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Xerox University Microfilms 300 North ZM b Rood Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 77-2356 BROCK, Eleanor Evelyn Huebner, 1930- PROJECTED SOCIETIES IN AMERICAN SCIENCE FICTION, 1945-1970.

The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1976 Sociology, general

Xerox University MicrofilmsAnn , Arbor, Michigan 48106

@ 1976

ELEANOR EVELYN HUEBNER BROCK

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PROJECTED SOCIETIES IN AMERICAN SCIENCE FICTION

1945-1970

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for

the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate

School of The Ohio State University

By

Eleanor Evelyn Huebner Brock

The Ohio State University

1976

Reading Committee: Approved By

Alfred C. Clarke Simon Dinitz Russell R. Dynes VITA

September 15, 1930 , . . Born - Chicago, Illinois

1951 ...... A.B., DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana

1962 ...... M.Sc., Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana

196 5-1966 ...... PHS/NIMH Fellow, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

FIELDS OF STUDY

Major Field: Sociology

Studies in Sociology of the Family. Professor Alfred Clarke

Studies in Methods of Social Research. Professors Robert Bullock, Patrick Cleaver, Raymond Sletto

Studies in Minority Relations. Professors James W. VanderZanden, Donald Noel

Minor Field: English Literature TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page VITA ...... ii

Chapter

I. NATURE OF THE RESEARCH ...... 1

Purpose ...... 1 Description of the study ...... 3 Related research ...... 7 H y p o t h e s e s ...... 20 Organization of the remainder of the t h e s i s ...... 29

II. DEFINITIONS AND METHODOLOGY ...... 31

Definition of science fiction...... 31 Universe and sample ...... 34 Comparative d a t a ...... 38 Coding categories ...... 39 Nature and results of reliability check . . 39

III. ANALYSIS OF P R O T A G O N I S T S ...... 43

S e x ...... 44 R a c e ...... 46 E t h n i c i t y ...... 47 O c c u p a t i o n ...... 47 Motivations of major human characters .. . 55 Conception of human nature ...... 58 Physical nature of non-human protagonists ...... 59 Motivations of non-human protagonists .. . 61 S u m m a r y ...... 61 Chapter Page

XV. DESCRIPTION OF INSTITUTIONS IN PROJECTED SOCIETIES ...... 64

Economic systems ...... 66 Political systems ...... 71 Nature of e l i t e s ...... 75 Class structure ...... 78 Family structure ...... 80 Formal education ...... 84 R e l i g i o n ...... 85 S u m m a r y ...... 90

V. SOCIAL PROBLEMS IN PROJECTED SOCIETIES . . . 92

The deadly i s s u e ...... 95 Conflict within societies ...... 98 Economic problems ...... 102 Health problems ...... 106 Overpopulation ...... 108 M o r a l i t y ...... 108 Effects of technology ...... 108 Technological problems ...... Ill Cultural level ...... Ill General nature of problems ...... 112 Basic causes of problems ...... 112 Solutions to problems ...... 113

VI. MAN'S RELATION TO NATURE AND THE UNIVERSE . . 120

VII. SCIENCE AND SOCIAL CHANGE: SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS ...... 127

Critique of the study ...... 127 Summary of d a t a ...... 12 9 Formal hypotheses ...... 131 Can science be controlled? ...... 134 Political control of science ...... 134 Control of science by charismatic elites . 136 Scientific control of social problems arising from the uge jaf science and t e c h n o l o g y ...... 137 Attitudes toward science ...... 137

iv Page

Suggestions for future research ...... 13 9 Predictive value of science fiction .... 140

APPENDIX

I. SCIENCE FICTION CODE B O O K ...... 143

II. S A M P L E ...... 154

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 160

v CHAPTER I

NATURE OF THE RESEARCH

Purpose. The purpose of this study is to contribute

to greater understanding of the ways in which science and

technology may be related to changes in human social struc­

ture. "Science11 is defined as "that classified, codified

information gained by a method of approach to the acquisi­

tion of knowledge about the material world which entails a

logical structure and a material analog for every element

in that structure." Such a definition emphasizes not the content of the information, but rather the way in which it

is obtained. The application of science is defined as technology.^- Understanding was sought through analysis of

^For a more comprehensive definition of the scientific method and the relationship of science to technology, the reader is referred to Carlo L. Lastrucci, The Scientific Approach: Basic Principles of the Scientific Method (Cambridge, Mass.: Schenkman Publishing Company, Inc., 1967), pp. 4-51 and 75-102.

1 2 2 the ways m which science fiction literature depicts such changes.

That science and technology exert a profound influence has been argued by many sociologists. William F. Ogburn proposed that "material culture," or technology, was the major feature in social change. While disagreeing, per­ haps, on the way in which science affects social change,

Hannah Arendt more recently acknowledged the strategic position of applied science in modern society.^ She wrote:

. . . men everywhere are by no means slow to catch and adjust to scientific discoveries and technical developments . . . on the con­ trary, they have outsped them by decades. . . . science has realized and affirmed what men anticipated . . . what had been buried in the highly non-respectable literature of science fiction (to which, unfortunately, nobody yet has paid the attention it deserves as a ve­ hicle of mass sentiments and desires).5

detailed description of the term "science fiction" is presented on page 31 of this study.

^Bernard Barber, "The Sociology of Science," Sociology Today, Robert K, Merton, Leonard Broom and Leonard S. Cottrell, Jr., editors (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1959), p. 220. Barber refers to Ogburn's Social Change (Huebsch, 1922).

4Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: Uni­ versity of Chicago Press, 1958), pp. 248-260.

5Ibid., pp. 2-3. See also related research described on page 7 of this research. 3

Description of the study. For maps to the future, this writer utilized science fiction because by definition such fiction contains a great deal of speculation about the effects of science. The study is an analysis of imaginary

future societies which appear in American science fiction novels first published during the period 1945 to 1970 and issued during this period in paperbound editions.

The choice of fiction as a source of data was based on two assumptions: first, that "what men believe to be true is true in its consequences;" second, that science fiction, as a vehicle of mass sentiments and desires, is reflective of commonly held values and may be predictive of future behavior.

The former assumption was first proposed by W. I.

Thomas and is commonly known as the "self fulfilling pro- phecy." According to his theory, the prophecy is, ini­ tially, a false definition of a situation. When accepted, the definition prompts behavior which brings about the situation described. In essence, the prophecy comes true solely because it was made. The latter assumption is

6W. I. Thomas, "The Relation of Research to the Social Process," in Essays on Research in the Social Sciences (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1931), p. 189. supported by Milton C. Albrecht's analysis of popular maga zine fiction, in which literature was found to reflect, if not necessarily to predict, the values of its readers.^

If one assumes that audience demand creates a market vacuum which is met by increased production, one may take the post World War II increase in the amount of published science fiction as an indicator of awakened public concern over science and technology. The first public indication of the increasing popularity of the genre appeared in 1950 with the inclusion of book review columns— now standard fare— in the major science fiction magazines. The liter­ ary category "science fiction" was first given public recognition in the major bibliography Subject Guide to

Books in Print (New York: R. R. Bowker Co.) in 1951.

Perhaps public complacency was shattered by the devas tation wrought by the atomic explosions over Hiroshima and

Nagasaki:

. . . a weapon right out of science fic­ tion ends World War II and changes the balance of power on Earth. • . . The result was that more people tasted science fiction and found

7Milton c. Albrecht, "Does Literature Reflect Common Values?" American Sociological Review (No. 21, 1956), pp. 272-279. 5

they liked it. As the reading public sud­ denly grew larger, science fiction became "respectable.

Certainly public concern is kept alive today by increasing

awareness of ecological damage caused by technological

advances.

One might speculate about the innovative role of

science fiction. According to Michael Butor,

Let us imagine that a certain number of authors, instead of describing at random and quite rapidly certain more or less interchangeable cities, were to take as the setting of their stories a single city, named and situated with some precision in space and in future time; that each author were to take into account the descriptions given by the others in order to introduce his own new ideas. This city would become a common possession to the same degree as an ancient city that has vanished; grad­ ually, all readers would give its name to the city of their dreams and would model that city in its image. SF, if it could limit and unify itself, would be capable of acquiring over the indi­ vidual imagination a constraining power com­ parable to that of any classical mythology. Soon all authors would be obliged to take this predicted city into account, readers

®Isaac Asimov in Modern Science Fiction: Its Meaning and Its Future, by Reginald Bretnor (New York: Howard- McCann, Inc., 1953), pp. 176-177. 6

would organize their actions in relation to its imminent existence, ultimately they would be obliged to build it.9

Data from the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. suggest that readers are both interested in, and well qualified to undertake the building of, such a model:

. . . reader surveys show the following general data: that the readers are largely young men between twenty and thirty-five, with a scattering of younger college students, and older professional technical men; and that nearly all the readers are technically trained and employed. . , . The nature of the interest in the stories is not economic, not love, but technical-philosophical. . . . The reader, then, is a technically trained, philosophi­ cally inclined, imaginative man between twenty and thirty-five. . . . The circulation is of the order of 150,000; the readership apparently about double that; 300,000 represents a good one third of the young technical personnel of the nation. . . . Repeated studies by psycholo­ gists, economists and others have shown that nearly all the creative work of mankind has been done by young men between the ages of twenty and thirty-five; the older man specializes in executive management of the enterprise created during his younger years . . . . We can say, then, that the magazine is reaching about one third of the men in the most creative age levels who are inter­ ested in technical developments. And this

^"Science Fiction: The Crisis of its Growth," Par­ tisan Review. Fall, 1967, p. 602. 7

culture we live in is based inescapably on technology.^

Assuming that science fiction does, to a certain ex­

tent, at least reflect mass sentiments and desires, the

present writer sought in this fiction indications as to the kinds of uses men might make of science and the effects of

its use.

Related research. In this study, the researcher is particularly indebted to the work of Professor Walter

Hirsch of Purdue University. His pioneering work, "Ameri­ can Science Fiction, 1926-1950: A Content Analysis," and publications resulting from this research provided a con­

ceptual basis and most of the coding categories for this study.^ Hirsch's research represents an important attempt

to "fill part of the gap between the stimulating but im­ pressionistic approach of the humanist and the requirements

10John W. Campbell, Jr. in Bretnor, o£. cit., pp. 21- 22. See also A. Levin and A. Velikovich, "Science Fiction and the Schoolchild," Soviet Review XI (Fall, 1970), pp. 250-257.

^Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, Northwestern University, Department of Sociology, 1957. 8

of reliable knowledge which is the aim of the method of content analysis."12

This study adds to Hirsch's work in three ways:

(1) some of the coding categories are expanded (additions are noted in Chapter II, page 39; with the exception of these additions, categories are those used by Hirsch);

(2) 1950-1970, a time period not covered by Hirsch's earlier research, is covered in this analysis; (3) cate­ gories are applied in this analysis to a different type of universe. Hirsch's work dealt with short stories; this study is confined to novels in the expectation that longer works could more adequately describe social systems. This study is believed to be unique among studies of science fiction novels in that it is based on a carefully drawn random sample. Data are, therefore, expected to be more representative of the fiction than findings based on un­ controlled sampling.

Several provocative, though less systematic, studies of science fiction proved to be of value in the development of this research. In none of the works reviewed on the

12Walter Hirsch, "The Image of the Scientist in Science Fiction: A Content Analysis," The American Jour­ nal of Sociology (Vol. LXIII, No. 5, March, 1958), p. 506. 9 following pages, however, was a representative sampling technique employed, and none of the following authors pre tended familiarity with a specified science fiction uni­ verse. It should be noted, though, that many of these authors can claim expertise as writers, producers and publishers of science fiction films and literature.

Historical perspective was provided by Robert M.

Philmus. He observes that:

Not until the second half of the nineteenth century does one come upon utopias in fiction which depend in some essential respect on scientific theory or hypothetical technology. In the first few decades following the ap­ pearance of Darwin's Origin of the Species (1859), writers of utopian fiction gradually adopt a strategy of projecting utopia as a consequence of the theory of evolution as they understand it.^

In describing science fiction prior to the time of H. G.

Wells, he calls attention to the optimistic futures of earlier authors but generally perceives that "the attitude of these writers toward the changes they envision is not one of uni vocal approval.

l^Into the Unknown: The Evolution of Science Fiction from Francis Godwin to H. G. Wells (Berkley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1970), p. 15.

14Ibid., p. 16. 10

This first period of science fiction is termed "primi

tive."

It was a primitive era because although the concept of science fiction had been born, the economic basis for the support of science- fiction writers did not yet exist. . . . be­ fore any extensive literature can exist, some method must be found for feeding, clothing, and sheltering the practitioners while they create the literature. . . . No large class of science-fiction specialists, such as exists today, could possibly have existed before 1926. The economic basis for it was lacking.^

The optimism of the earliest primitive writers gave way to degrees of despair. Following H. G. Wells,

. . . the great flood of works. . . . appalling in their similarity . . . de­ scribe nightmare states where men are con­ ditioned to obedience, freedom is eliminated, and individuality crushed; where the past is systematically destroyed and men are iso­ lated from nature; where science and technology are employed not to enrich human life, but to maintain the state's surveil­ lance and control of its slave citizens. . • . they have most often been called anti-utopias because they seem a sad, last farewell to man's age-old dream of a planned, ideal, and perfected society.

^5John w. Campbell, Jr. in Bretnor, 0 £. c i t ., p. 168.

16Mark R. Hillegas, The Future as Nightmare; H. G. Wells and the Anti-Utopians (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), p. 3. 11

Not all critics would agree wholeheartedly with this pessimistic evaluation. William Atheling, Jr. cautions that the finest period of American science fiction, which he places during the 1940s, was almost entirely hopeful, although he agrees that "most of the best science-fiction 1 7 writers of the 1960s are markedly down in the mouth."

This researcher must side with the bulk of reviewers who emphasize the non-utopian aspects of societies envisioned by science fiction writers during the past fifty years.18

The post World War II increase in production of science fiction proved to be fertile soil for an explosive growth of critical analyses of the genre. Of these many informative works, only two— selected because they are collections of essays by well known science fiction authors, who might be expected to be particularly sensitive to the

17More Issues at Hand: Critical Studies in Contem­ porary Science Fiction, edited and with an introduction by James Blish (Chicago: Advent Publishers, Inc., 1970), p. 103.

1®Her opinion is based on her unpublished Master's Thesis involving a random sample of 100 novels drawn from a universe of 274 novels first published from 1945 to 1960 as well as on analysis of other critical reviews. This work was presented to the Sociology Department of Purdue University in 1962 under the title. Projected Societies in Post-War American Science Fiction in her former name, Eleanor Evelyn Huebner Smith. 12 field, and because they are fairly representative of criti cal attitudes in general— are described here.

Reginald Bretnor introduces his anthology by calling attention to a shift from an earlier obsession with "gad— getry" to a concern for over-all cultural considerations:

Up to about 1945, science fiction concen­ trated largely on physical science; this, actually, is a far less dangerous field than the field of the human sciences, be­ cause the available forces in the physical field are less powerful. The atomic bomb seems powerful and impressive— but remember that it is merely an expression of human will and thought, that human beings control and direct it. Human thought, not atomic energy, is the most powerful force for either con­ struction or destruction in the known uni­ verse. It is this aspect that science fiction is exploring today— the most dangerous and most magnificent of all terra incognita still lies a half inch back of your own forehead. Naturally, that is the next great area of exploration for science fiction.

Isaac Asimov adds that under the sweeping editorial influence of Hugo Gernsback during the period 1926-1938, an adventure orientation as well as a preoccupation with scientific plausibility dominated the field;

19Bretnor, op. cit., pp. 20-21. 13

Adventure science fiction existed before 1926 and it continued to exist after 1938. The point is that never has it dominated the field as it did between those two da tes. * * # Another kind of science fiction that was important during the Gernsback era was the reverse of adventure science fic­ tion. If the youngsters wanted their blood and thunder they also wanted their science, and so story after story came out in which that stock character, the irascible, eccentric (or even mad) scien­ tist explained his inventions and dis- on coveries in interminable double talk.

In a three point summary of his essay, Asimov observes that:

1. For the first time in history mankind is faced with a rapidly changing society, due to the advent of modern technology. 2. Science fiction is a form of literature that has grown out of that fact. 3. The contribution science fiction can make to society is that of accustoming its readers to the thought of the inevi­ tability of continuing change and the necessity of directing and shaping that change rather than opposing it blindly or blindly permitting it to overwhelm us.^l

20Ibid., pp. 170-171.

21Ibid., pp. 195-196. 14

Gerald Heard assigns a somewhat more apostolic role to science fiction. He notes that "what is called natural theology (i.e., the deduction that there is an all-over meaning from evidence obtained not from history but from 22 science) is unpopular with the religious." In resolving this dilemma, he states:

Professional philosophy isn't going to help here nor is traditional religion. Science itself is too specialized. The job, thank­ less but immensely important, falls to the art which is as fresh and contemporary as the problem— the art of science fiction.22

Arthur c. Clarke makes more extravagant claims for science fiction:

. . . we have in the space-travel story something that may well be unique in litera­ ture— a type of fiction which by its per­ sistence and steady evolution has had a major effect upon the affairs of the world.24

Living up to his cynical posture, Philip Wylie is a bit more restrained in his praise:

22Ibid., p. 264.

22Loc. cit.

24Ibid., p. 198. 15

It will be held here that science fiction potentially can abet human wisdom but that the bulk of the present production has the opposite effect. ^

In concluding this anthology, Bretnor observes:

Science fiction itself is not prophecy. While it creates a multitude of futures for its readers, it does not claim that any one of these is the real future, pre­ destined and inevitable. Out of the data of the past and present, the writer chooses such plausible hypotheses as he requires, extends them logically, and forms the rules by which events in his imaginary future must proceed. When his hypotheses are valid and adequate, when the logic by which they are extended is fairly accurate, there may be some degree of correspondence between the imagined future and the eventual actuality.26

The Science Fiction Novel contains a collection of 27 essays by five science fiction authors. Basil Davenport leads the collection, which deals primarily with science fiction as social criticism, by reporting that "by and large, science fiction has been at its least imaginative

2 , p . 230.

26Ibid.. p. 266.

27Basil Davenport (Chicago: Advent Publishers, Inc., 1959). 16 in inventing alternative societies, especially alternative 2 8 good societies." He is followed by Alfred Bestor, who urges all prospective analysts of this form of fiction to

"deliver" him from any implications of its scientific sig-

2 Q nificance. Albert Block, who bases his essay on a group of fifty science fiction novels, concludes that "science fiction functions as a mirror of our problems and our 30 failure to solve those problems." Cyril Kornbluth bluntly titles his contribution, "The Failure of the 31 Science Fiction Novel as Social Criticism."

