Pulp science fiction before the science fiction pulps.

As some or many of you undoubtedly know, I’ve been doing research on the pulps for a number of years now, for my Encyclopedia of Pulp Heroes (P.S. Publishing, 2013), my The Pulps: A History (2012), and for my chapter in The Oxford Handbook of Science Fiction (2012).

And one of the ways I’ve been doing research is by compiling trope and theme data. Tedious work, to be sure, but once you’ve got it compiled, you can be a data haruspex and find all sorts of interesting facts in the data’s entrails.

To wit:

I looked at 827 science fiction pulp stories: 719 published from 1901-1925 and 108 published 1926-1930. 1925 is the last year before the first science fiction pulp, Amazing Stories, appeared. 1901-1925 isn’t an era that’s given a lot of attention by critics and historians of science fiction; it’s so much easier to skip from Wells to Amazing Stories and Gernsback, even though, as John Clute says in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, “the period of 1895-1926 is considerably more packed than even 1863-95.” I doubt anyone will ever know exactly how many science fiction stories were published in the pulps between 1901 and 1925, not least because many of those pulp issues have not survived. But 719 is a substantial percentage of the whole, so I think the following numbers are reasonably representative.

The 108 stories published 1926-1930 were published in non-science fiction pulps. They are included here to show the reaction to the appearance of Amazing et al.

(I also did the numbers for science fiction in the slicks, in novels, in short story collections, and in movies, but I’ll save those for another entry).

Achievable versus Exotic Invention. By which I mean, somewhat-realistic invention (souped-up airplane engines, long-range radio, high-powered rifles) versus unrealistic invention (ftl spaceships, death rays, etc). Exotic: 1901-1913: 65% of all stories; 1914-1918: 63%; 1919-1925: 66%; 1926-1930: 52%. Achievable: 1901-1913: 3%; 1914-1918: 1%; 1919-1925: 3%; 1926-1930: 3%. (Obviously not every story is going to have an invention, exotic or otherwise). For 1919, which all we’ll see is overall a year of anomalies, there’s no change: Exotic 64%, Achievable 0%. So even before Amazing pulp science fiction concerned itself with fantastic creations. I think the 1926-1930 decline is because authors who wanted to write stories about such inventions began sending their stories to Amazing, Weird Tales, Amazing Stories Quarterly, American Pioneer Tales/Pioneer Tales (which published science fiction), Science Wonder Stories, Air Wonder Stories, and Science Wonder Quarterly, the science fiction pulps of the 1926-1930 years.

Science Fiction Without Our Involvement. By which I mean humans aren’t the cause of science fiction: aliens arrive, science fictional disasters appear, and so on. I compiled these numbers because, generally speaking, the science fiction pulps were about humanity being active and aggressive, whether toward science or aliens or what have you. I thought it’d be interesting to see how many of the pre-Amazing stories were about humanity being passive and objects, rather than being subjects. 1901-1913: 31% of all stories; 1914-1918: 41%; 1919-1925: 34%; 1926-1930: 45%. 1919 had 31%, down from 46% in 1918. I would guess that the increase during WW1 indicates a certain feeling of helplessness on the writer’s part–the world is going to hell and the ordinary person is powerless to do anything about it. But I could be hypothesizing on scant evidence.

Technology is the Point versus Technology is Window Dressing. By which I mean stories in which the new fantastic technology is highlighted in the story versus stories in which the fantastic is of lesser importance than character or realistic events. (Classic example of this era: a scientist invents a death ray, but all that is background to the romance between the reporter and the scientist’s daughter). Technology is the Point: 1901-1913: 58%; 1914-1918: 52%; 1919-1925: 59%; 1926-1930: 48%. Technology is Window Dressing: 1901-1913: 4%; 1914-1918: 4%; 1919-1925: 4%; 1926-1930: 4%. 1919: 58% versus 4%. In retrospect I shouldn’t be surprised at the scarcity of window dressing stories. I think I was misled at how relatively common they were in novels and especially boy’s books and thought it would be similar in the pulps.

Hero, Evil, Mad and Wacky Scientist/Inventor. Self-explanatory, I hope.

  • Hero: 1901-1913: 30% of all stories; 1914-1918: 39%; 1919-1925: 24%; 1926-1930: 42%.
  • Evil: 1901-1913: 6%; 1914-1918: 8%; 1919-1925: 11%; 1926-1930: 12%.
  • Mad: 1901-1913: 11%; 1914-1918: 5%; 1919-1925: 5%; 1926-1930: 4%.
  • Wacky: 1901-1913: 16%; 1914-1918: 10%; 1919-1925: 28%; 1926-1930: 0%.
  • 1919: Hero: 21%, down from 42% in 1918; Evil: 16%, up from 4% in 1918; Mad: 6%, down from 12% in 1918; Wacky: 21%, up from 8% in 1918.

