Pulp magazines that were popular across the USA in the 1930s were a form of entertainment. Science fiction authors such as Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, and Robert Heinlein began writing short stories for these pulp magazines that include Air Wonder Stories, Amazing Stories, Amazing Detective Stories, and Science Fiction Plus.
While science fiction as a literary genre was active during the 1920s, it had been so during the mid-1850s, the concept of futurism was also becoming popular during the 1920s. In the simplest terms, futurism refers to how people view their future concerning the time they live in. It is a form of extrapolation and predicting how the world will be. However, the two common science fiction genres seen in pulp fiction pertained to steampunk and atom punk. A sub-genre of science fiction, steampunk is retrofuturism, and its technologies that are based on the industrial steam-powered machinery developed. Moreover, steampunk is based on Victorian-Era symbols and equipment. People thought that the machines of the future would be operated by several levers and buttons. Imagine the giant mechanical spider in the 1999 movie Wild Wild West (starring Will Smith and Kevin Kline).
Atom punk, on the other hand, is the concept used in science fiction based on how people perceived the future in the 1950s. It was a future where humans will leave with technology including flying cars, androids, and machines, and perhaps Mars will also be colonized. The space race and the space age also influenced the promotion of atom punk. The animated sitcom, The Jetsons (1962) is an example of atompunk where the family is shown to be living in a future world governed by technology. Furthermore, the concept of dieselpunk was also promoted during the 1920s and 1930s when people began imagining how diesel-based technology will impact the world. A magazine called Science and Invention, published in the 1930s talked about futurism. Its editor Hugo Gernsback had a strong influence over the magazine and how the readers of that time loved reading science fiction stories. Hugo was also the editor of the pulp fiction magazine, Amazing Stories. Gernsback was working with Frank Rudolph Paul, who designed some of the memorable covers of science fiction magazines during this time.
Scifiers explores science fiction narratives that enliven our imagination and compel us to think about the “what-ifs” of creative world-building. It is on a mission to discuss ideas about sci-fi in its various forms that keep the genre in a state of continuous expansion.
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