Somewhat more encouraging, however, is the dissenting voice of Robert Heinlein:

It is the most alive, the most important, the most useful, the most comprehensive fiction being published today. It is the only fictional medium capable of inter­ preting the changing, head-long rush of modern life.32

28Ibid., p. 13.

2 9Ibid., p. 117.

30 Ibid., p. 155.

31Ibid., p. 160.

32Ibid., p. 53. 17

Turning from critical analyses and descriptive reviews, the energetic and devoted reader can find a small but grow­ ing number of scholarly works which depend upon science fiction for data.

The study of alternative futures has become a legitimate area of scholarship. In the absence of data directly connected with the subject at hand, it seems logical to turn to the literature of science fiction as a source of possible insight into the future. The process of developing science fiction plots often implicitly uses the same methods as nonfiction futurology— the extrapolation of current trends, the systematic survey of expert opinion, and the comparative analysis of the present with the analogous past.

Although numerous writers have long called attention to the social content of science fiction, few social scientists have given it much notice.According to

Mark Hillegas:

. . , unfortunately for the analysts, science fiction is a very large domain (Harvard's

^Dennis Livingston, "Science Fiction Models of Future World Order Systems," Internationa1 Organization (Spring, 1971), p. 255.

^4See for examples: Edward Shanks, "Other Worlds than Ours," The New Statesman (June 14, 1930), pp. 305-306; J. Donald Adams, "Speaking of Books," The New York Times Book Review (September 13, 1953), p. 2. 18

Clarkson Collection contains more than 2000 paperbound books plus every issue of some one hundred magazines)/ and so far no one has had the energy to do more than sample here and there.

Representing additions to the previously mentioned efforts, three studies— involving analysis of single insti­ tutions rather than of whole societies— have appeared within the past five years. Ermine H. Lantero, claiming that science fiction authors of the 'sixties became in­ creasingly interested in theological issues, describes the

"new theology" presented in four science fiction works;^

William F. Kenkel investigates future marriage and family patterns in science fiction; Dennis Livingston assesses political orders found in future societies portrayed in

3^"Science Fiction as a Cultural Phenomenon: A Re- evaluation, " in Science Fiction: The Other Side of Realism by Thomas D. Clareson, editor (Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1971), p. 272.

■^"What is Man? Theological Aspects of Contemporary Science Fiction," Religion in Life (Summer, 1969), pp. 242- 255.

17 t t "Marriage and the Family in Modern Science Fiction," Journal of Marriage and the Family (February, 1969) , pp. 6- 14. 19

science fiction. 38 Their findings are compared to those of

the present writer in Chapter IV of this study.

This writer also profited from studies of Utopias in

general. Some of the concepts used herein were borrowed

from Eugen Weber's "The Anti-Utopia of the Twentieth Cen- 39 tury," Rxchard Gerber’s Utopian Fantasy; A Study of 40 English Utopian Fiction Since the End of the 19th Century,

Glenn Negley and J. Max Patrick's The Quest for Utopia: An

Anthology of Imaginary Societies.4^ Mousheng H. Lin's Anti-

Statismf^ Arthur E. Morgan's Nowhere was Somewhere: How

History Makes Utopias and How Utopias Make History,4^ and 44 Aldous Huxley's Brave New World Revisited.

Specific indebtedness is achnowledged as it occurs within the body of the text. For further related works,

the reader is directed to the Bibliography on page 160.

38pp. cit.. pp. 2 54-2 70.

39rhe South Atlantic Quarterly (Vol. LVIII, No. 3, Summer, 1959), pp. 440-447.

^London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1955.

4lNew York: Henry Schuman, Inc., cop. 1952.

4^New York: Burstein and Chappe, 1941.

4^chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 1946.

44New York: Bantam Books, Inc., 1960. 20

Methodology was based on the techniques described at length in Bernard Berelson's Content Analysis in Communi- 45 cation Research and Ole R. Holsti's Content Analysis for the Social Sciences and Humanities.46 A detailed descrip­ tion of the present writer's use of the method can be found in Chapter II, pages 31 to 43 of this study.

Hypotheses. Hypothetical expectations and their rationales are discussed on the following pages. The ex­ tent to which the literature met the expectations is pre­ sented as the hypotheses arise in the analysis of data.

In developing the following hypotheses, this writer shared with Pitirim Sorokin the belief that we are now in the twilight of our sensate culture. Heavy reliance was placed on Sorokin's summary of his work in a revised one- volume edition of Social and cultural Dynamics.47 This treatise provided a convenient theoretical framework for the present investigation.

45Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, Inc., 1952.

^Philippines: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., cop. 1969.

47 Boston: Porter Sargent Publisher, 1957. 21

1. Women will increasingly be portrayed as major

characters in the fiction (in the sense that they will in­

creasingly be described as playing active roles in the

development of the situations dealt with in the novels).

According to Cornell University political sociologist

Andrew Hacker,

. . . the major change in the family in recent years, and the problems of the future, are both summed up in one word: women, . , . Today, women are involved in much greater ex­ pectations and frustrations. For one thing, 40% of U.S. women are now employed. When a woman is working, she tends to have a new perception of herself. In the past, the role of wife and mother was reinforced by the church and the com­ munity. . . . the reinforcements are no longer there. So women are listening to all the subversive messages.^®

Contemporary events such as "women's liberation" movements and the passage in congress of the Equal Rights Amendment

lend credence to this thesis.

2. Human nature will be characterized as "both good and evil" or as "essentially evil" rather than as "essen­ tially good." As Sorokin phrases it, "man himself, will be made still more debased, sensual and material, stripped of

dfl Time (December 28, 1970), p. 35. 22 anything divine, sacred, and absolute.1,49 A negative image

of mankind has already been observed in the literature by a well known critic of the genre:

. . . science fiction rests fairly solidly on a basis of Scientific Materialism--and the result, inevitably, is a high degree of skep­ ticism about Man's importance, combined, equally inevitably, with a very strong ten­ dency to deride Man's self-importance. . . , In medieval times Man was commonly visu­ alized as being dwarfed against a backdrop of stupendous spiritual or supernatural agen­ cies; yet not dwarfed ultimately, since the Christian religion consistently averred him to be a special creation. From the Renais­ sance onwards that backdrop shrank, or was more and more ignored, with a corresponding gain in stature to the actor in front of it. What science fiction has done, and what makes it egregrious, is to dwarf Man all over again (this time without compensation) against a new great backdrop, that of environment.^

This writer did not find so gloomy a picture of man­ kind in her previous work, nor did Hirsch; a combination of good and evil was the prevailing opinion of authors in both studies. However Hirsch did find human nature to be de­ scribed over the time period 1926-1950 as decreasingly

49Op. cit., p. 699.

50Edmund Crispin, "Science Fiction," Times Literary Supplement (London: October 25, 1963), pp. 865-866. 23

good and increasingly both good and evil.^ The present

writer expected that trend to continue.

3. Political institutions will be characterized by

authoritarian patterns of control. Such patterns were ex­

pected as a response to crises or threat. Sorokin states

that during the decay of the Sensate culture, "Freedom will

become a mere myth for the majority and will be turned into

an unbridled licentiousness by the dominant minority. In­

alienable rights will be alienated; Declarations of Rights

either abolished or used only as beautiful screens for an 52 unadulterated coercion."

Historically, rapid social change has bred economic and social instability which has resulted in the weakening

of democracy. Within pre-Hitler Germany, for example, the middle classes, burdened with economic difficulties, felt

their status to be threatened by a powerful labor movement and large scale capitalism. "Precariously situated in a world that seemed increasingly incomprehensible" and that

51 E. E. H. Smith, op. cit., p. 56.

520p. cit., p. 700. 24

appeared to "swallow them up in a torrent of social change, S3 they viewed the Nazi cause as the road to salvation."

Politics characterized by authoritarianism may be

favorably viewed as necessary in the face of threatening political events. Authoritarianism may be viewed as neces­ sary in order to control the products of science (much as

the charismatic elite appeared to function). It may be unfavorably viewed as stifling individual creativity or as utilizing unnecessarily brutal means of enforcing authority.

In this writer's previous research, the latter view predominated.54

4. A charismatic elite, which could be extraterres­

trial in origin, will appear in the fiction. This writer was led to such an expectation by empirical considerations.

In her previous work she found control of negative effects of science and technology by charismatic powers of humans 55 to be a favored theme, and Hirsch observed the timely

James W. vanderZanden, Sociology: A Systematic Ap­ proach (New York: The Ronald Press Co., 1965), pp. 414-415.

540p. cit., pp. 65-67.

55Eleanor E. H. Smith, Projected Societies in Post- War American Science Fiction, unpublished Masters Thesis, Purdue University, 1961, p. 65. 25 intervention of charismatic aliens in his sample.56 Char­ ismatic elites seemed to function to control a science too dangerous for ordinary man.

5. Ideal family patterns will not be limited to that of universal monogamy. With the removal of the means of production from the home and with effective contraceptive techniques, such an expectation is commonplace. In

Sorokin's words:

The family as a sacred union of husband and wife, of parents and children will continue to disintegrate- Divorces and separations will increase until any profound difference between socially sanctioned marriages and illicit sex—relationship disappears.5^

The future form of family life styles, however, is difficult to envision. This writer anticipated only that greater variability in socially acceptable family struc­ tures would appear in the literature. Should medical tech­ nology succeed in eliminating the biological necessity for heterosexual reproduction of the species, it is not un­ reasonable to hypothesize the disappearance of any semblance

56Op. cit., 1958.

57Op. c i t ., p. 700. 26 50 of the family as we now know it. This writer expected sample authors to oppose strongly any variation from the traditional American ideal.

6. Problems will be viewed as social rather than technological. In times of social crisis such as we have experienced during the recent race riots, the Vietnam war and economic "recession," one might expect creative vision to be directed to problems of social control. If an empir­ ical cognitive belief system is retained, this writer would expect emphasis in the literature on a science of society.

7. The literature will consist largely of valuational reactions to science which might be loosely described as

(1) "religious," in which human impotence is expressed through the ethic of adjustment, and damnation or salvation is assured by "Divine" or "Satanic" intervention; (2) "magi­ cal,” in which human control, human survival and human sal­ vation are assured by "super science."

58such a development is not as unlikely as it may seem. According to Time (April 19, 1971, p. 38), "Man may even­ tually be able to abandon sexual reproduction entirely. . . . Dr. J. B. Gurdon of Britain's Oxford University demonstrated this possibility. . . . Taking an unfertilized egg cell from an African clawed frog, Gurdon destroyed its nucleus by ultraviolet radiation, replacing it with the nucleus of an intestinal cell from a tadpole of the same species. The egg . . . responded by beginning to divide as if it had been normally fertilized." 27

These polarized evaluations of science might be ex­

pected when the efficacy of science is in doubt. The ad­

vent of the atomic bomb and a "thirty-five year war," the

threat of ecological disaster, and the changes in the

family structure which may have left youth with weakened

consciousness of future or past, presage a turn toward

supernatural rather than scientific means for solution of

social problems. The science that fiction writers have known in their lifetimes has not "saved them." According

to Sorokin, science, in the process of its development in

the past fifty years,

. . . has been bringing more and more uncer­ tainty. More and more discrepancies between various hypotheses began to become apparent. Faster and faster the fundamental, basic prin­ ciples and theories began to change and today's generally accepted theory will be found in­ adequate tomorrow and will be replaced by a new order (only new the day after tomorrow), which in turn will be replaced by a "new new" theory, and so on. Such a rapid change robs man more and more of his certitudes. Fac­ tually we are already living in the Age of Incertitude. Nowadays, in any science scarcely a fundamental principle exists concerning the empirical world, as well as the laws of logic, which is uncontested and "universally accepted." If such a situation continues— and em­ piricism, as long as it is dominant, cannot help continuing it, the incertitude will 28

increase. In such circumstances, the truth of senses can easily give way to a truth of faith.59

The former evaluation might be expected when men de­

spair of their position as manipulators of their environ­

ment and when they feel that environment to be threatening.

The latter condition is more to be expected from a nation

of "doers" who have found that an empirical cognitive be­

lief system is failing them.®9 The prestige of rationality

and science is such that relatively few people care to

admit that they believe in magic; nevertheless, they may

use science as if it were magic. "Magic and technology are alike in that both consist of actions designed to produce

some effect in the empirical world.The present writer

anticipated that the greater proportion of writers would

fall into this latter category, but that this proportion would decrease over time.

59Ibid., p. 281.

®°Harry C. Bredemeier and Richard M. Stephenson, The Analysis of Social Systems (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1962), pp. 251-261.

61Ibid., p. 251. A third evaluation of science is, of course, possible that of science as instrumental only. If man is not dis­ illusioned with the potential of science, he will retain his empirical cognitive belief system.

8. Control or solution of problems will be accom­ plished primarily by covert mental or manipulative rather than overt military means. This expectation was based on the assumption that the awesome effects of military weap­ onry would lead authors to view military means as too dangerous to contemplate. Other means, perhaps equally dangerous in the long run, do not immediately lead to phys ical obliteration; thus their use can be modified as unde­ sirable effects are noted.

Organization of the remainder of the thesis. Since the purpose of this study was to find out what men think, rather than to predict what sample authors thought, formal hypotheses are limited in number. The remainder of this study consists primarily of the following descriptions of the data and analysis of the possible significance of the findings. Chapter II outlines the methodology employed in this research and includes detailed definitions of terms 30 used in the study; Chapter III analyzes human and non-human protagonists appearing in the sample novels; Chapter IV analyzes the major institutions described in the fictional societies; Chapter V details social problems confronted in fictional societies and solutions offered to these problems in the fiction; Chapter VI deals with the fictional view of man's relation to nature and the universe; Chapter VII pro­ vides a summary of the role of science and technology in social change and offers suggestions for future research. CHAPTER II

DEFINITIONS AND METHODOLOGY

Definition of science fiction. The term "science fic-

tion" was first coined by Hugo Gernsback in 192 9, 62 since

then a constant battle has been waged over its meaning.

Isaac Asimov— scientist, science fiction writer, and critic

of science fiction— defines the genre as "that branch of

literature which deals with a fictitious society, differing

from our own chiefly in the nature or extent of its techno­

logical development."63 This definition was rejected be­

cause it can be taken to imply limitation of science to the

physical sciences. This writer held that science fiction

"must have liberty to speculate beyond the limits of an

official technology. 1,64

6^Sam Moscowitz, Explorers of the Infinite: Shapers of Science Fiction (Cleveland & New York: The World Pub­ lishing Co., n. d. but introduction dated 1963), p. 11.

63In Bretnor, op. cit., p. 167.

64Ibid., p. 266.

31 32

According to Sam Moscowitz:

An adequate definition of science fiction as it exists can best be phrased: "Science fiction is a branch of fantasy identifiable by the fact that it eases the willing sus­ pension of disbelief on the part of its readers by utilizing an atmosphere of scien­ tific credibility for its imaginative specu­ lations in physical science, space, time, social science, and philosophy.

His definition fails to distinguish between science fiction and fantasy and tends to underplay the role of science.

The inclusion of "philosophy" in the definition overlooks the "plain fact that you do not get science fiction until you have applied science."66

Kingsley Amis defines science fiction as "That class of prose narrative treating of a situation that could not arise in the world we know, but which is hypothesized on the basis of some innovation in science or technology, or pseudo-science or pseudo-technology, whether human or extra­ terrestrial in origin."67 The present writer objects to

650p. cit., p. 11.

66Basil Davenport, Inquiry Into Science Fiction (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., Ltd., 1955), p. 4.

67New Maps of Hell (New York: Ballantine Books, Inc., 1960), p. 18. 33

this definition on the ground that she is dea ling with

human societies only and would prefer to leave extra­

terrestrials out of it.

William Atheling, Jr. (who writes science fiction

under the pseudonym of James Blish) states that "a good

science-fiction story is a story about human beings, with a

human problem, and a human solution, which would not have

happened at all without its science content."68 While this

description has the virtue of brevity, the present writer

prefers to use Reginald Bretnor's more precise and formal

definition:

In the dispute over the best definition of science fiction, Heinlein casts his ballot for Reginald Bretnor's (paraphrased): " (Fiction) in which the author shows aware­ ness of the nature and importance of the human activity known as the scientific method, shows equal awareness of the great body of knowledge already collected through that activity, and takes into account in his stories the effects and possible future effects on human beings of scientific method and scientific fact."69

68 More Issues at Hand: Critical Studies in Contem­ porary Science Fiction (Chicago: Advent Publishers, Inc., 1967), p. 5.

03Damon Knight, Iri Search of Wonder (Chicago: Advent Publishers, Inc.), p. 5. 34

Universe and sample. The inability of bibliographers

to agree on a common definition of science fiction created some difficulty in identification of the universe, as did their occasional efforts to inflate bibliographies with the inclusion of such unlikely works as Gulliver1s Travels,

Kurt Vonnegut's God Bless You Mr. Rosewater (a book dealing with the efforts of an extraordinarily charitable son to give away his father's millions), and Robert Block's Psycho

{a mystery novel which gained some reknown as an Alfred

Hitchcock movie of the same name).

Defining fantasy as "the deliberate presentation of the impossible," 70 the present researcher tried to ex­ clude all such works. She omitted from her sample all novels describing future societies which were, in her best judgment, hypothetically impossible, unreal, or allegorical

{thus Orwell's Animal Farm, in which animals think and act as humuns, was excluded from the universe). Works of magic in which the laws of science and the scientific method as we know them were held to be inoperative were excluded.

Novels dealing exclusively with non-human societies were

70H. Bruce Franklin, Future Perfect (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966), p. 3. Franklin states, "Fantasy views what is by projecting what could not be." 35

excluded. Dream worlds were excluded unless continuity was

established within the context of the dream world and the world of today. In some instances, bibliographic sources distinguished between fantasy and science fiction. These distinctions were cheerfully accepted. In other cases,

this writer found it necessary to refer to the work itself.

In all cases, she would remind the reader that opportunity

for error exists in any attempt to distinguish between fan­ tasy and science fiction.

The universe was limited to novels in the expectation

that longer works would provide more detailed description of imaginary societies, however any distinction between novel and novelette was not rigorously preserved. If a work were described as a novel, it was accepted as such.

Some works which were described as "Utopian novelettes"

(Ray Bradbury's Farenheit 451, for example) were included.

The time period covered by the universe was 1945 to

1970. All paperbound works first copyrighted or published in the United States during this period were included. The universe was limited to paperbound books on the assumption that their (usually) lower price and greater availability are indicative of their greater popular appeal and thus of their "reflective" value. Underlying this assumption is 36

the belief that works are popular because readers are sen­

sitive to values expressed in the works. The content

therefore serves to "reflect" the values of the readers as well as the values of the authors (who respond to audience expectation among other factors) and of the publishers and editors (who select and publish works partly in terms of their own convictions as to the w o r k ’s merits).