What do I take away from this? 1919 was certainly a reaction to the war years, with science-as-evil almost replacing science-as-good. That reaction diminished in the 1920s but didn’t go away, and scientists and science became much more the province of the goofy, wacky, and nerdy than the heroic. The 1926-1930 numbers are certainly a reaction to the science fiction pulps, with heroic scientists dominating as they did not previously.

Science and Technology used for Evil versus used for Good. By which I mean its predominant intentional use in the story: why was the science or technology created? Was it to help or hurt people? Obviously many stories will be neither, but I wanted to see what the writer’s implicit message about science was, just as the previous category was judging the writer’s implicit message about scientists. Evil: 1901-1913: 9% of all stories; 1914-1918: 7%; 1919-1925: 12%; 1926-1930: 18%. Good: 1901-1913: 9%; 1914-1918: 22%; 1919-1925: 10%; 1926-1930: 17%. 1919: Evil: 15%, up from 12% in 1918. Good: 6%, down from 31% in 1918. I think it safe to say that there was a lot of wish fulfillment going on in stories written during WW1, writers creating stories in which a scientist creates something to make the world better, to end the war, and so on. After Amazing the numbers go up as writers start writing more pulpish, heroic stories about good-versus-evil.

Demographics:

  • Male Protagonist: 1901-1913, 98%; 1914-1918, 95%; 1919-1925, 97%; 1926-1930, 95%. 1919: 99%, up from 92% in 1918. No real surprise there.
  • Female Protagonist: 1901-1913, 1%; 1914-1918, 5%; 1919-1925, 5%; 1926-1930, 7%. 1919: 4%, down from 8% in 1918 (8% in 1920). I suppose I’m not surprised that the numbers of female protagonists were so low in the early years, but I am surprised the numbers increased in the wake of Amazing.
  • Non-Human Protagonist: 1901-1913, 1%; 1914-1918, 1%; 1919-1925, 2%; 1926-1930, 0%. 1919: 4%, up from 0% in 1918 (0% in 1920). I compiled these numbers because I was hoping for a surprisingly high number, but these numbers are predictable.
  • Person of Color Protagonist: 1901-1913, 3%; 1914-1918, 9%; 1919-1925, 3%; 1926-1930, 3%. 1919: 4%, down from 17% in 1917 and 19% in 1918. Surprisingly high numbers 1914-1918 and especially 1917 and 1918.
  • Positive Portrayal of Persons of Color: 1901-1913, 8%; 1914-1918, 9%; 1919-1925, 6%; 1926-1930, 10%. 1919: 4%, down from 9% in 1917 and 8% in 1918 (6% in 1920). For me the surprise is the increase post-Amazing. Probably coincidence, but even so….
  • Women-as-Threat: 1901-1913, 3%; 1914-1918, 2%; 1919-1925, 2%; 1926-1930, 1%. 1919: 6%, up from 0% in 1918 (6% in 1920). Relatively low amount of misogyny.
  • Non-Whites-as-Threat: 1901-1913, 15%; 1914-1918, 18%; 1919-1925, 11%; 1926-1930, 13%. 1919: 6%, down from 12% in 1918 (14% in 1920). An unsurprising amount of racism, I think. The drop in 1919 compared to 1918 and 1920 is a little curious.

Intentions (i.e., for what purpose was the invention created and used?).

