USA: Writers; Science Fiction

National Educational Television and Radio Center · June 26, 1966

So you would not be caught dead reading science fiction? Yet for all you know you may. The difficulty of defining science fiction and the literature included by the term are among the interesting topics that arise in in this episode. A panel of science fiction doyens comprising Anthony Boucher, science fiction writer and anthologist; Theodore Sturgeon, science fiction and fantasy writer; A.E. Van Vogt, science fiction writer; Dr. Bruce Franklin, associate professor of English at Stanford University; and Dr. Paul Saltman, bio-chemist at the University of Southern California, who moderates, discusses this form of literature, what accounts for its popularity, and what its literary value is. Both Sturgeon and Van Vogt have produced several science fiction novels that have been acclaimed as "mainstream" literary works. Both are now working on non-science fiction novels and plays, but they intend to continue in science fiction because of the rewarding freedom, both of style and concept. Boucher, back in the early forties, the Golden Age of science fiction, started perhaps the most successful science fiction magazine, "The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction," and as such was largely responsible for the evolution of science fiction out of the monster school and into the perceptive and often poetic presentation today. Dr. Bruce Franklin has just published a book of literary criticism on science fiction called "Future Perfect." With four science fiction shows included in the upcoming television season [in 1966] (e.g. "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea," "Time Tunnel," "Lost in Space") major science fiction movies currently being produced (e.g. "Fahrenheit 451"), the resurrection of Edgar Rice Burroughs' books and hundreds of new science fiction paperback titles appearing each month, this episode is particularly pertinent and the lively discussion provides insight into that specialized form of fiction which is outside the mainstream, yet highly influenced by the society in which it thrives. USA Writers #6 - Science Fiction is a production of National Educational Television and KCET, Los Angeles. (Description adapted from documents in the NET Microfiche) USA: Writers is part of an assessment of the state of the literary arts in the United States, which concentrates on contemporary prose writers across many genres. The half-hour episodes that comprise the series were originally recorded on videotape.