Following is a list of the sources on the basis of which the universe was compiled. In all of these sources, books were compiled in terms of their subject matter.

1. Catalogues and booklists sent by the following publishers:

Ace Books Anvil Books Ballantine Books Bantam Books Crest Books Dell First Editions Gold Medal Books Graphic Publishing Company, Inc. Alfred Knopf Lion Library Editions Mercury Books New American Library Pennant Books Pocket Books Popular Library, Inc. Pyramid Books

2. Astounding science fiction magazine book review section. 37

3. Catalogue of Reprints in Series, Robert M. Orton, editor {New York: H, W. Wilson Company), 1945 through 1957.

4. Checklist of Fantastic Literature in Paperbound Books compiled by Bradford M. Day (Denver, New York: Science Fiction and Fantasy Publications, 1965).

5. Cumulative Book Index (New York: H. W. Wilson Company), 1945 through 1969.

6. Fiction Catalogue, Dorothy E. Cook and Estelle A. Fidell, editors, 194 5 through 1957 supplement.

7. Paperbound Books in Print (New York: R. R. Bowker Company), Fall-Winter, 1957 through 1969.

8. Science Fiction Books Published in 1967, Science Fiction Books Published in 1968, Science Fiction Books Published in 1969, by Joanne Burger (Lake Jackson, Texas, Joanne Burger).

Subject Guide to Books in Print (New York: R. R. Bowker Company), 1958.

10. 333, Bibliography of the Science Fantasy Novel, James R. Donahue and Donald M. Grant (Rhode Island: The Grandon Company, 1953).

11. Utopian Fantasy, by Richard Gerber (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1955), appended biblio­ graphy.

The universe consisted of 2,155 titles. From this universe, using a table of random numbers, the researcher drew a sample of 215 titles. Seventy-six authors were

represented in this sample.

A rough estimate of contamination of the universe is available on the basis of how many books had to be dropped 38

from the sample either because they were not science fic­

tion (this includes fantasy) or because they were written

before 194 5. Of the sample of 215 novels, fifty-two were

rejected on these bases. An additional twenty-five books

turned out to be anthologies. Data were gathered from 13 9

novels written by seventy-four authors.

Comparative data. An empirical frame of reference

for the data presented herein is provided by two previous works, both employing methodology identical to that of the present study.

The work of Walter Hirsch, acknowledged on page 7 of this study, differs from this work in that it focused on

the image of the scientist in science fiction; in that short stories, rather than novels, provided the data; and in that it covers the time period 1926 to 1950. This writer's previous research, an unpublished Master's Thesis was offered to the Department of Sociology, Purdue Univer­ sity, in 1962 under the title Projected Societies in Post-

War American Science Fiction. It differs from this study only in that it does not contain data on major characters and in that it is limited to the time period 1945 to 1960. 39

Both these works provide a basis for analyzing trends

in the data, and are cited whenever relevant for compara­

tive purposes in the body of this text.

Coding categories. Coding categories (Appendix I) are

essentially those used by Hirsch.Before adopting his

categories, this writer read a pilot sample of thirty-three

science fiction novels. As a consequence of this reading and of her previous related research, she expanded the

analysis of (1) "Major Human Characters," (2) "Human Social

Problems Indicated," (3) "Nature of the Elite," and

(4) "Family Structure." She also added the categories

"Educational Structure" and "Role of Science and Technology."

Nature and results of reliability check. Four inde­

pendent readers coded ten novels each in order to provide

a test of the validity of the researcher's interpretation 72 of the fiction. Since the readers selected different

novels (only by allowing unrestricted selection of novels was this writer able to persuade anyone to assist in the

71Op. cit., 1957.

7^The investigator is indebted to Steven R. Benkert, Edward B. Kurjack, Karen Gay and Karen Smith for assistance. 40 reliability check), their judgments can be compared only to those of the researcher. Reliability is expressed in per­ cent agreement to the nearest whole percent: thus "90%" means that in ninety percent of the novels read by both the researcher and the reader, reader and researcher were in agreement with respect to that coding category.

Due to difficulty in precise definition of "Major

Human Characters," readers' data could not be compared to those of the researcher. One reader diligently coded any character mentioned several times in a novel as a protago­ nist; another limited analysis almost exclusively to a single hero and a single villain. ^urther problems were encountered in the definition of "Human Social Problems."

Readers were inclined to include individuals' personal problems and alien social problems under this heading.

With these exceptions, all categories were compared (see

Table 1, page 41).

In general, reliability was good, equalling or ex­ ceeding eighty percent for most categories. Among the reasons for failure to achieve this standard in all cate­ gories, the present writer cites the following; (1) care­ less definition of category by the writer, (2) omissions or 41

TABLE 1. AGREEMENT OF READERS AND RESEARCHER

Percent Percent Percent Percent Reader Reader Reader Reade r Category I II III IV

Locale of story 100 100 100 100 Time setting 100 100 100 100 Major non-human charac­ ters 100 100 100 100 Motivation of major human characters 96 89 90 90 Motivation of major non-human characters 90 85 88 88 Causes of problems 100 70 90 100 Basic nature of problems 100 90 100 90 Means for solution of problems 95 84 97 92 Ending of story 100 96 100 100 Conception of human nature 90 97 100 97 Man's relation to nature and universe 87 87 73 93 Actions of human heroes 93 80 73 80 Characterization of non-humans 100 93 100 100 Means-ends relationship 87 100 87 93 Characterization of other societies 100 100 100 100 Views on planned society 92 80 88 88 Views on Utopia 94 91 94 97 Attitude of humans to anti-utopian forces 100 100 90 100 Economic structure 100 73 100 100 Attitude toward economic structure 87 73 80 87 Political structure 100 85 100 90 Attitude toward political structure 87 67 93 100 Nature of elite 87 63 94 91 Attitude toward elite 93 87 97 93 Class structure 100 80 100 100 42

TABLE 1. AGREEMENT OF READERS AND RESEARCHER

Percent Percent Percent Rarcent Reader Reader Reader Reader Category I II in iv

Attitude toward class structure 97 80 93 93 Family structure 100 100 100 100 Attitude toward family structure 100 100 100 100 Religious structure 97 97 100 100 Attitude toward religious structure 100 93 100 100 Educational structure 100 100 100 100 Attitude toward educa­ tional structure 100 100 100 100 Role of science and technology 93 87 87 93

additions on the part of readers or writer (especially with respect to "nature of elite"), and (3) genuine disagreement between readers and writer (in which cases disagreement usually lay in the direction of ambiguity as when this writer codes a religion as "god-centered, transcendental" and a reader codes it "mixed or ambiguous"). CHAPTER III

ANALYSIS OF PROTAGONISTS

Most readers are familiar with Aldous Huxley's famous

science fiction novel Brave New World. Fewer readers are

aware that the title quote concludes with the words, "and with such wondrous people in it." In keeping with the tra

dition of introducing a performance by listing a cast of

characters, this study begins with an analysis of the

"wondrous people" described in the sample.

For purposes of this study, "protagonists" were de­

fined as "any characters having a major influence on the

outcome of the actions described in the novels." Human protagonists were analyzed in terms of sex, race, eth­

nicity, occupation, motivation and authors' conceptions of human nature. Authors' attitudes toward the first five of

these variables were determined by authors' "casting" of characters as heroes or villains. Non-human protagonists were analyzed in terms of their physical nature and their

43 motivations. Authors' attitudes toward non-human charac­ ters were reflected in the motivations of non-humans

("conquest of humans" and "hate," for example, were con­ sidered to be negative attitudes on the part of authors).

Sex. It was anticipated that over time women would play increasingly important active roles; thus it was ex­ pected that authors would display increasing willingness to portray females as protagonists. (See Hypothesis 1 page 21 of this study.) This expectation was not met.

Table 2 indicates, by year, the percent of female protag­ onists appearing in novels published in each of the twenty five years covered in this study. These data yielded a

Kendall tau of .309, which is not significant.

TABLE 2. EXTENT OF ACTIVISM BY SEX OVER TIME

Year 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 Percent - - - 0 -- 12. 5 18

Year 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 Percent 17 0 36 0 18 0 38 24

Year 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 Percent 25 21 24 21 33 3 15 20

Year 1969 Percent 13

Z = .2709, P greater than .20 45

Perhaps the data do not support the expectation because publication dates are often crudely reported in paperbound novels. In several instances the present writer found pre­ vious editions of novels which publishers claimed to be appearing for the first time. Illustrative of this con­ tention is Robert Silverberg's We The Marauders. Belmont

Publications advertised this work as a "first" paperbound publication. While reading We The Marauders, the present writer was alerted to the possibility of misrepresentation of publication date. In her previous studies of science fiction she had read the same novel. She suspects, there­ fore, that any time-bound hypotheses based on content analysis of similar paperbound fiction might be subject to error.

In general, there was no significant difference in authors1 attitudes toward the sexes; of the males, seventy percent were heroes and of the females, sixty-nine percent were heroines. Data presented in Table 3 indicate that at least as far as sample authors are concerned, chivalry is dead. The data also suggest that "it's still a man's world." Of the 577 protagonists, 463 were men; 114, women. 46

TABLE 3. CHARACTERIZATION OF SEXES

Male Female

Number Percent Number Percent

Heroes 274 64 93 62 Villains 154 36 56 38

Chi square = .12, P greater than .10.

Race. Major characters, in keeping with the composi­ tion of the population in the United States today, are pri­ marily Caucasoid. Non-White protagonists account for only twenty-two of the 577 major characters. Less in accord with the contemporary value system is the portrayal of non­ whites as heroes as frequently as Whites (see Table 4).

Authors displayed, in fact, a slight propensity to favor non-Whites. This inclination might be interpreted either as a reflection of White guilt and masochism, as a manifes­ tation of the "noble savage syndrome" (according to which those who are non-White are closer to nature and, therefore, closer to God), or as an indication of anticipation of elimination of social prejudice and discrimination. While speculation is impractical on the basis of such limited 47 data, the present writer still recalls the fleeting impres­ sion she received while reading the fiction that authors occasionally seemed almost to "protest" their innocence.

TABLE 4. CHARACTERIZATION OF RACES

White Non -White

Number Percent Number Percent

Heroes 288 72.5 17 77 Villains 109 27.5 5 23

Chi square = .24, P greater than .10. (The total N pre- sented above is smaller than the total number of protago- nists because authors do not always specify racial back- ground of major characters.)

Ethnicity. In terms of number, Europeans (excluding

Russians) clearly predominate. They constitute the over­ whelming majority (sixty-nine per cent) of the protagonists.

Authors' attitudes, however, do not favor Europeans, who are just as likely to be portrayed as villains as are non-

Europeans as shown in Table 5.

Occupation. Protagonists earned their livelihood in a wide variety of ways as summarized in Table 6. 48

TABLE 5. CHARACTERIZATION OF ETHNIC BACKGROUND

European Non-European

Number Percent Number Percent

Heroes 260 74 16 73 Villains 90 26 6 27

Total N 350 22

Chi square = .40', P greater than .10. (The total N pre- sented above is smaller than the total number of protago- nists because authors do not always specify racial back- ground of major characters.)

TABLE 6. OCCUPATIONS OF MAJOR CHARACTERS

Scientists 98 Political leaders 79 Military leaders 48 Businessmen 46 Artists, writers, etc. 35 Pilots, navigators, etc. 29 Administrators 21 Technicians, engineers 20 Religious leaders 13 Teachers, educators, students 13 Housewives 11 Dependent children 8 Other than predetermined occupations 156

Total N 577 49

As can be seen above, predetermined categories proved

to be inadequate to cover the range of occupations of major

characters. Further analysis of the category "Other than

predetermined occupations" yielded the following informa­

tion in Table 7.

An admittedly crude indication of authors" attitudes

toward various occupations was determined by identifying

the occupations of heroes and villains. Since the number of heroes and villains in some of the predetermined occu­ pational categories was small, this writer collapsed cate­ gories before further analysis. Her selection of combina­ tions in Table 8 was guided by the presence of common qualities in the categories combined. Students, teachers, artists and writers were combined because their efforts entail creativity, self-expression and self development; technicians, engineers, pilots and navigators were com­ bined because their activities consist primarily of fol­ lowing the directives of scientists; children and house­ wives were combined because they are dependent on others for their livelihood; administrators and political leaders were combined because they are engaged largely in control­ ling the activities of others. Data are presented in the

following "streamlined" rank order of "occupational virtue." 50

TABLE 7. FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION OF OTHER THAN PREDETERMINED OCCUPATIONS

Laborer, handyman 18 Nonspecified 18 Policeman, bodyguard, private detective 15 Spy, government agent, revolutionary terrorist 12 Combination of predetermined occupations 9 Criminal 8 File clerk, sales clerk, secretary 7 Advertising agent, propagandist, public relations expert 5 Mistress, girl friend, kept woman 5 Spaceman, adventurer, explorer 5 Telepath, mutant 5 Hunter 4 Lawyer 4 Sports professional 4 Gambler 3 Independently wealthy person 3 Son of political leader 3 Tourist 3 Unemployed person 3 Carnival freak 2 Conservationist, forest ranger 2 Fisherman, sailor 2 Nurse 2 Sanitary engineer 2 Stewardess 2 Union leader 2 Weaver 2 Census taker 1 Diplomat 1 Fireman 1 Human computer 1 Lumberjack 1 Slave 1

Total N 156 51

TABLE 8. RANK ORDER OF OCCUPATIONAL PRESTIGE

Heroes Villains Total No. Heroes & Occupation Rank % No. % No. Villains

Teachers, students, artists, writers 1 92 44 8 4 48 Technicians, engi­ neers, pilots, navigators 2 90 44 10 5 49 Scientists 3 85 83 15 15 98 Religious leaders 4 77 10 23 3 13 Children, house­ wives 5 68 13 32 6 19 Other than prede­ termined categories 6 67 105 33 51 156 Businessmen 7 .5 54 25 46 21 46 Military leaders 7 . 5 54 26 46 22 48 Political leaders and administrators 9 52 52 48 48 100

Total N 577

Chi square =56.93, P less than .001

As might be expected in science fiction, scientists predominate, followed closely by politicians, military leaders and businessmen. It is interesting to note, how­ ever, that scientists appeared as protagonists in only fifty-eight of the 139 novels in this sample. Hirsch ob­ served in his work a declining trend from 1926 to 1950 in the proportion of scientists among major characters. He 52 stated, "durj-ng the first . . . period, the proportion of heroes who were scientists was 44 percent, but only 24 per­ cent during the postwar period, . . . Among the villains the scientists declined from 39 to 30 percent of the total. 1,73

Scientists were also strongly favored in both samples.

Though the proportion of heroes who are scientists in the present study is smaller than that in Hirsch's work, it is, nevertheless, greater than that of any other occupation.

TABLE 9. AUTHORS' CHARACTERIZATION OF SCIENTISTS AND NON-SCIENTISTS IN SCIENCE FICTION

Heroes Villains

Scientists 83 15 Non-scientists 319 160

Total N 402 175

Chi square = 12.58, P less than .001

The prestige granted other occupations by sample authors is less understandable. Their prominent position

73"The Image of the Scientist in Science Fiction," op. cit., pp. 308-309. is not found in Hirsch's work nor in the opinion of the general public. Table 10 shows the prestige ranking of various top-ranked occupations in the United States in 1947 and 1963.

TABLE 10. HOW AMERICANS RATE THE PRESTIGE OF OCCUPATIONS, 1947 AND 1963

Occupation 1963 1947 U. S. Supreme Court Justice 1 1 Physician 2 2 Nuclear physicist 3 18 Scientist 3 7 State governor 5 2 Government scientist 5 10 Cabinet member 7 4 U. S. Congressman 7 7 College professor 7 7 Chemist 10 18 Lawyer 10 18 Diplomat 10 4 Dentist 13 18 Architect 13 18 County judge 13 13 Psychologist 16 28 Director, large corporation 16 18 Mayor, large city 16 6 Minister 16 13 Department head, state government 20 13 Airline pilot 20 24 Priest 20 18 Civil engineer 20 23 Banker 24 10 Biologist 24 28

Source: National Observer, May 18, 1964. Data from the National Opinion Research Center. 54

The relatively villainous status assigned in the fic­

tion to military leaders and political leaders is not sur­

prising in view of the international political climate of

the years following World War II and the relatively young

(draft) age of science fiction readers. It is difficult to muster support for war when old wounds have not yet healed.

The human tendency to recall pleasant events is such that

* older men might be expected to recount to their children tales of the glamour and heroism of war. Children might be expected to dismiss war stories as belonging to an irrele­ vant time and generation. Not so, however, when brothers,

friends and schoolmates return with fresh scars and recent memories.

Sample writers also evince suspicion of businessmen.

Comparing their evaluation with public opinion (Table 10), one observes that post-world War II affluence failed to in­ crease public respect for businessmen. While directors of large corporations rose two ranks, bankers dropped fourteen ranks. Hirsch found a similarly negative view of business­ men and politicians. He concluded that among villains,

"Businessmen are . . . followed closely by politicians and 55

criminals. Evidently the businessman is the bete noire of

science fiction."7^

Motivations of major human characters. Science fic­

tion has frequently been criticized for its failure to concern itself with the psychological development of char­ acters. According to Martin Green:

It is universally agreed that the people one meets in even the best of these stories are unconvincing and uninteresting by comparison with quite a low grade of conventional fic­ tion; they are neither freshly observed nor deeply explored nor carefully selected; they are often pulp-magazine puppets, and badly manipulated at that.75

The present writer concurs. Not only did she find characterization to be generally shallow, but she {and reliability readers) were surprised at the ease with which the motivations of major human characters (summarized by novel in Table 11) could be categorized and coded.

cit., "The Image of the Scientist in Science Fiction," p. 309. Additional data on authors* attitudes toward various occupations can be found in Chapter IV of this study under the heading "Nature of elites."

75Kenyon Review (August, 1963), p. 722. 56

The foregoing criticism should not be taken to mean that all science fiction can be so described, nor that science fiction is necessarily weak in this respect.

Green notes that:

The anthologists . . . maintain that science fiction cannot offer interesting characteri­ zation because that would over-involve the reader in the individual character and dis­ tract his attention from the species or experiment which is the main subject. This argument I find unconvincing. D

He cites a novelist well known for his rich characteriza­ tion:

Lawrence in some sense cancels the characters out as individuals; as he said, he was inter­ ested in the element, the carbon, not the individual diamond; and this could surely be the manifesto of the science fiction writer.77

Approval or disapproval of particular motivations was assumed to be indicated by the frequency with which authors assigned them to heroes or villains. Data are presented in

Table 11 and hold no great surprises. As might be expected, heroes are motivated primarily by desire to protect others.

76Loc. cit.