  • Solving crimes: 1901-1913, 3%; 1914-1918, 1%; 1919-1925, 2%; 1926-1930, 8%. 1919: 0%. I’d guessed there’d be more science fictional material in mysteries pre-Amazing. I was wrong–it was post-Amazing.
  • Fighting evil: 1901-1913, 2%; 1914-1918, 12%; 1919-1925, 3%; 1926-1930, 3%. 1919: 3%, down from 17% in 1917 and 19% in 1919 (6% in 1920). More wish-fulfillment during the war.
  • Helping only the creator/inventor: 1901-1913, 12%; 1914-1918, 9%; 1919-1925, 9%; 1926-1930: 6%. 1919: 24%, down from 8% in 1918 (17% in 1920).
  • Helping individual others (i.e., the inventor helps out a friend): 1901-1913, 6%; 1914-1918, 1%; 1919-1925, 4%; 1926-1930, 0%. 1919: 1%, up from 0% in 1918 (3% in 1920).
  • Helping society as a whole: 1901-1913, 6%; 1914-1918, 13%; 1919-1925, 5%; 1926-1930, 1%. More wish-fulfillment during the war. I suspect people writing these sorts of stories sent them to Amazing et al. 1926-1930 rather than to the other pulps.
  • Hurting society (“Society hurt me, so now I will harm it! They will all pay!”): 1901-1913, 1%; 1914-1918, 0%; 1919-1925, 5%; 1926-1930, 2%. 1919: 4%, up from 0% in 1918 (8% in 1920). Definite post-war suspicion of science and scientists there, I think.
  • Defeating the US/UK: 1901-1913, 1%; 1914-1918, 0%; 1919-1925, 1%; 1926-1930, 2%. 1919: 3%, up from 0% in 1918 (0% in 1920). Yeah, I know. Makes no sense. But I double-checked my figures. FWIW, this theme does show up in sf films made during WW1, novels, and stories appearing in the slicks.
  • Defeating the Enemies of the US/UK: 1901-1913, 2%; 1914-1918, 6%; 1919-1925, 1%; 1926-1930, 3%. 1919: 1%, down from 8% in 1914, 10% in 1916, and 9% in 1917. (1% in 1919). If anything, I’m surprised this wasn’t more common.
  • Human Experimentation: 1901-1925, 4%; 1914-1918, 1%; 1919-1925, 3%; 1926-1930, 2%. 1919: 6%, up from 4% in 1918.
  • Doing SCIENCE!: 1901-1913: 21%; 1914-1918, 14%; 1919-1925, 31%; 1926-1930, 9%. 1919: 10%, down from 15% in 1918. Perhaps the 1919-1925 numbers indicate that accompanying the post-war suspicion of science was the idea of scientists performing it for objective ends rather than for a greater good–science and scientists becoming increasingly divorced from ordinary human society and morals?
  • For Exploration: 1901-1913: 14%; 1914-1918, 11%; 1919-1925, 7%; 1926-1930, 9%. 1919: 4%, up from 0% in 1918 (0% in 1920). If anything, I’m surprised the numbers aren’t higher.
  • For War: 1901-1913, 7%; 1914-1918, 11%; 1919-1925, 7%; 1926-1930, 10%. 1919: 6%, down from 15% in 1918.

Friendly Aliens versus Hostile Aliens. Friendly: 1901-1913, 5%; 1914-1918, 11%; 1919-1925, 10%; 1926-1930, 12%. 1919: 7%, down from 12% in 1918 (14% in 1920).  Hostile: 1901-1913, 3%; 1914-1918, 5%; 1919-1925, 13%; 1926-1930, 22%. 1919: 4%, down from 15% in 1918 (8% in 1920). Definite knock-on effect from Amazing with the hostile aliens, I think.

Lost Race stories. Included in these numbers are any Lost Race stories which aren’t strictly realistic–I tend toward a broader definition of “science fiction.” 1901-1913, 17%; 1914-1918, 15%; 1919-1925, 10%; 1926-1930, 23%. 1919: 7%, down from 19% in 1918. As best I can tell the post-Amazing surge in Lost Race stories is in the general and adventure pulps–Amazing was monopolizing the more fantastic stories, so the adventure pulps began taking more Lost Race stories to compensate.

Timeframe. (I only realized long after I’d begun that I should have kept numbers for stories set in the past. But I didn’t, so there are some gaps here).

  • Present: 1901-1913, 86%; 1914-1918, 82%; 1919-1925, 81%; 1926-1930, 68%. 1919: 84%, up from 73% in 1917 (75% in 1920). With the rise of Amazing came a move away from stories set in the present, apparently.
  • Near future (which I defined as up to 100 years from the date the story was published): 1901-1913, 7%; 1914-1918, 10%; 1919-1925, 8%; 1926-1930, 20%. 1919: 7%, down from 8% in 1918 (19% in 1920). Again, post-Amazing brings greater interest in stories set in the future.
  • Far future: 1901-1913, 5%; 1914-1918, 7%; 1919-1925, 8%; 1926-1930, 8%. 1919: 7%, down from 19% in 1918 (6% in 1920). Post-Amazing brings greater interest in stories set in the future–but not too far in the future, it seems.

Genre (admittedly, the following is a judgment call, but then, so is a lot of the rest of this).

  • Pure SF: 1901-1913, 41%; 1914-1918, 41%; 1919-1925, 61%; 1926-1930, 55%. 1919: 36%, down from 38% in 1918 (50% in 1920).
  • SF/Detective/Mystery: 1901-1913, 5%; 1914-1918, 5%; 1919-1925, 9%; 1926-1930, 12%. 1919: 7%, up from 4% in 1918 (28% in 1920).
  • SF/Occult Detective: 1901-1913, 5%; 1914-1918, 12%; 1919-1925, 3%; 1926-1930, 3%. 1919: 3%, down from 19% in 1918 (6% in 1920).
  • SF/Adventure: 1901-1913, 32%; 1914-1918, 27%; 1919-1925, 13%; 1926-1930, 18%. 1919: 19%, down from 23% in 1918 (6% in 1920).
  • SF/Other (including horror, romance, sports, railway, etc): 1901-1913, 16%; 1914-1918, 14%; 1919-1925, 12%; 1926-1930, 9%. 1919: 33%, up from 15% in 1918 (11% in 1920).
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