns and the UK horror boom were a strange phenomena - partly explainable (I reckon) by the fact that the BBC started showing the Leone/ Eastwood films and a lot of Hollywood westerns in prime time and showed a hell of a lot of Hammer/ RKO films of a Saturday night during the summer months (t'was a glorious time for an impressionable young man and a lot of my literary and cinematic tastes stem directly from those influences).
This, of course, was back in the days when there were only 3 channels and oft times the choice boiled down to 'like it or lump it' (or indeed go lose yourself in a good book and, boy, did I ever get a shock the first time I read Dracula – where was Peter Cushing’s Van Helsing, where the hell was Christoper Lee’s Count?). Of course, nostalgia ain't what it used to be, but looking back, one can almost see a certain 'punk aesthetic’ to the whole thing – it didn’t necessarily matter that much of the work was often simplistic and often downright derivative, but rather that it was getting written, getting published and getting onto the shelves of small bookshops, newsagents, even into service stations. One of the things I particularly love from that period is that it was a time when you could most definitely judge a book by its cover – if there was a giant praying mantis dripping blood on the cover (al a Piece Nace) then you knew exactly what you were letting yourself in for, or if Josiah C. Hedges was glaring out at you, rifle in one hand and cut-throat razor in the other you could be sure that both would be used – frequently and graphically. There was so much going on in the world of publishing at the time. Apart from the books already mentioned in this thread there was the boom in British comics with stuff like 2000 AD, Action, Starlord, Warlord, Battle, The Victor and endless Commando titles, again, quality and originality were variable quantities but, lord, they were fun! Maybe it was more of a gold-leaf than golden age, but when you’re young you can’t tell the difference anyway.
By gawd you're bringing back some memories now mate...
If I recall correctly that was the Wed Night Westerns...10.30pm...the first one being A Fistful of Dollars. Followed each week by the other Dollar westerns and then The Wild Bunch...followed by other violent gunslinger epics.
I pleaded with my Mum for days to be allowed to stay up and watch those movies on a school night. She let me 'an all. Good onya Mum!
Enter the Dragon was at the cinemas, rated X, along with Dirty Harry and Magnum Force. I lied about my age to get in to see them.  Saw all the Hong Kong kung fu movies and the Lone Wolf films too.
Conan the Barbarian was just being released by Marvel comics and all the Planet of the Apes movies were being shown.
Callan and the Sweeney were on TV every weekend.
Ah...lots of good memories there.
Did you ever see a show called Garrison's Guerilla's? WW2 action series.
Loved it as a kid, never seen it since.
You can read some of my stories here:
Swamp Story. Down South. Florida Haze.Wild Justice...
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Jaqhama
Adventurer
Date Joined Oct 2007
Total Posts : 510
| Posted 3/28/2008 10:58 AM (GMT -5) | |
Anthony G Williams said...
I started reading SF books in the late 1950s and did so most intensively when I was a student in the late 1960s. So I would have to admit that nostalgia plays a part in my preference for books of that period. However, I agree entirely with Mike's first post here about the merits of short, fast-paced, pure fun novels (nothing has ever come close to Bester's The Stars My Destination as a wildly inventive, action-packed SF thriller!).
I do try to keep up with more recent work; I'm currently finishing off Simmons' Hyperion omnibus and the sheer quality of the writing and the depth of the imagination are very impressive: but the books aren't very exciting! they're just too long and slow-paced to generate that breathless buzz.
Hey Andrew...I went and read your piece about the length of modern sci-fi novels and I reckon you're dead right mate.
I've been reading Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon series.
500 plus pages each book; which was too much in my opinion.
Plenty of action and plot, but it just becomes too much after a while.
Starts to drag on and on. I just keep thinking FFS stop messing about and go kill the bad guys will you.
I agree that Heinlein, Van Vogt, PJ Farmer, Bradbury etc etc didn't need 500 pages to produce a well written story.
And for anyone who's never read Tully Zetford's Ryder Hook series let me say that in books of about 130 pages Zetford managed to invent the FTL three letter term for Faster Than Light drive. Had cyberpunk electronic enhancements in his characters. Credit cards embedded in the wrist. Boosted Men with augumented powers. Bionic limbs, realistic weapons and a very believable universe for his man Hook to be adventuring in.
All this in what many editors and writers today would class as a sci-fi pulp.
You can read some of my stories here:
Swamp Story. Down South. Florida Haze.Wild Justice...
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Gustavo
Sage
Date Joined Aug 2007
Total Posts : 1312
| Posted 3/28/2008 11:32 AM (GMT -5) | | Have to agree with everything said here about the length of modern sci-fi vs. pulp age at the novel length, although I have to admit that the revival of Space Opera of late has me hopeful. It also seems that "traditional" Sword & Sorcery in which a big barbarian goes through enormous numbers of bad guys with an obscenely proportioned sword has also come and gone.
And yet, I can't help but feel that today seems to be a golden age for heroic fantasy. Robert Jordan (yes, he died, but his series goes on), Raymond Feist, George RR Martin, Terry Goodkind (yes, I know his writing isn't up to par, but millions of people disagree with me), Terry Brooks, David Farland (aka Dave WOlvereton, who used to be a science fiction writer), etc. Seems that we've got huge quantities of choice. And yes, the books are a bit more bloated, but they seem to have found the right balance between literature and action to give us some great stuff.
So maybe things AREN'T all that bad. After all, the old stuff is still available...
Visit my livejournal! http://bondo-ba.livejournal.com/
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che2000
doc caliban
Date Joined Oct 2006
Total Posts : 496
| Posted 3/28/2008 1 |
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