77Loc. cit. 57

TABLE 11. MOTIVATIONS OF HUMAN PROTAGONISTS

Total Number of Novels in which Motivation is Assigned to He­ Motivation Heroes Villains roes and Villains

Protection of others, sense of duty 100 6 106 Power over others 9 74 83 Love and affection (personal) 70 10 80 Ideology (i.e., further ance of democracy) 53 19 72 Wealth 23 45 68 Protection of self, immediate family 57 10 67 Status, prestige 17 42 59 Knowledge (as end in itself) 35 5 40 Adventure 36 4 40 Fear 23 15 38 Hate, vengeance (personal) 9 16 25 Escape 12 3 15 Lunacy 4 4 Apathy 1 2 3 Desire for longevity 2 1 3 Artistic dedication 2 2 Preservation of youth and beauty, vanity 2 2 Guilt 1 1 Homesickness 1 1 Lust (sexual) 1 1 Personal freedom 1 1

Chi square = 2 70.93, P less than .001. 58

a sense of duty, love for other individuals, and need to

protect self and immediate family; villains are motivated

by desire to gain power over others, longing for wealth,

and need for admiration. Ideological concerns rank fourth

in the motivations of both heroes and villains and are

assigned largely on the basis of the content of the ide­

ology. Heroes are seen to favor altruistic ideologies;

villains, to favor selfish ideologies.

Conception of human nature. On the basis of her pre­

vious work and that of Walter Hirsch (see Hypothesis 2 on

page 21 of this study), this writer had expected to find

human nature to be characterized as "both good and evil" or

"essentially evil" rather than "essentially good." It is

so described, but "essentially good" novels outnumber

"essentially evil" novels and the difference between this writer's past and present research (covering the time periods 1945 to 1960 and 1960 to 1970, respectively) is

not in the predicted direction. Man is still perceived by

the bulk of sample authors to be a combination of good and evil (see Table 12).

Comparison of this writer's past (1945-1959) and pre­ sent data (1960-1969) revealed man to be significantly more 59

TABLE 12. AUTHORS' EVALUATIONS OF MANKIND: 1945-1969; 1960-1969; 1945-1959

Present Sample Past Sample

Subsample

Evaluation 1945-1969 1960-1969 1945-1959

Essentially Good 45 34 13 Essentially Evil 3 3 1 Both Good and Evil 91 66 36

Total Novels 139 103 50

Comparing Good and Both Good and Evil in 1960-1969 to that in 1945-1959, Chi square = .85, P greater than .80.

rational than previously, in the majority of the novels in her past sample, humans are seen to be primarily "irra­ tional;11 in the present sample, humans are primarily de- 78 scribed as "both rational and irrational." (See Table 13.)

Physical nature of non-human protagonists. To our present knowledge, no non-human, symbolizing beings exist; it may therefore be assumed that authors would encounter some difficulty in imagining such creatures. As Table 14 illustrates, very few authors tried to envision any but man-like and animal-like species.

78E. E. H. Smith, op. cit., p. 56. 60

TABLE 13. RATIONALITY OP MANKIND: 1945-1969; 1960-1969; 1945-1959

Present Sample Past Sample

Subsample

1945-1969 1960-1969 1945-1959

Essentially Rational 24 19 4 Essentially Irrational 18 12 26 Both Rational and Irrational 97 72 20

Total Novels 139 103 50

Chi square = 29.87, P less than .001.

TABLE 14. PHYSICAL NATURE OF NON-HUMAN PROTAGONISTS

Description Number of Novels

Man-like 42 Animal-like 32 Disembodied force 7 Machine-like 7 Vegetable-like 3 Other: Unspecified physical appearance 5 Bacteria 1 Mineral 1

Total 98

Note: The total number of novels presented above is less than the total number of novels in the sample because not all novels portrayed non-human protagonists. 61

Motivation of non-human protagonists. In their de­

scriptions of both the physical nature and the motivations

of non-humans, authors tend to be anthropomorphic. They generally portray non-humans as being motivated either by desire to control humans (for a variety of reasons) or to protect humans. Data, presented in Table 15, were seen by

this writer to reflect the authors' (very human) fear of

the unknown as well as a certain ambivalence toward the unknown.

Findings regarding the general nature of non-humans are such that they are described as "anthropomorphic (pos­

sessing human emotions)" in fifty-three novels; "alien

(essentially non—human)" in seventeen novels. Characteri­

zation was unclear or absent in twenty novels.

Summary. Among tomorrow's human protagonists there are generally (1) more men than women, (2) more Whites than

non-Whites, (3) more Americans and Europeans than non-

Europeans (including Russians as non-Europeans) and

(4) more heroes than villains (a function, perhaps, of authors' tendency to refer to villains as a group and to heroes as individuals). Motivations assigned most fre­ quently to heroes are (1) protection of others and sense 62

TABLE 15. MOTIVATIONS OF NON-HUMAN PROTAGONISTS

Number of Novels in Which Non-humans Motivation Are so Motivated

Protection of humans 27 Conquest of humans 26 Self defense against humans or fear of humans 21 Knowledge (disinterested) 10 Hate (personal or instinctive). revenge 10 Other: Cooperation with humans to mutual benefit 11 Personal survival 5 Love and altruism 5 Motivation not specified 4 Territorial expansion and missionary zeal 4 Greed 3 Need for human labor 3 Conquest of other non-humans 2 Hunger 2 Ideology 2 Adventure 1 Amusement 1 Creativity 1 Lunacy 1

of duty, (2) love and affection (personal), (3) protection of self and immediate family, and (4) ideology. Motiva­ tions most frequently assigned to villains are (1) power over others, (2) wealth, (3) status and prestige, and

(4) ideology. There is no significant difference in 63 authors' evaluations of men and women, Europeans and non-

Europeans, or Whites and non-Whites. Favored occupations, as determined by proportion of heroes in each occupation, are (1) teachers, students, artists, writers; (2) techni­ cians, engineers, pilots, navigators; (3) scientists. Note that proportion of heroes in each occupation is calculated as a percent of the total number of individuals i.n that occupation— not as a percent of the total number of heroes in the sample. Villains are disproportionately represented among politicians, military leaders and businessmen.

Non-human protagonists are usually described as man­ like or animal-like in appearance and human in their emo­ tions and motivations. Authors' assignment of motivations to non-human beings indicates ambivalence toward them. In general, non-humans are portrayed anthropomorphically.

Apparently we search through the universe for others and find only ourselves. CHAPTER IV

DESCRIPTION OF INSTITUTIONS

IN PROJECTED SOCIETIES

Attempts to construct credible images of fictional societies require above average scientific knowledge and thorough understanding of the principles of social organi­ zation. It is not surprising, therefore, that most sample authors were content to evoke future worlds which, in one critic's opinion,

. . . might just as well be located in 1975 as in 19750. . . . the authors, since they renounce constructing systematically, can describe only in a rudimentary fashion and depart only slightly from banality.7^

Confronted with an infinity of variously sketched futures, all independent of one another and generally con­ tradictory, the present writer undertook to analyze fic­ tional societies in terms of their economic systems, their

79Michael Butor, oja. cit.. pp. 600-601.

64 6 5 modes of political control, the nature of their elites, their class structures, their family structures, their edu­ cational structures and their religious structures. In only nineteen novels were all institutions mentioned, and nine of these were placed within 100 years of the present.

Although other modes of analysis might have been uti­ lized, this modified version of Bennett and Turnin's ap­ proach was selected because of its simplicity and clarity and the ease with which it could be applied to the data at 80 hand. Use of this pattern of classification allowed limited comparison of findings with those of the present writer's previous research and those found in the work of

Q 1 Walter Hirsch. Justification for the use of functional analysis is presented in Alvin Boskoff's article, "Func­ tional Analysis as a Source of a Theoretical Repertory and 82 Research Tasks in the Study of Social Change."

®°John Bennett and Melvin M. Tumin, Social Life: Struc­ ture and Function (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1948) , p. 168. Alternative schemes of classification can be found in Kingsley Davis' Human Society (New York: Macmillan Co., 1949), pp. 28-31, and in Working Papers in the Theory of Action by Talcott Parsons, R. F. Bales and E. A. ShiIs CNew York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 111., Inc., 1953).

81Works previously cited. See page 39 of this study.

®^In Explorations in Social Change, George K. Zollschan and W. Hirsch (New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1964), pp. 213-243. 66

Economic systems. Laissez faire capitalism is more frequently observed and more favorably described in the fiction than is centralized socialism or communism; never­ theless, authors' approval is qualified. In thirty-eight of seventy-seven novels, authors view capitalism with ambiv­ alence or disfavor; in seven of thirty novels, centralized socialism and communism are favorably viewed. Data are summarized in Table 16.

TABLE 16. AUTHORS' ATTITUDES TOWARD ECONOMIC SYSTEMS IN IMAGINARY SOCIETIES

Socialism and Capitalism Communism

Favorable 39 7 Unfavorable 7 13 Ambivalent 31 10

Chi square * 17.44, P less than .001.

Comparison of authors' attitudes toward economic sys­ tems in this investigator's present and previous samples indicates a trend in favor of centralized socialism and communism as shown in Table 17, Table 18. Authors favored sixty-four percent of the capitalistic societies in the previous sample while they favor only forty-three percent 67

TABLE 17. TREND IN AUTHORS' ATTITUDES TOWARD CAPITALISM: 1945-1959; 1960-1969

Attitude in Attitude in 1945-1959 1960-1969

Favorable 14 23 Unfavorable 3 5 Ambivalent 5 25

Chi square = 3.69, P less than .20.

TABLE 18. TREND IN AUTHORS' ATTITUDES TOWARD COMMUNISM AND SOCIALISM: 1945-1959; 1960-1969

Attitude in Attitude in 1945-1959 1960-1969

Favorable 2 7 Unfavorable 9 9 Ambivalent 2 10

Chi square = 3.56 , P less than .20.

of the capitalistic societies in the present sample during the period 1960-1969. Fifteen percent of the centralized socialistic and communistic societies were favored by authors in the past sample; twenty-seven percent, in the present sample. Capitalistic societies have also decreased in proportion, falling from sixty-three percent of the past 68 sample to seventy-two percent of the present sample in the decade of the 'sixties.

Although the differences are not significant, these findings are in accord with the overall trend in the United

States foreign policy toward socialist and communist coun­ tries since the end of the Korean war and are in keeping with public opinion in the United States today. Time magazine noted in an editorial that "Daniel Yankelovich, the attitude researcher, reported with some astonishment over a year ago that 93% of Americans . . . express their willingness 'to make personal sacrifices, if necessary, to preserve the free enterprise system.' . . . Against that

93% . . . Yankelovich put the more familiar finding that only about 30% of the people have confidence in business leadership.1,83

Time paraphrases sociologist Daniel Bell as saying:

Capitalists have lost faith in their enter­ prise and are very listless about defending it. Capitalism's very success has created a paradox: hard work, discipline and orga­ nization make capitalism successful. But

83February 9, 1976, p. 79. 69

the goods it abundantly produces encourage a mindless pursuit of hedonism.®^

Max Weber links abundance to the political system:

. . . growing demands on culture, in turn, are determined, though to a varying extent, by the growing wealth of the most influential strata in the state. To this extent increas­ ing bureaucratization is a function of the increasing possession of goods used for con­ sumption, and of an increasingly sophisticated technique of fashioning external life— a tech­ nique which corresponds to the opportunities provided by such wealth. This reacts upon the standard of living and makes for an increasing subjective indispensability of organized, col­ lective, interlocal, and thus bureaucratic, provision for the most varied wants, which previously were either unknown, or were satis­ fied locally or by a private economy.®^

Weber's thesis is examined in this study on page 72.

This writer received the impression that, much as in the modern world, goods and services exchanged hands in imaginary societies primarily by means of direct exchange and redistribution. Money seemed to be the most common medium of exchange, but barter was not unknown,

®^Ibid., p. K12, in a review of The Cultural Contra­ dictions of Capitalism by Daniel Bell (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1976).

®5From Max Weber, H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, translators (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958), p. 212. 70

particularly in societies which were reemerging after past

cataclysm or among worlds on the fringes of expanding em­

pires within which a money economy prevailed.

Typical of a barter economy is that found in Lee

Hoffman's Telepower. He envisions a future in which "rats

and soldiers— the two great evils in the world— according

to the storytellers a long time ago both had destroyed the 06 world." With the technology and civilization of the past

largely lost to them, humans survived in isolated, self-

sufficient cities which were surrounded by mean, telepathic

rats. The cities were protected from the rats by barri­

cades and cordons of soldiers. Only small groups of wan­

dering merchants ventured to cross the rat-infested lands between the cities. Their infrequent visits were occasions

to barter and trade, and provided a frail communications network among cities.

Since money serves to widen the market for the goods and services that one wishes to obtain or dispose of, its predominance is to be expected in the (usually) highly in­ dustrialized societies described by sample authors.

®^New York: Belmont Books, 1967, p. 83. Political systems. It was hypothesized that political institutions in science fiction would be primarily authori­ tarian in structure. (See Hypothesis 3, page 23 of this study.) With authoritarianism characterizing forty-nine percent of the sample societies, democracy characterizing forty-four percent, and anarchy characterizing the re­ maining seven percent, data failed to provide significant support for this expectation.

TABLE 19. POLITICAL SYSTEMS IN FICTIONAL SOCIETIES: 1945-1969

Political System

Author's Attitude Democratic Authoritarian Anarchy

Favorable 39 11 1 Unfavorable 1 42 5 Ambivalent 20 13 4

Chi square = 63.46, P less than .001

In addition, although the difference is not signifi­ cant, a tendency toward decline in the incidence of author- ianism is suggested by comparison with this writer's pre­ vious data as reflected in Table 20.

While democracy is clearly favored by authors in both the present and past samples, data indicate a significant TABLE 20. TRENDS IN POLITICAL SYSTEMS IN FICTIONAL SOCIETIES: 1945-1959; 1960-1969

Type of Political System 1945-1959 1960-1969

Democratic 20 40 Authoritarian 35 51 Anarchy 6 5

Chi square - 2.04, P less than .50.

decline in authors' approval of democracy. Attitudes toward authoritarianism remain unchanged. Data appear in Tables

21 and 22.

TABLE 21. AUTHORS' ATTITUDES TOWARD AUTHORITARIANISM: 1945-1959; 1960-1969

Authors' Attitudes 1945-1959 1960-1969

Favorable 4 7 Unfavorable 24 34 Ambivalent 7 10

Chi square = .10, P greater than .99.

Max Weber described the probable future of the politi­ cal scene in the United States as follows:

The United States still bears the character of a polity which, at least in the technical sense, is not fully bureaucratized. But the 73

TABLE 22. AUTHORS' ATTITUDES TOWARD EMOCRACY: 1945-1959; 1960-1969

Authors' Attitudes 1945-1959 1960-1969

Favorable 17 23 Unfavorable 0 0 Ambivalent 3 17

Chi square - 4.55, P less than .05.

greater the zones of friction with the out­ side and the more urgent the needs for ad­ ministrative unity at home become, the more this character is inevitably and gradually giving way formally to the bureaucratic structure. . . . Among purely political factors, the increasing demand of a society, accustomed to absolute pacification, for order and protection in all fields exerts an especially persevering influence in the direction of bureaucratization.

Data support his expectations in that authoritarianism is the most prevalent form of government and democracy has declined in favor among sample authors. Data contradict his expectations in that democracy has increased in proportion.

In addition to the recorded data, this writer gained a general impression of a trend in fictional political

87 O p . cit., pp. 211-213. 74

systems toward what she mentally cataloged "Galactic

Godawfuls." This expansion of political systems was also

observed by Donald A. Wollheira, who wrote:

. . . an incredible percentage of science fiction thrillers will settle for nothing less than the fate of the entire world, or some other planet, or the Galactic Empire, or the whole of mankind, or even occasionally the entire universe. . . . this type of cosmos-spanning novel came into full bloom only after the end of World War II.®®

The nature of these expanded polities is more pre

cisely described by Dennis Livingston:

When some attention is paid to social systems or governmental affairs in science fiction, many authors model their societies on ab­ stractions of historical political systems reshuffled whole-cloth into the future. Science fiction's favorite models include the Roman Empire (often copied for Galactic civilizations), feudal Western Europe (the model for primitive or post-nuclear worlds), the federal United states, and Stalin's Soviet Russia. . . . Science fiction authors seem to have a predilection for creating stories set in totalitarian dictatorships.®9

QQ The Universe Makers: Science Fiction Today (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1971), pp. 48-49.

a q O p . cit., p. 267. 75

Nature of elites. For purposes of this study, "elites" were defined as "those groups thought to be superior by members of their society." Table 23 presents fictional elites in rank order according to the number of novels in which they appear.

TABLE 23. AUTHORS' ATTITUDES TOWARD ELITES: 1945-1969

Percent Percent Percent Number Attitude Attitude Attitude Elite of Novels Favorable Unfavorable Ambiguous

Political 76 17 34 49 Scientific 64 70 0 30 Military 52 31 31 38 Business 46 29 31 40 Charismatic 37 78 8 14 Engineering 29 72 3 24 Religious 5 0 40 60 Labor 4 50 0 50 Artistic 3 100 0 0 Teaching 3 67 33 0 Administrative 2 0 0 100 Journalistic 1 100 0 0

Authors’ attitudes can be seen to parallel closely their attitudes toward occupations o f protagonists (see page 51 of this study); however attitudes towards elites display some significant changes when the period 1960 through 1969 of the present research is compared to this writer's previous research. Data are presented in Table 24. 76

TABLE 24. AUTHORS' ATTITUDES TOWARD FIVE MOST FREQUENTLY MENTIONED ELITES: 1945--1959; 1960- 1969

Total Percent Percent Percent Number of Favorable Unfavorable Ambiguous Novels

Type Of 194 5- 1960 - 1945- 1960- 1945- 1960- 1945- 1960- Elite 1959 1969 1959 1969 1959 1969 1959 1969

Political 21 18 29 37 50 45 14 56 Scientific 89 70 0 0 11 30 9 46 Business 29 28 29 31 43 42 7 36 Military 23 32 54 32 23 35 13 31 Charismatic 68 68 14 8 18 24 22 25

Attitudes toward politicians show a significant de­ cline in prestige. (Chi square = 4.62r P less than .10.)

This decline is compatible with political events of the late 'sixties.

Scientists, still the most favored elite in both samples, have also lost in favor (chi square, 11.08; P less than .001) . This difference could reflect either recession of the inflated prestige granted scientists after World War

II or a trend toward genuine disillusionment with scientists.

The third-ranked military elite has gained in favor

(chi square, 9.60; P less than .01), largely as a result of a shift from unfavorable to ambiguous attitudes on the 77 part of the authors* This change was somewhat unexpected in view of the public attitude toward the Vietnamese war, but might be explained in terms of public concern for law and order, characteristic of the United States during this period.

Attitudes toward businessmen remain essentially un­ changed and basically neutral. The bulk of the authors in both samples are ambivalent toward businessmen.

The charismatic elite was so named because its members possess "natural" or "biological" powers which are not now known to be among demonstrable human abilities. Among these powers were included such talents as mental tele­ pathy, telekinetic skills, ability to anticipate the future, etc. Due to a decrease in the percentage of authors un­ favorably inclined, the charismatic elite has gained slightly in favor (chi square, 2.48; P less than .30).

Within the political realm, the charismatic elite seemed to function in both samples in an advisory rather than an active, decision-making capacity. So far as sample authors were concerned, it was not a ruling elite.

"Neither logically nor empirically does it follow that a group with a high degree of influence over one scope will 78 necessarily have a high degree of influence over another 90 scope within the same system." Charismatic powers were frequently seen to be the results of natural evolutionary forces, results which all mankind could eventually expect to enjoy. This interpretation of the political function of the charismatic elite is, it should be pointed out, impressionistic. It may mask the potential for political power that such an elite holds.

This writer had hypothesized the presence of a charis­ matic elite in the fiction. (See hypothesis 4, page 24 of this study.) It is found among the five most frequently mentioned elites in both samples but is markedly less pre­ valent in the present sample.

Among the five most frequently mentioned elites, the rank order of favor remains the same with scientists first and politicians last. Apparently politicians have replaced businessmen as the betes noires of Hirsch's earlier sample.

Class structure. Stratification systems were cate­ gorized on a continuum as being either (1) "caste-like,"

90Robert A. Dahl, "A Critique of the Ruling Elite Model," Sociology; The Progress of a Decade, Smelser, op. cit., p. 43 5. 79 in which there is little social mobility and magicalized social distance between classes; (2) "class-like," in which there is a high degree of social mobility and relatively little social distance between classes; or (3) "feudal," which falls between the two and allows for greater social mobility than does the caste system- The latter category was retained in order to enable comparison with Hirsch's research. Data, summarized in Table 25, indicate that authors cherish the ideal of full opportunity for talent in employment and generally oppose caste-like and feudal orders.

TABLE 25. ATTITUDES TOWARD CLASS SYSTEMS

Caste Feudal Class

Percent favorable 10 12 74 Percent unfavorable 52 35 1 Percent ambiguous 38 53 25

Total N (100%) 21 17 87

Comparison of the period 1960-1969 in the present sample with previous data revealed only one statistically significant change; authors' attitudes toward class-like stratification systems appear to be more favorable (largely 80

as a result of resolution of ambiguity). This trend could

be interpreted as a reflection of changed public opinion

in favor of civil rights in the United States during this

period.

Family structure. For purposes of analysis, the

family institution was described in terms of (1) family

structure, (2) authority patterns within the family, and

(3) mate selection patterns. Analysis of the family was hampered by authors' general lack of reference to family

life and is, therefore, impressionistic rather than

statistical.

Greater variability in family structure was hypothe­

sized on page 2 5 of this study but, as Table 26 illustrates,

it was not found. Note that no distinction was made among non—monogamous family structures in this writer's previous research.

In both samples {Table 2 7), authors clearly favor monogamy (chi square, .13? P greater than .50).

The present writer is at a loss to expla in the pre­ ponderance of patriarchy in the present sample and the favor with which it is viewed. Differences between present 81

TABLE 26. FAMILY STRUCTURES IN IMAGINARY SOCIETIES: 1945-1959; 1960-1969; 1945-1960

Present Present Previous Research Research Research (Subsample) (Total)

1945-1959 1960-1969 1945-1969

Monogamy 37 78 104

Polyandry — 5 7 Polygyny — 2 5 Group marriage - 0 2 Concubinage - 4 7

Promiscuity — 6 8 Sequential marriage - 3 4 Trial marriage — 0 1 Marriage by contract for specified period of time — 0 1

Tota1 non-monogamous marriage 9 20 35

Comparing the incidence of monogamous to non-monogamous societies, chi square = .01, P greater than .99.

TABLE 27. AUTHORS' ATTITUDES TOWARD MONOGAMY: 1945-1959; 1960-1969; 1945-1969

Present Present Previous Research Research Research (Subsample) (Total)

Author's Attitude 1945-1959 1960-1969 1945-1969

Monogamy favorable 30 61 81 Monogamy unfavorable or ambiguous 7 17 23 Non-monogamous favorable 0 1 4 Non-monogamous unfavorable or ambiguous 9 19 31 82

and past attitudes are probably a function of sample size.

Data for both samples are summarized in Table 28.

TABLE 28. AUTHORS' ATTITUDES TOWARD PATTERNS OF FAMILY AUTHORITY: 1945-1959; 1960-1969; 1945-1969

Present Present Previous Research Research Research (Subsample) (Total)

Author's Attitude 1945-1959 1960-1969 1945-1969

Patriarchy favorable 2 40 57 Patriarchy unfavorable 0 2 3 Patriarchy ambiguous 2 6 7 Matriarchy favorable 0 1 3 Matriarchy unfavorable 0 3 7 Filiarchy favorable 0 0 0 Filiarchy unfavorable 0 0 0 Filiarchy ambiguous 0 0 3 Democracy favorable 7 11 19 Democracy unfavorable 0 1 2 Democracy ambiguous 3 3 4

Relationships between the sexes in the fiction re­

semble those in the United States today: ambivalent to

amicable. Patriarchy is idealized by sample authors and

accepted by members of sample societies. As Kingsley Amis

points out in New Maps of Hell:

It is remarkable . . . how rarely the sinis­ ter developments forseen include sex. Amid the most elabrate technological innovations, the most outre political or economic shifts. 83

involving changes in the general conduct of life as extreme as the gulf dividing us from the Middle Ages, man and woman, husband and wife, lover and mistress go on doing their stuff in the mid-twentieth century way with a kind of brutish imperturbability— assuming that the full biological complement of sexes is maintained. ^

In one sample novel, the "full biological complement" is not maintained. Poul Anderson describes a matriarchal society in which men do not exist. Reproduction is accom­ plished by parthenogenesis, and social life is structured along feudal lines. With the arrival of a male to their planet, however, the feuding ladies eventually cooperate long enough to assist him back to Earth to recruit male

QO colonists.

Patterns of mate selection, summarized in Table 29, follow those of the United States today and the modern in­ dustrialized world in general. Data with respect to authors' attitudes toward these patterns are too limited to permit any but the generalization that consent is the preferred mode of securing a mate.

91pp. c it., p. 99.

^ Virgin Planet (Galaxy Publishing Corporation, 1960) . 84

* TABLE 2 9. PATTERNS OF MATE SELECTION • 1945-1970

A u t h o r 's Author's Author's Attitude Attitude Attitude Favorable Unfavorable Ambiguous

Capture 6 3 2 Consent 53 1 7 Arrangement: Purchase 0 1 1 Genetic control 2 1 6 Other 2 3 4

Formal education Dearth of data precluded any but the most superficial interpretation: authors appeared to be largely ambivalent about the institution with a slight tendency to favor it. Education is acquired primarily in

"school" (fifty-three of seventy- one cases); the curriculum is mostly skill-oriented (forty-six of ninety-four cases); relationships between teachers and students are largely

formal (fifty-seven of sixty-one cases); formal education is, in the main, limited to children. Authors' attitudes toward educational patterns are outlined in Table 30. In general, it can be seen that the man of tomorrow "goes to school," acquires a skill-oriented training, and departs to ply his trade in the universe. 85

TABLE 30. AUTHORS’ ATTITUDES TOWARD EDUCATIONAL PATTERNS

Author's Attitude

Favor­ Unfavor­ Ambiva­ Pattern able able lent

Where acquired: Home 2 0 5 On the j ob 3 0 2 School 13 3 43 Curriculum: Skill oriented 12 2 32 Value oriented 2 3 18 Personality oriented 6 1 18 Teacher-student relationships: Formal 8 2 47 Informal 1 1 2 Extent of education: Children only 10 2 34 Continuous throughout life 4 0 7

Religion. The institution of religion, like that of education, received almost no notice in the fiction. This writer had conjectured that humans would turn to religion in the face of unsolvable problems created by science and technology. They did not (see Table 31).

Neglect of religion in science fiction has been ob­ served by other researchers. Erminie Huntress Lantero comments in "What is Man? Theological Aspects of Contem­ porary Science Fiction," that "Usually, of course, it is 86

TABLE 31. AUTHORS' ATTITUDES TOWARD RELIGION: 1945 to 1970

Author's Attitude

Favor­ Unfavor­ Ambiva­ able able lent

God-centered: transcendental 6 9 12 Man-centered: secularized 5 1 7 Mixed or unclear 1 1 9 Ritual formal: unemotional 6 1 17 Ritual orgiastic 0 4 4 Mixed 1 0 6

93 simply ignored." She also noted that "SF attitudes toward organized religion vary widely.This writer would agree with Lantero's statement. Favorable attitudes were found in twenty-four percent of the novels in this sample, unfavorable attitudes in twenty-two percent and ambivalent attitudes in fifty-four percent. Comparison of authors' attitudes in this writer's present sample during the period 1960 to 1970 and her previous sample, however, reveals a significant loss in favor toward re­ ligion over time (chi square =6.13, P less than .05) and

^Erminie Huntress Lantero, "What is Man? Theological Aspects of Contemporary Science Fiction," Religion in Life, Summer, 1969, pp. 242-255.

94Loc. cit. 87 a particular dislike for orgiastic-religious ritual in both samples.

If science fiction reflects the social situation in which it is created, one would expect to find in it evi­ dence of what Harvey Cox called the "sacralization of the secular.

The major thrust of modern religious thought is toward the reinterpretation of religious faith and its symbolism to bring them into some kind of harmony with twentieth-century science and the economic and political con­ ditions of the twentieth-century world .... Religious action systems in the twentieth- century context increasingly emphasize action within the present world.

In contradiction to this expectation, religious institu­ tions in the fiction are seen to be predominantly God- centered (chi square = 11.85; P less than .01) and data suggest a trend toward transcendental religion (chi square

=2.73; P less than .10). These religious attitudes are summarized in Table 32.

95The Secular City (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1965).

^Elizabeth Nottingham, Religion: A Sociological view (New York: Random House, 1971), p. 42. 88

TABLE 32. AUTHORS' ATTITUDES TOWARD RELIGION: 1945-1959; 1960-1969

Author's Attitude Author's Attitude 1945-1959 1960-1969

Favor- Unfavor- Ambiva- Favor- Unfavor- Ambiva* able able lent able able lent

God- centered 10 Man- centered 5 4 0 2 0 7 Mixed 0 0 0 1 1 1 Ritual formal 0 12 Ritual orgiastic 0 3 1 0 3 4 Mixed 0 1 1 0 0 2

With such ambivalence toward, and general neglect of, religion, it would appear that "the God who set the clocks to ticking" is an "anomaly in his own universe," Symbolic renunciation of the sacred can be seen in Isle of the Dead by Roger Zelazny. This sample novel depicts a hero who assists his "god" to win a feud with another "god." After victory, the hero rejects his "god" because the "god" had

"used" him in resolving the feud.9^

Another sample author calls upon the reader to make a choice between sacred and secular approaches to the universe

97New York: Ace Books, Inc., 1969. 89

QQ by providing two endings for her story. ° In the first or

"good" (according to the author) ending, humanity forgets

the "Church of the Voice" and employs super technology to create a happy anarchy. In the "other" ending, believers

in the "Church of the Voice" use technology to destroy the non-believers and "make Earth safe for the Godly. . . .

And Blake reigned 900 years and begat 4000 sons and daugh— 99 ters who reigned after him. Amen."

Expression of one author's sentiment toward the loss of God is seen in a dialogue between two major characters:

"You can't help yourself. We had it once--that help of which all of us stand in need— and we lost it somewhere. There's no way to get it back. ..." "There may be a way. . . . There is an equation from a long forgotten planet . . ." "No way. . . . There was never more than one way and now it doesn't work. . . . We have been abandoned," the ghastly whisper said. "God has turned his back on us."

"Kate Wilhelm, Let the Fire Fall (New York: Lancer Books, Inc., 1969).

" i b i d ., p. 285.

100ciiffOrd Simak, Why Call Them Back From Heaven? (New York: Ace Books, Inc., 1967), p. 191. 90

Summary. Laisaez faire capitalism is the preferred mode of economy and characterizes about two thirds of the

future societies described in the fiction. Authoritarian politics control people in the greater proportion of to­ morrow's societies and are generally disliked. Among the elites in future societies, politicians are the most fre­ quently found and the least frequently favored. Next most common are scientific elites (highly favored) followed by economic and military elites (toward whom authors are generally neutral). Open class systems are anticipated and favored by sample authors. Tomorrow's families are portrayed as monogamous, patriarchal, and based upon con­ sent. Authors favor them that way. Education is presumed to be obtained in school in a formal setting where children learn skills. Attitudes toward the educational institution range from ambivalent to favorable. Religious institutions described in the fiction are primarily God-centered in theology and formal in ritual. Authors are ambivalent about the church in general and hostile toward orgiastic religious services.

The analysis suffered severly from lack of data.

Forty novels failed to describe the economy, twenty-six 91

overlooked the political institution, class structure was

absent in twenty-six novels, the nature of the elites could

not be inferred in eleven novels, the family was not de­

scribed in twenty—two novels, and education and religion— conspicuous by their absence— were not mentioned in seventy and eighty-five novels, respectively. CHAPTER V

SOCIAL PROBLEMS IN PROJECTED SOCIETIES

Authors may seem to be generally unimaginative in

their descriptions of social institutions in fictional

societies, but they are singularly adept at predicting

social problems. Robert Block observed that in science

fiction "the future holds little basic change," but kindly

adds, "it is not easy for man to play God and go Him one

better by creating a world of utter perfection." The ways in which imaginary societies fall short of utter per­

fection are indicated in Table 33, which lists in rank

order of frequency of occurence the types of social pro­

blems anticipated by sample authors.

One should note, at this point, that some of the cate­ gories in this table overlap. "Unemployment," for instance, may be an "effect of technology," as it is in Philip Dick's

10^0p. cit., in Basil Davenport's The Science Fiction Nove1, p. 146.

92 93 novel Galactic Pothealer, in which a museum artist who re­ stores broken pottery works himself out of a job by re­ pairing all the remaining pottery on an Earth which had turned exclusively to plastic and metal alloys for its artifacts. Problems were coded under all categories which seemed appropriate.

TABLE 33. SOCIAL PROBLEMS IN PROJECTED SOCIETIES: 1945-1970

Number of Novels in Type of Problem which Problem Occurs

War {international, interplanetary) 79 Economic (poverty, unemployment. surfeit) 53 Civil rights (political oppression) 37 Class and political conflict within nation, civil war 36 Physical health 32 Overpopulation 26 Morality 24 Mental health 20 Effects of technology 19 Technological (malfunction of gadgetry 17 Racial or religious conflict 16 Cultural level (uses of leisure time. the arts) 11 Intellectual freedom of scientists 7

Data were not directly comparable to those in the pre sent writer's previous work due to absence or combination 94

of some categories, but comparison of the ranks of remaining

categories was possible and is presented in Table 34. Anal­

ysis revealed no significaht difference in the ranks.

TABLE 34. RANK ORDER OF SOCIAL PROBLEMS: 1945-1959; 1960-1969

Rank

Type of Problem 1945-1959 1960-1969

War (international, interplanetary 1 1 Economic (poverty, unemployment, surfeit) 4 2 Civil rights (political oppression) 2 3 Class and political conflict within nation, civil war 3 4 Physical health 5 5 Morality 6 6 Mental health 8 7 Racial and religious conflict 10 8 Cultural level (uses of leisure time, the arts) 7 9 Intellectual freedom of scientists 9 10

rs = .90 Level of significance less than .01

For purposes of this study, "social problem" was de­

fined as "any social phenomenon which creates objective

suffering for a significant proportion of a population, which is perceived as problematic by a significant propor­

tion of that population, and which is thought to be capable 95 of solution." The following paragraphs provide detailed discussion of problem categories, the causes of problems, and the means for solution of problems. Endings of the novels are retained to indicate authors' expectations re­ garding solution of problems.

The deadly issue. Is war (including "cold war") a social problem? Not according to one sociologist:

. . . war as a social institution is compatible with the prevailing theory of social order in the West. War, then, in the institutional sense is not a social problem.

Arguing that a "state-war" theory of society leads to equa­ tion of soldier and policeman as guardians of the peace,

Schneider suggests that "enduring social order is envisaged as an effect of the reasonable application of force and violence.

The attainment of perpetual peace would require a revolution of civilization and would take more with it than European man

Joseph Schneider, "Is War a Social Problem?" Con­ flict Resolution (Vol. Ill, No. 4, Dec., 1959), pp. 353- 3 54.

103Ibid., p. 358. 96

is, perhaps, prepared to give up in the near and forseeable future. That man, as Thorstein Veblen was disposed to say, is an incurable patriot and addicted to the principle of political self- determination or freedom. Life without these things is not worth living.104

Science fiction author Robert Moore Williams also denies the problematic nature of the institution of war, but his denial is based on a conflict theory of social progress. His characters speak:

"... the human race is divided against itself. Historically this has been going on since remote times. War after war after war." Zen said, "We tried to avoid them. God knows we tried." Emphasis crept into his voice. "I did not say these were errors. Colonel," West replied. "I merely said they were history. . . . I am making the point that war seems to be the way the entity, the human race as a whole, evolves. The method of evolution revealed by history is the pitting of one part of the entity against another part, then letting them fight it out to see which is the more efficient. ..." "This is a savage philosophy. ..." "But that is a short term view and one which does not take into consideration all the factors in the social equation. What is the purpose back of this savagery, if

104Ibid.. p. 353. 97

it is not to force men to learn and to grow? What if this savagery is also the result of ignorance, of an entity trying desperately to learn how to solve a pro­ blem but never quite succeeding?"105

Problem or not, tomorrow's "wondrous people" continue

to battle and, primarily, to win. Table 35 shows the inci­ dence of various types of wars and their probable solution as indicated by happy and unhappy endings. Note that civil war has been included in this analysis as well as under the heading "class and political conflict within nation," and that some "previous wars" are included under "effects of technology." No previous war was included unless it was seen to have an effect on events as they take place in the novels in question.

In all novels in this sample, war is depicted by authors as a social problem which is to be avoided or won if humanity is to survive. The general absence of "aliens" among the enemy and the allies suggests an interpretation of war as reflective of current political conditions, par­ ticularly since one expects to find aliens among the enemy or allies as part of the dramatic situation in science

fiction.

l°5Robert Moore Williams, Doomsday Eve (New York: Ace Books, Inc., 1957), pp. 83-84. 98

TABLE 35. TYPES OF WARS IN FUTURE SOCIETIES

Ending of Novel Number of Novels in Nature of War which War Occurs Happy Unhappy

Human against human nation 24 20 4 Human against alien nation 20 17 3 "Cold war" among na­ tions including impending human- alien war 24 22 2 Human and alien on one or both sides 6 6 0 Civil war within human nation 11 9 2 Human aftermath of pre­ vious war 11 9 2

Conflict within societies. Under this rubric are in­ cluded the categories of "class and political conflict within nation including civil war," "civil rights (politi­ cal oppression)," "racial or religious conflict," and

"intellectual freedom of scientists." These types of con­ flict were found in seventy-three novels (some of which contained more than one type). Conflicts were further ana­ lyzed and are presented in rank order of frequency of occurence (Table 36) under all categories which seemed appropriate. 99

TABLE 36. TYPES OF CONFLICT WITHIN NATIONS IN FUTURE SOCIETIES

Number of Novels in Nature of Conflict Which Conflict Occurs

Civil rights, general oppression 26 Economic and political conflict 22 Racial conflict (including con­ flict with mutants or biological deviants) 18 General conflict of unspecified nature 10 Sexual conflict 4 Religious conflict 3 Rural-urban conflict 3 Intellectual freedom of scientists 3 Intergenerational conflict 2 Conflict between occupational groups 1 Conflict between kinship groups 1

Dominating all other forms of conflict is that of

citizen versus State. Authors' anticipation of centrali­

zation of political authority and its increasing encroach­ ment into spheres of activity usually presumed to be private

is in keeping with sociological theory; their perception of

it as problematic is understandable among writers condi­ tioned to Democracy as a form of government; their fear of

it is reflected in their unfavorable attitudes toward

(1) politicians (among whom are a higher proportion of villains than any other occupation), (2) political elites 100

(least favored of the elites mentioned), and (3) authori­ tarian political systems.

Problems such as conflict between "hawkish" military groups and "dove-like" peace factions, between international cartels and national economic enterprises, between "big business" and entrepreneurs emerge in fictional societies second only to political oppression. Such problems abound in our society today, where they frequently entail a loss of civil rights and are, like third-ranked racial problems, generally thought to be amenable to political rather than military, solution.

Racial problems are usually defined in terms of re­ pression of distinctive racial types rather than domination by them. To the long list of racial minorities, science fiction adds a new group: the "mutants." Mutants are generally portrayed as suffering at the hands of dominant

"normals" or as cooperating with dominant normals in bringing about a better society for all. As previously noted in this study, mutants' "difference" is usually de­ fined as the consequence of natural evolutionary progress, which will eventually enfold all mankind, or as the result of some cataclysm (atomic war, etc.) over which they had 101

no control. Rarely are mutants portrayed as villains, and

as a group mutants are deemed more to be pitied than cen­

sured. Civil rights remains a pervasive theme in authors'

treatment of racial problems.

Authors were not preoccupied with the battle of the

sexes; nevertheless, they did not allow it to go unnoticed.

Shades of "Macbeth," "Lysistrata," and the Amazons are found

in the fiction, of which perhaps the most interesting

example is Poul Anderson's Virgin Planet.T r u e to their

evaluation of authority systems within the family, authors usually view masculine domination to be the happy outcome

of such conflict.

When it appears, religious conflict is more frequently

seen to be a contest between groups of sacred and secular

orientation rather than between groups of differing reli­ gious faiths. Rural-urban conflict occasionally is found within some of the societies which have failed to urbanize

completely.

1 0 6 O P . cit. This writer first read Virgin Planet in the early fifties, since when she has reread it twice (it appeared in both her samples) and digested brief versions of it in several other studies of science fiction. 102

Of the remaining types of conflict, aged-youth contro­ versy was of particular interest to the present writer.

According to John Lofland, "the dimension of age is be­ coming, or will become, a source of conflict as great as

that between southerner and northerner, capitalist and worker, immigrant and 'native stock,' suffragette and male, white and Negro."107

Two sample authors anticipate his prediction. In

Ellen Wobig's The Youth Monopoly, the hero risks a jail sentence when he offers aid to an old man struck by a truck

in a youth-dominated autocracy.108 In William E. Barrett's

Fools of Time, the introduction of a "youth serum" presages conflict because the aged could be expected to block youth

in a struggle for full access to wealth and power.108

Neither novel has a happy ending.

Economic problems. The varieties of economic woe pre­ sented in Table 37 appear in fifty-three novels. On the

i07"The New Segregation: A Perspective on Age Cate­ gories in America," in Youth and Sociology, Peter K. Manning and Marcello Truzzi, editors (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1972), pp. 238-256.

108New York: Ace Books, Inc., 1968.

108New York: Pocket Books, Inc., 1964. 103

basis of proportion of happy endings, one would conclude

that authors are less optimistic about the solution of

economic problems than of military problems (chi square =

3.85; P less than .05).

TABLE 37. ECONOMIC PROBLEMS IN FUTURE SOCIETIES

Number of Novels Ending of Novel in which Problem Type of Problem Occurs Happy Unhappy

Poverty, relative depri­ vation 23 16 7 Unemployment 11 5 6 Undesirable working con­ ditions, overwork 8 3 5 Job monotony 7 4 3 "Big business" exploita­ tion of other nations or threatening national security 5 4 1 Surfeit 2 2 0 Technological under­ employment 2 2 0 Unspecified 2 2 0 Trade imbalance 2 2 0 Unethical competition among monopolies 1 1 0 "Single crop" dependence 1 0 1 Bankruptcy 1 0 1 Labor unrest 1 1 0 Theft 1 1 0 Conflict between "big business" and entre­ preneurs 1 1 0 Unethical advertising 1 1 0 Unwise investment 1 0 1 Shoddy merchandise 1 0 1 104

Poverty is the most prevalent economic problem in

future societies, where it appears to be reasonably amen­ able to solution. Authors are less likely to anticipate an excess of riches. Hand in hand with poverty are un­ employment and undesirable working conditions. (Exceptions include novels in which unemployment is due to technologi­ cal development, in which case it may be associated with comfort or surfeit.) The latter condition was found in a novel describing a spaceship which was largely self­ maintained. "Routine jobs were too few and too simple to keep them out of mischief," the author comments. "It would have been better if the planners . . . had left out a few refinements. . . . Hard working people are happy people* "HO

Surfeit, problematic in two novels, is solved by the cre­ ation of a costly war in one and is resolved in the other when the hero succeeds in alerting a peace-loving, apa­ thetic, unprogressive society to danger of extinction.

Problems involving "big business" are of several types: monopolies may compete with each other to the detriment of the society; international cartels may operate

HOj. T. McIntosh, 200 Years to Christmas (New York: Ace Books, Inc., 1961), p. 21. 105 in a fashion which is not compatible with national interest or may seek to exploit colonies or other independent planets; big business may collaborate with other non­ economic groups to the disadvantage of the public; big business may squeeze out competition or engage in false advertising to ensure its continued domination of the market.

"Single crop" dependence and possible bankruptcy are both found in the same novel. War, in this novel, had been a way of life for so long that:

. . . the thawing of cold war, the easing of tensions, the talk of peace . . . was disturbing the American economy . . . Ameri­ can prosperity and well-being rested upon the foundation of war-fear. . . . The Russian economy, too, was tied to war materials, but it was a controlled economy and there was a great shortage of consumer goods. If world pressure for peace ever reached the point of armament control, the transition would be easier in the Soviet Union than in the United States.m

An additional threat faced both nations with the invention of a youth serum:

113-William E. Barrett, op. cit., pp. 140-141. 106

Executives of the great insurance companies were concerned. . . . they had commitments to pension plans. . . . what would happen if the hordes of people becoming eligible for social security could look forward to . . 11? remaining on it indefmitely?x

Crime, an established variety of economic problem,

assumes near catastrophic proportions for world economy when people learn teleportation. Bank vaults are no longer

safer business and homes are threatened; manufacturers of

burglar alarm systems are stymied. The problem eases, how­

ever, as the limits of ability to teleport become known

and new safeguards are established.

In general, economic problems involving big business,

poverty and job monotony are more likely to be viewed by

sample authors as potentially solvable while problems of

unemployment and undesirable working conditions are viewed with less hope. The authors' overall attitude to solution

of economic problems is guardedly optimistic.

Health problems. Of the health problems confronting humans in future societies, authors describe physical

112Ibid., pp. 141-142. 107

problems more often than mental problems. Types of health

problems encountered are listed in Table 38.

TABLE 38. HEALTH PROBLEMS IN FUTURE SOCIETIES

Number of Novels Ending of Novel Type of Physical in Which Problem Health Problem Occurs Happy Unhappy

Unspecified physical health problem 9 5 4 Disease of non-terrestrial origin 8 8 0 Disorder caused by tech­ nological innovation 6 5 1 General debility, malnutrition 3 2 1 Problems caused by natural catastrophe (e.g., nova) 2 2 0 Epidemic disease, pollution 2 1 1 Genetic defects (does not include healthy but de­ formed persons) 1 1 0 Physiological addiction to drugs 1 1 0

Type of Mental Health Problem

Unspecified mental problems including mental apathy 11 5 6 Agorophobia 2 1 1 Retardation 2 1 1 Paranoia 2 0 2 Brainwashing 1 1 0 Fear of crowds 1 0 1 Hero worship 1 0 1 108

With sixty-three percent of the problems found in novels with happy endings, it appears that the outlook for solution of health disorders is mildly favorable in the opinion of sample authors. Physical health problems seem to be more amenable to solution than mental health problems.

Overpopulation. Though it might more properly be viewed as an effect of technology, overpopulation was con­ sidered separately in order to investigate its causes more intensively. As a problem, it appeared in twenty-six novels. In novels in which no other cause of overpopula­ tion was specified, natural increase was assumed to be the

"cause." As Table 39 indicates, the problem is resolved in only half of the recorded cases.

Morality. According to sample authors, the future is plagued with moral evils r nonetheless, virtue triumphs by a respectable margin. The varieties of moral degeneracy de­ scribed in the novels are listed in Table 40 in rank order of frequency of occurence.

Effects of technology. In a sense, technological inno­ vation is responsible, directly or indirectly, for almost 109

TABLE 3 9. CAUSES OF OVERPOPULATION IN FUTURE SOCIETIES

Number of Novels Ending of Novel in which Problem Cause of Problem Occurs Happy Unhappy

Natural increase 21 15 6 Reduced death rate. reason unspecified 2 0 2 Life prolongation through cold storage 1 0 1 Growth ethic maintaining high birth rate 1 1 0 Immortality serum 1 1 0 Restriction of habitable land due to atomic war 1 1 0

TABLE 40. MORAL PROBLEMS IN FUTURE SOCIETIES

Number of Novels Ending of Novel in which Problem Type of Problem Occurs Happy Unhappy

General lawlessness 8 5 3 Sexuality 7 5 2 Unspecified 4 3 1 Competing moral codes 2 2 0 Drug abuse 2 2 0 Political corruption 2 1 1 Amorality 1 0 1 Medical ethics 1 0 1

all of the problems described herein. Some effects of technology, however, are difficult to categorize under other headings. Such problems are described in nineteen novels. 110

The category "atomic radiation" includes direct danger

of death from "leakage" of nuclear-powered facilities as well as indirect danger as a result of the creation of mutant species of plants, humans, bacteria and other life

forms. Underpopulation can be seen to be an effect of any of the categories listed. "Unspecified problems" refers to vague references to undescribed catastrophe which occured as a consequence of a previous war of annihilation. "Dis­ turbance of natural balance" was seen in an explosive in­ crease in the rat population.

Subsumed under the heading "effects of technology" are

the following problems (Table 41), sixty-one percent of which end happily.

TABLE 41. PROBLEMS OCCURRING AS A RESULT OF TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION

Number of Novels Ending of Novel in which Problem Type of Problem Occurs Happy Unhappy

Atomic radiation 10 5 5 Underpopula tion 4 4 0 Unspecified 3 1 2 Bacteriological contamination 2 0 2 Disturbance of natural balance 1 1 0 Destruction of ozone layer 1 1 0 Therman pollution 2 2 0 Ill

Technoloqica1 problems. Faith in American ingenuity is

evident in both the lack of technological problems and the

relative frequency of solution of problems. Causes of

technological malfunction are presented in rank order of

frequency of occurrence in Table 42.

TABLE 42. PROBLEMS ARISING OUT OF MALFUNCTION OF TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS

Number of Novels Ending of Novel in which Problem Type of Problem Occurs Happy Unhappy

"Backward" technology 5 5 0 Failure of innovation due to technological inade­ quacy 5 2 3 Malfunction of innovation due to alien interven­ tion 3 2 1 Robot or computer "gone wild" 3 2 1 Malfunction of innovation due to unknown causes 1 1 0

Cultural level. The few authors who consider problems of this order are primarily concerned with undesirable use of leisure time. Inline novels, they add to such currently

recognized problems as drug addition and prostitution,

those of gladiatorial combat and pleasure inducing dress machines. In two more novels, lack of artistic and 112 scientific creativity and waste of talent through techno­

logical unemployment are deplored. Of these eleven novels, six end unhappily.

General nature of problems. It was hypothesized that problems would be viewed as social rather than technologi­ cal in nature (see page 26 of this study). This expecta­

tion was strongly supported. Problems were judged to be

"primarily social" in seventy-eight percent of the novels,

"primarily technological" in seven percent of the novels, and "mixed social and technological" in fourteen percent of the novels. Also evident was the expected increase in application of social science, which rose from six percent in Hirsch's sample to twenty-five percent in this writer's previous sample to forty-five percent in the present sample•

Basic causes of problems. As far as sample authors are concerned, man continues to be his own undoing. Human actions or failings are responsible for problems in seventy-seven novels, non-human forces cause problems in twenty-six novels, and mixed human and non-human sources created problems in thirty-six novels. 113

Solutions to problems. Having created such problems,

how does man go about solving them? In science fiction,

one might conjecture, science and technology should provide

the bulk of solutions, although according to the present writer's expectation of negative reaction formation to

scientific solutions (Hypothesis 7, page 26 of this study)

one would expect a return to nonscientific solutions. At

first glance, data tend to support the former expectation.

Social science, natural science and technology, singly or

in combination, solve problems in 148 cases; charismatic powers of humans, free play of human love and creativity, and sheer "instinctive drive for survival solve problems in

114 cases; Divine intervention and intervention by aliens solve problems in forty cases; other solutions are offered

in eight cases; in eleven cases there are no solutions at all. Table 43 indicates the number of novels in which each type of solution is found. Since more than one type may appear in the same novel, the total does not equal the total number of novels in the sample.

Comparison of Hirsch's sample, the researcher's pre­ vious sample, and the present sample shows a trend toward increase in the proportion of solutions reached by scien­ tific means. Scientific means account for forty-three 114

TABLE 43. MEANS FOR SOLUTION OF SOCIAL PROBLEMS

Number of Novels in Type of Solution which Solution Occurs

Technology and natural science 86 Social science 62 Faith and Divine intervention 5 Intervention by "aliens" from other planets 35 Free play of human love. creativity 36 Charismatic powers of humans 61 Sheer "instinctive" drive for survival 17 Other 19

percent of the solutions in Hirsch's sample, for forty-four percent of the solutions in this writer's previous sample and for fifty-eight percent of the solutions in the 1960 to 1961 time period of the present sample (chi square =

5.63; P less than .10). As expected, the greater propor­ tion of writers turn to science, but the hypothesized de­ crease in scientific solutions failed to materialize.

Re-coding of data into mutually exclusive clusters of categories, the researcher found that twenty-three novels offered scientific solutions only, twenty-five novels offered non-scientific solutions only, eighty novels offered a combination of scientific and non-scientific 115

solutions, and eleven novels failed to provide any solu­

tions. Ambivalence toward science and technology is

indicated rather than polarized attitudes of rejection or acceptance.

Data regarding the role of science and technology in

future societies are consistent with the latter interpre­

tation. Science "saves us" in fifty-four novels; science

"damns us" in eight novels; science is instrumental only

in sixty-five novels; and the role of science is unclear or mixed in twelve novels. On the basis of these data, the present writer could not accept her proposal of in­ creasing polarization of attitudes toward science.

Here, as elsewhere in this study and in this writer's previous research, the charismatic power of humans is seen to be beneficial to society, ranking second only to science as a means for solution to problems.

Hirsch had hypothesized that "there would be a de­ cline in the theme that Utopia can be reached by the simple application of technology and natural science. Instead, human problems would be increasingly solved by (a) the application of social science or natural and social science combined, (b) by magical or charismatic powers of human 116

beings, and (c) by the intervention of "aliens" from outer

space and other non-human characters. The rationale for

this hypothesis is as follows: "Recent historical events

have cast increasing doubts on the omnipotent role of tech­

nology and natural science. Tremendous strides have been made in the conquest of nature, yet we are still beset by wars, crime waves, depressions, mental illness, etc., none of which has been amenable to controls. To the extent that

the scientific ethos still holds sway, the answer to the problem is 'human engineering,' or the application of the social sciences. But it seems equally possible that there has occurred a more radical disillusionment with any sort of rational scientific means and hence a recourse to magi­ cal solutions. Many observers of contemporary culture have attested to the rise of irrational tendencies in Europe and to the 'loss of nerve' which has displaced the sanguine and

facile optimism so characteristic of the America of 'un-

1 1 *1 limited opportunities.'"

A trend toward a decline in the simple application of technology observed by Hirsch did not continue, and

113 "The Image of the Scientist in Science Fiction: A Content Analysis," op. c i t ., p. 511. 117

Hirsch's "wise and kindly" aliens who solved human problems,

"especially during the post-war period," do not appear so frequently in the present sample.^4 However, a modest increase in the use of social science as a solution to social problems is apparent. In this writer's previous sample it was present as a scientific solution in thirty- six percent of the novels; in the present study during the period 1960 to 1970, it appeared as a scientific solution in forty-five percent of the novels (chi square = 1.68;

P less than .20).

Regardless of the means utilized, solutions to prob­ lems seem to be remarkably successful, but a word of cau­ tion should be issued before data are presented. As defined, happy endings involve an optimistic conclusion in which problems are solvable. Happy endings need not be

Utopian, however, because the means for solution of prob­ lems may be unclear or the happy solution may be a matter of faith. Utopian novels, by definition, contain specific plans for present day action calculated to bring about a better society.

114Loc. cit. 118

TABLE 44. ENDINGS OF NOVELS

Number of Novels in Type of Ending which Ending Appears

Happy ending, optimistic conclusion. problem soluble 96 Unhappy ending, pessimistic conclu­ sion, problem insoluble 11 Ambiguous ending; either possibility open 24 Happiness for characters but not for society or humanity 2 No happiness for characters but sal­ vation for humanity 6

This seems a high percentage of optimism, particularly

in view of the recent interest in and popularity of counter-

Utopian and anti-Utopian American science fiction. (See pages 120 to 121 of this study.) Is this optimism partly a

function of authors* and editors* attempts to meet audience expectations for a happy ending? Is expectation of happy

endings characteristic of all mass audiences or is it an

American cultural characteristic? Eugen Weber observed that the anti-Utopian is found "at his most typical in

Europe, where disillusion can be most thoroughly experi­ enced, where the utmost awareness might be expected of the implications and results of utopian reforms. Americans are 119 not yet really disillusioned with the possibilities open to them in the political field."115

Or, one might add, in the field of science and technology.

1150p. cit., p. 445. CHAPTER VI

MAN'S RELATION TO NATURE AND THE UNIVERSE

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away. Revelations 21:1

Saint John the Divine was inspired by a Holy vision when he wrote these words. Contemporary critics are divided

in their opinions regarding the possibility of re-emergence of such Utopian sentiment. While Hillegas calls attention

to the "appalling similarity" of "nightmare states," he

nevertheless generally heralds a "swing of the pendulum

from anti-utopia to utopia."11^ He is joined by Lois and

Stephen Rose, who see in some science fiction a "hopeful sign— pointing . . . to a move beyond the political, eco­ nomic and religious despair of the present."*-17

116The Future as Nightmare: H. G. Wells and the Anti- Utopians . o p . cit., p. 179.

117The Shattered Ring: Science Fiction and the Quest for Meaning (Richmond, Virginia: John Knox Press, 1970}, p. 9.

120 121

Most critics would agree that in science fiction today, "Utopia has been replaced by anti-utopia, the utopia in reverse. Technological advance . . . has conspicuously * 118 failed to usher in the millenium." They would also argue, however, that:

. . . the orthodox nineteenth-century American view of the future as eutopia, the good place, is by no means entirely out of date. Surviving in present-day political rhetoric and in the hopes of great masses of people, this view of the future still moves in the present, even in the West. In the East this view has not only sur­ vived but triumphed. Hundreds of almost routine nineteenth-century American Eutopias of the future would conform perfectly to the official Sino-Soviet view of the future. And this view dominates almost all of Soviet science fiction as well as a good deal of Chinese and Soviet domestic and foreign policy. (Chinese science fiction is un­ available to us, but one would certainly guess that it has the same basic vision as Soviet science fiction.

None of the novels in this sample could be classed as

"Utopian" in the sense that the author provides for a per­ fect or better society and outlines specifically the way in

118Michael Maddison, "The Case Against Tomorrow," Political Quarterly, April, 1965, p. 217.

^ 80p. cit., p. 391. 122 which such a society might be brought about. Only one novel in this writer's previous sample could be so classed.

Although sample authors lack John's inspiration, they still manage to retain faith in the ultimate glory of man's future. Their views on the possibility of achieving Utopia are presented in Table 45. Note that the total number of views on Utopia does not equal the total number of novels in the sample because more than one viewpoint may be pre­ sented in the same novel.

TABLE 45. VIEWS ON UTOPIA

Number of Novels in which View is Author * s View Presented

Human life will improve because progress is inherent in human nature, laws of universe 35 Human life will improve because of changes produced by human forces 76 Human life will improve because of changes produced in human nature by outside forces 19 Human life will get worse because humans are inherently evil 0 Human life will get worse because of changes due to human intervention 7 Humanity will be destroyed by outside forces 4 Ambiguous or absent 41 123

In all, improvement in the human condition was ex­

pected in eighty-nine novels, worsening was expected in

nine novels and uncertainty or ambiguity were present in

forty-one novels.

These novels may be further classed as anti-Utopian

and counter-Utopian. The anti-Utopian author rejects the

possibility of planning to bring about a better society;

the counter-Utopian author simply opposes a particular form 120 of social action. In the anti-Utopian novel, the end of

a better society is described as impossible; in the counter-

Utopian novel certain means of bringing about social im­

provement are opposed, but the end of a better society is

held to be possible.

The concept of anti-Utopia is presented in the work of

Eugen Weber.

The anti-Utopia characteristic of our own century. . . . is peculiar to itself and particularized by the fact that whilst it sometimes attacks existing societies or systems as such, it also and just as fre­ quently attacks utopian ideals, or what may appear to be their fulfillment.121

120por a more detailed explanation of "counter- Utopian" the reader is referred to Glenn Negley and J. Max Patrick, ojo. c i t ., pp. 1-16.

121Op. cit., p. 441. 124

Thus, according to Weber, the savages of Brave New World are "not just opponents of one utopian pattern, but oppo- 122 nents of the utopian heresy itself," Antr-Utopianism is therefore seen to involve opposition to any and all social planning and control as well as the conviction that improvement is impossible this side of Heaven,

Counter-Utopianism as it is used in this study refers to opposition to a particular Utopian pattern or to a par­ ticular means of reaching Utopia. It does not involve opposition to social planning per se. Counter-Utopia im­ plies the possibility of the existence of Utopia (even to the implication that we have reached Utopia and that changes in the status quo could only lead to disaster), but fails to make explicit the Utopian vision.

Authors of twenty-four novels oppose planned society.

In thirteen of these novels, planning is undesirable be­ cause of restrictions of freedom; in eleven, planning is undesirable because it cannot solve problems. These works are, therefore, anti-Utopian. Social planning is favored in eighty novels, although reservations about its desir­ ability are expressed in sixteen of these works. These

122Ibid., p. 444. 12 5 novels were classified counter-Utopian. Attitudes toward social planning are ambiguous or absent in thirty-four novels, and in one novel social planning is held to be im­ possible because laws of nature lead to an unfolding of events which is beyond human control.

The attitudes of humans toward anti-Utopian forces as revealed in the novels were also analyzed and were found to be largely mixed or ambiguous. Humans responded with apathy in seven novels, with covert opposition in twenty-seven novels and with overt opposition in thirty novels. It was hypothesized on page 2 9 of this study that control or solu­ tion of problems would be accomplished primarily by covert mental or manipulative means rather than overt military means. This hypothesis was not supported in either human attitudes or in the actions of human heroes. Action was primarily physical in forty-four novels, primarily mental in twenty-six novels, and mixed in sixty-nine novels.

The reader will also recall that the scientific method was employed in forty-nine percent of the solutions of social problems. One would expect to find few of these authors advocating adjustment to the environment, few willing to relinquish man's position as manipulator of his 126 universe. With respect to man's relation to nature and the universe, only twelve percent of the novels advocate ad­ justment. In thirty-six percent of the novels, conquest and control are judged to be desirable and feasible and in fifty-two percent of the novels, attitudes are unclear.

The Utopian goal and the propensity for action in the novels further lead one to anticipate placement of few limitations on the means used to achieve the end. Data tend to support this expectation. Although the relation­ ship between means and ends is unclear in over half the novels, thirty-two percent hold that the ends justify the means while only fourteen percent express the view that the means do not justify the ends.

Given (1) the general optimism regarding the attain­ ment of Utopia, (2) the extent of inclination to action,

(3) the prevalence of the belief that science is instru­ mental in solving social problems, (4) the steady rise in the application of social science, and (5) the generally rational outlook of mankind, all of which appear in the novels, the present writer concludes that this nation of doers is not yet disillusioned with a cognitive belief system. CHAPTER VII

SCIENCE AND SOCIAL CHANGE: SUMMARY

AND CONCLUSIONS

Attention is due some of the limitations of the data presented in this study before the findings are summarized.

Several difficulties were encountered in the conduct of this research, and to the extent that they could not be re­ solved, the work is subject to criticism.

Critique of the study. The first problem encountered in this research involved the bibliography. Efforts to secure a universe required the professional assistance of the Head Librarians of Purdue University (in 1959) and

Florida Technological University (in 1974)j nevertheless, the adequacy of the universe prior to bibliographic recog­ nition of science fiction as a genre in 1951 is open to doubt.

Problems with respect to publication dates and country of first paperbound publication arose and persisted.

12 7 128

Paperbound publishers often fail to provide full printing

histories of their publications. Such omission tends to

result in a time bias such that the novels would appear to

be more recent in origin than they are in fact. Occasion­

ally a novel is republished under a different title, in­

flating the bibliographies as well as introducing time

bias.

As a result of these difficulties, this writer is

suspicious of all trend data. In an attempt to overcome

this problem, all novels in the 1960-1969 period of the

present sample which appeared in the universe from which

the 1945-1959 sample was drawn were eliminated. Any time-

related hypothesis regarding paperbound fiction is subject

to this shortcoming.

It was intended to limit this study to authors of the

United States only. Efforts were made to exclude British

and other foreign authors by including only works printed by American publishing firms. Problems arose, however, in

that some firms publish the works of British and American

authors simultaneously in both the United States and Great

Britain. In addition, British authors may publish first

in the United States, and English translations of foreign 12 9

works may not be recognized as such. It is this writer's

opinion, however, that any ethnic bias in this sample is

probably minimal, since Great Britain and the United States

are so similar in culture.

Reliability is always likely to be difficult to estab­

lish when coding categories are unclear. Because some

coding categories in this study require judgmental deci­

sions on the part of the reader, special effort was made

to enlist sophisticated readers and to brief them thor­

oughly without brainwashing them. In spite of these

efforts, readers and writer could not agree on operational

definitions of "protagonist" or of "social problem." The

resulting omissions and/or excesses of protagonists and

problems were such that readers' data on major characters

could not be compared to those of the writer.

Summary of data. Analysis of future societies (see

Chapter IV) revealed them to be generally characterized by

laissez-faire capitalism (preferred by authors) and— about

equally--by authoritarian and democratic political controls

(the former disliked; the latter, clearly favored). Open-

class stratification systems predominate, to authors' approval. Politicians are the most frequently described 130

(and least admired) of the elites, followed in rank order

by scientists (highly favored), military leaders, and

businessmen. (Authors' sentiments toward both of the

latter are more or less neutral.) Tomorrow's families are

portrayed as monogamous, patriarchal, and based upon con­

sent, an arrangement admired by authors. Religious insti­

tutions tend to be God-centered rather than man-centered

and are disliked as such. Authors' attitudes toward man-

centered religions appears to be favorable. Orgiastic

religious rituals— less common than formal, unemotional

rites— are particularly disliked. Education as an insti­

tution is almost totally ignored.

Future societies are seen to be burdened with problems

(see Chapter V of this study), most of which are social in

nature and caused by human actions or failings. Thirteen

types of problems— 377 in all— are given more than passing

attention in the 139 novels of this sample. Political

problems— foremost by far— are followed closely by economic

problems, health problems, and problems of overpopulation.

Authors are optimistic about the solution of problems (most

of the novels end happily), and expect them to be solved

primarily by scientific means or by charismatic powers of

human beings. 131

Humankind is generally described in the novels as

being both rational and irrational; both good and evil.

Humans are slightly more likely to be "essentially ra­

tional" than "essentially irrational," and decidedly more

likely to be "essentially good" than "essentially evil."

They are motivated primarily by protection of others, power over others, personal love and affection, ideology, wealth, and self protection, in that order. Heroes are most likely

to be motivated by protection of others and sense of duty, while villains are most likely to be motivated by power over others. Tomorrow's protagonists include more men than women, more Whites than non-Whites, and more Americans and

Europeans than non-Europeans.

Non-humans are generally portrayed anthropomorphi— cally: man-like or animal-like in physical appearance; human in emotion.

Formal hypotheses. This study was undertaken with several hypotheses (listed on pages 20 to 30 of this work), which the data support as follows:

1. "Women will be increasingly portrayed as major characters in the fiction." This expectation was not met. 132

2. "Human nature will be characterized as 'both good

and evil' or as 'essentially evil' rather than as 'essen­

tially good.'" The research indicates that authors tend

to view human nature primarily as "both good and evil" and

secondarily as "essentially good." An hypothesized trend

in opinion toward "essentially evil" does not appear.

3. "Political institutions will be characterized by

authoritarian patterns of control." Although authoritarian

societies slightly outnumber democratic societies in the

novels, they still do not constitute a majority of the

sample. Data fail to provide significant support for this

contention.

4. "A charismatic elite, which could be extra­

terrestrial in origin, will appear in the fiction." Such an elite is present and is usually described as human rather than alien.

5. "Ideal family patterns will not be limited to that of universal monogamy." No statistically significant evi­ dence is found to support this hypothesis, although some variation can be observed.

6. "The literature will consist largely of valu- ational reactions to science which might be loosely 133 described as (1) 'religious,1 in which human impotence is expressed through the ethic of adjustment, and damnation or salvation is assured by 'Divine' or 'Satanic' intervention;

(2) 'magical,' in which human control, human survival and human salvation are assured by 'super science' . . . The researcher anticipated that the greater proportion of writers would fall into this latter category, but that this proportion would decrease over time." Polarization of attitudes toward science as a solution to social problems is not found. Instead, authors appear to have retained confidence in the scientific method.

7. "Problems will be viewed as social rather than technological." This hypothesis is strongly supported by the data. Consistent with this view and with authors' con­ fidence in science is authors' increasing emphasis on social science as a means for solution of problems.

8. "Control or solution of problems will be accom­ plished primarily by covert mental or manipulative rather than overt military means." Contrary to this expectation, heroes tend to engage in mixed action or action which is primarily physical in nature. Humans in general respond with overt action in somewhat more novels than those in 134 which they respond with covert action. In keeping with these data are the findings that social planning is viewed favorably and that conquest and control of nature and the universe are held to be desirable and feasible.

Can science be controlled? The bleakness of future societies portrayed in the fiction suggests that science is as likely to cause trouble as it is to save us. The question of control of science arises. In this sample, control of science is accomplished in three ways: through political control, through the charismatic powers of human beings, and through the application of super science.

Political control of science. "Americans are not yet disillusioned with the possibilities open to them in the 123 political field," Eugen Weber claimed. While many of the novels indicate that science can be mis-used, they also indicate that this mis-use is a political problem, as when

(1) scientific power "gets into the wrong hands" in a malevolent autocracy (the cure lies in decentralization of power or in a benevolent autocracy); or (2) scientific

I23Op. cit., p. 445. 13 5 power, used in a benevolent autocracy to ensure conformity, stifles individual creativity (in which case the cure lies in radical decentralization of authority), The first mis­ use is by far the most frequently envisioned variety-

political solution of social problems can be viewed as consistent with authors' interpretation of problems as due primarily to human actions or failings. Authors seem to be attempting to control a dangerously irrational minority of humans with a good dose of science administered by scien­ tific or charismatic elites. In a novel in the pilot sample, for instance, "a rising bureaucracy, a receding initiative, a freezing of caste, a damning of curiosity," 124 were about to lead to the fall of the Galactic Empire.

It was possible, however, with the application of psycho­ history— "that branch of mathematics which deals with the reactions of human conglomerates to fixed social and eco­ nomic stimuli"— to reduce "the duration of anarchy to a 12 5 single millenium."

^24Isaac Asimov, The 1,000 Year Plan (New York: Ace Books, Inc., 1951), p. 31.

125Ibid., p. 17; p. 32. 136

"I just don't see how it could be possible to chart history for a thousand years ahead. ..." I did receive some elementary training in my youth— enough to know what psychology is capable of, even if I can't exploit its capabilities myself. There's no doubt that Seldon did exactly what he claims to have done. The Foundation, as he says, was es­ tablished as a scientific refuge— the means whereby the science and culture of the dying Empire was to be preserved through the centuries of barbarism that have begun, to be rekindled in the end into a second Empire." "... Everyone knows that's the way things are supposed to go. But can we af­ ford to take chances? Can we risk the present for the sake of a nebulous future?" "We must— because the future isn't nebu­ lous. It's been calculated out by Seldon and charted. Each successive crisis in our history is mapped and each depends in a measure on the successful conclusion of the ones previous."I26

Thus the institution of science is glorified and social control of irrational men is placed in the hands of a scientific elite.

Control of science by charismatic elites. Control of negative effects of science and technology by charismatic powers of humans is a favored theme (see page 24 of this study). Such power is not considered by most authors to

126Ibid., p. 95. 137 represent a potential political threat since it is usually conceived to be the result of successful mutation— the next rung on the evolutionary ladder— and to be available to all men in time. In this manner the dangers of oppression from political mis-use are avoided and the American values of equalitarianism and individual liberty are preserved.

Scientific control of social problems arising from the use of science and technology. Sample authors espouse the view that social science can be utilized to bring about a better society and express faith that discoveries of a superior physical science may control dangers incurred by the use of scientific power in the past (that, for example, a more formidable weapon in the hands of the "good guys" will deter use of a very dangerous weapon in the hands of the "bad guys"). The reader is referred to page 114 in this study.

Attitudes toward science. Although they continue to wield science, authors are not unaware of the dangers of science and technology. Anti-scientific sentiment appears:

The searchers for order and beauty [scien­ tists] searched for death! The chemists searched for chemical death, the bacteri­ ologists searched for plague, the 138

physicists for their poisoned mushrooms/ the thinkers and philosophers for the cold death of words. And holy man marched in blood behind the waving, triumphant banner of science. ^27

So does anti-scientism. In the following quote, the method of science is not attacked, but the use of science to solve and explain all phenomena is rejected. The protagonist is tied to a stake awaiting execution:

It was as though he thought he might es­ cape by use of the scientific method, if only he could find out how high the stake was and what it was made of. . . . He was . . . miles from the sun and help was not on its way. °

Authors seem to be as much concerned with the political issue as with the impact of science and technology. Science is problematic as it is used to implement political force in the fiction; it is valuable as it is used to deter poli­ tical oppression. Faith in the value of science is ex­ pressed in two ways: (1) social and natural science can be

127Benjamin Appel, The Funhouse (New York: Ballentine Books, Inc., 1959), p. 147. This novel appeared in the pilot sample.

128Kurt Vonnegut, Sirens of Titan (New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1959), pp. 213-14. 139 used to combat basic human irrationality which makes poli­ tical oppression possible, or (2) natural science and technology can be used in direct combat with the forces of oppression. Much of the rest of the time, science simply provides a background for human drama.

The trouble, as authors seem to see it, is not so much with science as with man, who mis-uses science. Instead of a scientific problem, one finds a political problem. How­ ever, science and technology provide the power potential that renders the political issue problematic.

Suggestions for future research. Science fiction as a source of data has by no means been exhausted in the social sciences. The following avenues for future research are suggested.

1. Comparison of the writings of American and foreign authors. Such work could yield data which might highlight differences between the cultures generating the literature or might point to (possibly conflicting) alternative solu­ tions to future problems.

2. Expanded and refined study of non-human societies.

Such research might, through comparison, shed light on attitudes toward contemporary human societies. 140

3. Analysis of the predictive accuracy of science

fiction written in the past about present times. Such analysis should provide some measure of the value of science fiction as a predictive tool.

The works suggested above were beyond the scope of this study, but it is hoped that future research will cover these areas of investigation.

Predictive value of science fiction. On the basis of the data presented in this study, one must conclude that in general the fiction fails to predict any unexpected social changes in the future and fails to provide for a construc­ tive Utopian use of science. Perhaps this failure is a function of the statistical treatment— a treatment which can submerge the single work of merit in a sea of medi­ ocrity. Perhaps popular science fiction is not the place to look for such insight. Perhaps no constructive social use of science is possible.

Science fiction itself is not prophecy. While it creates a multitude of futures for its readers, it does not claim that any one of these is the real future, pre­ destined and inevitable. Out of the data of the past and present, the writer chooses such plausible hypotheses as he requires, extends them logically, and 141

forms the rules by which events in his imaginary future must proceed. When his hypotheses are valid and adequate, when the logic by which they are extended is fairly accurate, there may be some degree of correspondence between the imagined future and the eventual actuality.

Without practical plans, constructive use is surely unlikely; nevertheless, the vision of Utopia remains. Like the "littlest engine" focusing his gaze at the crest of the mountain and chanting to himself as he chugs up the slope

"I think I can," sample authors seem to be saying through their human characters, "We think we can."

It will be remembered that this study was based on the premise that what men believe to be true is true in its consequences. This writer suggests that through a curious twist of the self-fulfilling prophecy, science fiction may, by its very existence, serve to prompt realization of the

Utopian dream. According to the "self defeating prophecy," the situation foretold will not come into being simply because the prophecy was made. If men become sufficiently alarmed by the credible and gloomy futures presented to then in the fiction, they may take action to prevent their

129Reginald Bretnor, op. cit ., p. 266. 142 otherwise possible occurrence. So the present writer would conjecture. One sample author clings to this hope. He dedicates his book:

To Todd and Moira For your sakes, children, I hope this proves to be a work of fiction^®

130 Harry Harrison, Make Room Make Room {New York: Berkley Medallion Books, Berkley Publishing Corp., 1967). APPENDIX I

SCIENCE FICTION CODE BOOK

CARD 1

CHARACTERISTICS OF PROTAGONISTS

IDENTIFICATION SEQUENCE: CARD NUMBER PUNCHED IN COL. 80. CASE NUMBER (BOOK NUMBER) PUNCHED IN COLS. 75-77. YEAR OF FIRST PAPERBACK PUBLICATION, LAST TWO DIGITS ONLY PUNCHED IN COLS. 78-79.

The first 50 colums of this card are divided into 5 column fields used to describe up to ten HUMAN protagonists using the code below.

First Column: Role and sex of the protagonist, code: 0. field not used 1. hero, male 3. neither hero nor villain, male 4. heroine, female 5. villain, female 6. neither heroine nor villain, female

Second Column: Race and ethnic origin of the protagonist, code: 0. field not used 1. European, white (including white Americans but not Russians) 2. European, non-white (including American Negro, American Indians) 3. Asians and Africans (excluding American Orientals) 4. Russians 5. Other

143 144

CARD 1. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PROTAGONISTS (continued)

Third Column: Primary non-scientific occupational category, code: 0. field not used or none of the categories below applicable 1. political leader 2. business man 3. administrator 4. military leader 5. technician, engineer 6. pilot, navigator, etc. 7. artist, writer, etc. 8. religious leader 9. teacher, educator

Fourth Column: Nature of scientific position, code: 0. field not used 1. independent scientist 2. bureaucratic scientist 3. character not scientist

Fifth Column: Nature of scientists' research, code: 0. field not used 1. physical scientist, pure 2. physical scientist, applied 3. physical scientist, mixed (both pure and applied) 4. social scientist, pure 5. social scientist, applied 6. social scientist, mixed (both pure and applied) 7. other 8. character not scientist

COLUMNS 51-70. The columns between 51 and 70 are used to describe the characteristics of major non-human characters. These columns are divided into four fields, each of which can be used to describe one of the kinds of non-humans in the novel. 145

CARD 1. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PROTAGONISTS (continued)

The following code is used:

First Column: Physical nature of major non-human characters. code: 0. field not used 1. manlike 2. animal-like 3• disembodied force 4. machine-like (robot, etc.) 5. other

Second Column: Sexual characteristics of non-humans code: 0. field not used 1. male 2. female 3. both male and female 4. neither sex, unspecified, etc.

Third. Fourth, and Fifth Columns: These columns contain up to three motivations for the non-humans being described. The code to be used in these columns is listed below. If only one motivation is applicable, the fourth and fifth columns would be redundant and have 9 punched in them, code: 0. field not used 1. motivation is conquest of humans 2. motivation is protection of humans 3. motivation is knowledge (disinterested) 4. motivation is self-defense against humans or fear of humans 5. motivation is hate (personal or instinctive) 6. other 9. redundant 146

CARD 2

CHARACTERISTICS OF PLOT

VARIABLE (CARD 2) NUMBER COLUMN

IDENTIFICATION SEQUENCE: CASE NUMBER (BOOK NUMBER) IN COLUMNS 75-77, CARD NUMBER PUNCHED IN COLUMN 80.

COLUMNS 78—79, YEAR OF PAPERBACK PUBLICATION.

COLUMNS 1-14, HUMAN SOCIAL PROBLEMS INDICATED IN NOVEL.

THE FOLLOWING CODE IS USED IN THESE COLUMNS: code: 0. this problem not indicated in novel 1. this problem is indicated in the novel

1. Economic problems: poverty, surfeit, unem- 1 ployment, job monotony, overwork 2. Technological problems: malfunction of 2 gadgetry 3. Effects of technology: (disturbance of 3 natural balance, atomic radiation and/or bacteriological contamination) 4. Class and political conflict within nation, 4 including civil war 5. Racial or religious conflict within a nation 5 6. War, international or interplanetary 6 7. Morality, vice, crime, sexuality 7 8. Cultural level: undesirable use of leisure 8 time, the arts 9. Civil rights: role of deviants 9 10. Intellectual freedom of scientists 10 11. Physical health, death 11 12. Mental health 12 13. Overpopulation 13 14. Other prominent social problems not listed 14 147

CARD 2. CHARACTERISTICS OF PLOT (continued)

VARIABLE (CARD 2) NUMBER COLUMN

15. Basic nature of social problems 15 1. problems seen as basically technological 2. problems seen as basically social 3. ambiguous 16. Causes of social problems 16 1. natural forces independent of human control 2. intelligent forces independent of human control 3. forces due to human actions or failings 4. mixed human and independent natural causes 5. mixed human and independent intelligent causes 6. ambiguous

COLUMNS 17-25, MEANS FOR SOLVING THE PROBLEMS INDICATED code: 0. this means not indicated in novel 1. this means indicated in novel

17. Technology and natural sciences 17 18. Social sciences including psychology 18 19. Combination of technology and social sciences 19 20. Faith and divine intervention 20 21. Intervention by "aliens" from other planets 21 22. Charismatic powers of humans 22 23. Free play of human love, creativity 23 24. Combination of 17-23 24 2 5. Other prominent means indicated 2 5 26. Ending of the story 2 6 1. happy ending: optimistic conclusion; problem solvable 2. unhappy ending: pessimistic conclusion; problem insolvable 3. ambiguous: either possibility left open 148

CARD 2. CHARACTERISTICS OF PLOT (continued)

VARIABLE (CARD 2) NUMBER COLUMN

4. happiness for characters but not for society or humanity 5. no happiness for characters but salva­ tion for humanity 6. other 27. Conception of human nature as good or evil 2 7 1. human nature essentially good 2. human nature essentially evil 3. human nature both good and evil 28. Conception of human nature as rational or 28 irrational 1. rational 2. irrational 3. both rational and irrational 29. Man's relation to nature and universe 29 1. conquest and control desirable and feasible 2. adjustments by humans desirable 3. mixed or ambiguous 30. Actions of human heroes 30 1. primarily physical action 2. primarily mental manipulation 3. mixed or ambiguous 31. Characterization of non-humans 31 1. essentially non-human, exotic 2. conceived anthropomorphically, with huma n problems 3. mixed or ambigious 4. no non-humans in novel 32. Means-ends relationship 32 1. ends justify means 2. ends do not justify means 3. mixed or ambiguous 33. Characterization of alien, future, past, 33 etc. societies 1. utopian: major problems solved or solvable 149

CARD 2. CHARACTERISTICS OF PLOT (continued)

VARIABLE (CARD 2) NUMBER COLUMN

2. anti-utopian: major problems un- solvable or new problems created by solution of old 3. mixed or ambiguous 34. Views on planned society 34 1. planning desirable, will solve basic problems 2. planning desirable but will bring unanticipated problems 3. planning undesirable since it cannot solve problems or brings about unanticipated problems 4. planning undesirable because of restric tion on freedom 5. combination, author ambiguous 6. not specified

COLUMNS 35-41, VIEWS ON UTOPIA code: 0. this view not indicated in novel 1. this view indicated in novel

3 5. Human life will improve because progress 35 inherent in human nature and laws of universe 36. Human life will improve because of changes 36 produced by human forces 37. Human life will improve because of changes 37 produced in human nature by outside forces 38. Human life will get worse because inherently 38 evil 39. Human life will get worse because of changes 39 due to actions of humans 40. Humanity will be destroyed by outside forces 40 beyond human control 41. Ambiguous 41 150

CARD 2. CHARACTERISTICS OF PLOT (continued)

VARIABLE (CARD 2) HUMBER COLUMN

42. Attitudes of humans to anti-utopian forces 42 1. resignation, apathy 2. covert opposition 3. overt opposition 4. mixed or ambigious

COLUMNS 43-74, CHARACTERISTICS OF UTOPIAS AND COUNTER UTOPIAS. THE CODE INDICATES IF THE CHARACTERISTICS BELOW ARE PRESENT OR ABSENT AND VIEWED FAVORABLY OR UNFAVOR­ ABLY BY AUTHOR, code: 0. characteristic not used for utopias 1. characteristic viewed favorably by author 2. characteristic viewed unfavorably by author 3. authors' views on characteristic ambiguous

43. Economic system laissez faire, capitalism 43 44. Economic system syndicalist, socialist 44 45. Economic system centralized, welfaristic 45 46. Other economic system described 46 47. Political controls democratic 47 48. Political controls autocratic 48 49. Political controls anarchistic 49 50. Other system of political controls 50 characteristic 51. Scientists included as members of the 51 elite 52. Businessmen included as members of the 52 elite 53. Politicians included as members of the 53 elite 54. Engineers and technicians included as 54 elite 55. Military included as members of elite 55 151

CARD 2 . CHARACTERISTICS OF PLOT (continued)

VARIABLE (CARD 2) NUMBER COLUMN

56. Labor leaders included as members of elite 56 57. Males EXCLUDED from membership in elite 57 58. Females EXCLUDED from membership in elite 58 59. Elite characteristically CHARISMATIC 59 60. Class structure caste-like 60 61. Class structure feudal with estates 61 62. Class structure open 62 63. Class structure quite different from above 63 64. Family structure monogamous 64 65. Family structure polygnyous 65 66. Family structure polyandrous 66 67. Family structure includes group marriage 67 68. Concubinage practiced 68 69. Marriage practices different from those 69 above 70. Families patriarchal 70 71. Families matriarchal 71 72. Families infantiarchal 72 73. Family system democratic 73 74. Families characterized by none of the 74 above (70-73)

CARD 3

75. Charismatic powers of the elite include 1 supernatural powers 76. Charismatic powers of the elite include 2 only natural powers to an unusual degree (strength, intelligence, etc.) 77. Mate selection patterns include capture 3 78. Mate selection patterns include consent 4 79. Acquisition of mate includes purchase 5 80. Acquisition of mate limited by genetic 6 control mechanisms 81. Religion God-centered; transcendental 7 82. Religion man-centered; secularized 8 83. Religion both man and God centered; mixed 9 84. Education acquired primarily at home 10 152

CARD 3. CHARACTERISTICS OF PLOT (continued)

VARIABLE (CARD 3) NUMBER COLUMN

85. Education acquired on-the-job 11 86. Education acquired at boarding school 12 87. Education acquired at day school 13 88. Curriculum skill-oriented 14 89. Curriculum value-oriented 15 90. Curriculum formal 16 91. Curriculum informal 17 92. Extent of education limited to youths 18 93. Education continuous throughout life 19 94. Role of science and technology 20 1. science saves us 2. science damns us 3. science is instrumental only, no value connotations 4. author ambiguous

COLUMNS 21-46, MOTIVATIONS OF HEROES AND VILLAINS. EACH MOTIVE BELOW IS CODED IN TWO COLUMNS TO INDICATE IF IT IS A MOTI­ VATION FOR MALE OR FEMALE HEROES OR VILLAINS, code: 00. motivation is not used by author for major human character 01. motivation is for male heroes 02. motivation is for male villains 03. motivation is for male heroes and male villains 04. motivation is for combination of males, females, both heroes and villains 05. motivation is for female heroines and female villains 06. motivation is for female villains 07. motivation is for female heroines 08. motivation is for female heroine and male villain 153

CARD 3. CHARACTERISTICS OF PLOT (continued)

VARIABLE (CARD 3) NUMBER COLUMN

09. motivation is for male hero and female villain 10. motivation is for heroes and heroines (male and female) 11. motivation is for villains (male and female)

COLUMNS MOTIVATION

21-22 1.Wealth, economic security 23-24 2. S tatus, prestige 25-26 3. Power over humans or other creatures 27-28 4. Love and affection (personal) 29-30 5. Knowledge (as end in itself) 31-32 6. Hate (personal) 33-34 7. Fear 3 5-36 8. Protection of others, sense of duty 3 7-38 9. Ideology (e.g., furtherance of democracy or communism) 39-40 10. Adventure, excitement of non-intellectual nature 41-42 11. Protection of self, immediate family 43-44 12. Escape 45-46 13. Other prominent motivation

75-77 CASE NUMBER 78-79 YEAR OF FIRST PUBLICATION IN PAPERB0UND (LAST 2 DIGITS) 80 CARD NUMBER APPENDIX II

SAMPLE

The following is the ten percent random sample of science fiction novels first written and published in the

United States during the period 1945 to 1970 which was used in this research. The process by which this sample was obtained is described on pages 34 to 38 of this study.

AUTHOR TITLE

Anderson, Poul The Corridors of Time Ensign Flandry Shield The Star Fox Virgin Planet We Claim These Stars

Anthony, Piers Omnivore

Asimov, Isaac Foundation The Naked Sun The Stars Like Dust

Barrett, William E The Fools of Time

Bester, Alfred The Stars My Destination

Biggie, Lloyd, Jr. All the Colors of Darkness Watchers of the Dark

154 155

Blish, James and Norman A Torrent of Faces Knight

Blish, James Year 2018

Brunner, John Bedlam Planet Enigma From Tantalus The Repairmen of Cyclops Sanctuary in the Sky World Swappers

Bryant, Peter Red Alert

Bulmer, Kenneth No Man's World

Clarke, Arthur Childhood's End Earthlight Fall of Moondust Sands of Mars

Compton, D. G. The Silent Multitude

Cooper, Edmund Transit

Creasey, John The Depths

Davidson, Avram Mutiny in Space

De Camp, L. Sprague The Hand of Zei

Delany, Samuel R, City of a Thousand Suns The Jewels of Aptor

Del Rey, Lester Marooned on Mars

Dick, Phillip K. Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb Galactic Pot-Healer The Game Players of Titan Now Wait for Last Year The Simulacra Vulea n1s Hamme r 156

Dickson, Gordon R. Delusion World Soldier, Ask Not

Farmer, Philip J. Flesh Night of Light Tongues of the Moon

Faucette, John M, Crown of Infinity

Fox, Gardner The Arsenal of Miracles Escape Across the Cosmos

George, Peter Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Harrison, Harry Deathworld Make Room! Make Room! Stainless Steel Rat The Technicolor Time Machine

Heinlein, Robert The Door Into Summer Farnam's Freehold Starman Jones

Henderson, Zenna The People No Different Flesh

Herbert, Frank The Heaven Makers 21st Century Sub (also pub­ lished as The Dragon in the Sea)

Hersey, John The Child Buyer

Hoffman, Lee Telepower

Hoyle, Fred and John A for Andromeda Elliot

Keyes, Daniel Flowers for Algernon

King, Vincent Light A Last Candle

Knox, Calvin M. One of Our Asteroids Is Missing 157

Kornbluth, C. M. Gunner Cade

Le Guin, Ursula Rocannon's World

Leinster, Murray Four From Planet Five The Other Side of Nowhere Space Gypsies Space Platform

Long, Frank B, Mars Is My Destination

McIntosh, J. T, The Million Cities 200 Years to Christmas

McLaughlin, Dean The Fury From Earth

Merril, Judith The Tomorrow People

Merwon, Sam, Jr, Three Faces of Time

Norton, Andre The Defiant Agents Plague Ship Secret of the Lost Race The Sioux Spacemen Star Born

Nourse, Alan E, The Universe Between

Petaja, Emil Alpha Yes, Terra No! Lord of the Green Planet The Prism

Phillips, Mark The Impossibles

Pohl, Frederik Age of the Pussyfoot

Pohl, Frederik and C. M, Space Merchants Kornbluth

Pratt, Fletcher Invaders from Rigel

Purdom, Tom Five Against Arlane

Rackham, John Alien Sea The Proxima Project 158

Resnick, Michael D. Pursuit on Ganymede

Reynolds, Mack Code Duello Computer War Mercenary From Tomorrow

Richmond, Walt and Leigh Phoenix Ship Richmond

Russell, Eric F. Wasp

Scheer, K, H. and Walter Perry Rhodan # 1: Enterprise Ernsting Stardust Perry Rhodan #2: The Radiant Dome

Sheckley, Robert Status Civilization

Silverberg, Robert Master of Life and Death Nightwings Recalled to Life To Open the Sky Invaders from Earth (also published as We The Marauders)

Simak, Clifford City They Walked Like Men Waystation Why Call Them Back From Heaven?

Smith, Edward E. Second Stage Lensman Subspace Explorers Triplanetary

Sohl, Jerry Night Slaves

Sturgeon, Theodore The Synthetic Man Venus Plus X

Sutton, Jeff The Man Who Saw Tomorrow

Temple, William F. Battle on Venus 159

Tubb, Edwin C. Derai

Van Vogt, A. E. Empire of the Atom The House that Stood Still Universe Maker The War Against the Rull The Weapon Makers The Wizard of Linn The World of Null-A

Vance, Jack Big Planet

Vonnegut, Kurt Cat's Cradle

Wibberly, Leonard The Mouse on the Moon The Mouse that Roared

Wilhelm, Kate The Killer Thing Let the Fire Fall

Williamson, Jack The Cometeers The Legion of Time

Wilson, Colin The Mind Parasites

Wobig, Ellen The Youth Monopoly

Wyndham, John Chocky

Zelazny, Roger Isle of the Dead BIBLIOGRAPHY

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