Book Review: The Golden Age of Science Fiction by John Wade

As a wargamer, I have always been attracted to the idea of putting on a retro sci-fi game. Whenever I see retro sci-fi figures or rules I am compelled to pick them up. I assume that this is in a wide part down to nostalgia. Growing up in the 1970s in the UK we got our first expose to Star Trek and also I fondly remember watching classic sci-fi movies on BBC2 in the early evenings on Wednesdays. Films that were invariably made in the 1950s, mainly black and white (that might just have been because we still had a black and white TV at that point), and I suppose even by then, fairly dated. "Them", "The Incredible Shrinking Man", "This Island Earth", "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and two of my favourite films, "The Day The Earth Stood Still" and "Forbidden Planet".

So when I saw the book The Golden Age of Science Fiction - A journey into Space with 1950s Radio, TV, Films, Comics and Books by John Wade I knew I had to read it.

Although never promising to be a complete look at science fiction in the 1950s (this is a personal memoir to the author's discovery and love of the genre during the 50s), the book does however look at so much more than just movies, covering radio (a far bigger thing back then than it is now), TV, films, books, comics and magazines, all in great depth.

Each different form of media is covered in a separate chapter, starting with radio. Now, I should also point out that the book is very much written from a British point of view, therefore it may well miss the odd American and international productions, although where foreign media made it to the UK they do also feature.

The section on television reviews several TV plays as well as going into some depth on the three Quatermass series. I have had an abiding love of the Quatermass quartet for many years, although missed the original three series, seeing the films and the later series only. I have, however, read the three script books that were released with the original TV scripts. The depth of information in this book is excellent and if nothing else it has inspired me to track down and watch the original TV shows if I can find them.

The section on movies is obviously mainly focused on the amazing US output of Sci-Fi movies in the 1950s. With such classics as those already mentioned at the beginning of this review. First, we have a general overview of the ci-fi movie genre in the 1950s with descriptions of the most common plot elements, then a brief review of the lurid nature of a lot of 50s movie posters, that didn't always reflect the content of the actual films. Then we get an in-depth review of the authors select choice of movies followed by some brief resumes of his choice of "also-rans". Finally, there is a reasonably exhaustive list of all of the sci-fi movies released in the 1950s. I found the movie section to be an invaluable resource for anybody who is interested in classic (and not so classic) sci-fi movies. As someone who has loved sci-fi for as long as I can remember, I will generally watch anything that has a hint of sci-fi about it. Many just to be able to tick them off as having seen them. So this list gives me a lot to work with.

The next chapter of the book proved to be just as interesting as it moved on to books. I devoured a lot of science fiction books in my teens working my way through many of the most well-known authors, to see which ones I enjoyed and which I was not so interested in. On reflection, I feel that I missed a lot that I really should have read, for example, I read several of Issac Asimov's Robot books but none of his Foundation series. I can say the same for many of the other top authors.

The Golden Age of Science Fiction by John Wade mainly concentrates on four authors John Wyndham, Issac Asimov, Arthur C. Clark and Ray Bradbury. going into some depth on their careers, both pre- and post- 1950s, but with the main focus on that decade. Now if the golden age of Sci-Fi was the 1950s, the 1970s was the golden age of mass-market paperbacks, and many of those books that I picked up were first in print in the 1950s, which was something of a revelation for me.

As a teen back then I picked up most of my reading material either browsing the local newsagents or more likely local second-hand book shops. So there was no real system and no investigation into the correct chronologies or bibliographies of particular authors. The Golden Age of Science Fiction has very much filled that gap and now I have decided to track down several books that I feel that I really should have read. For example, I have not read any of John Wyndham's work, although I am very familiar with the various adaptions of his Day of the Triffids. Now I am planning to read both The Kraken Wakes and The Chrysalids.

Towards the end of the Books chapter, Wade does go through a brief rundown of some other authors (that some might consider more important) that published works in the 50s. So don't be disappointed if your favourite author didn't get a mention.

The final section of the book covers magazines and comics. The 1950s was effectively the last real shout out for the survival of the pulp magazines and a lot of the magazines featured in this book can be seen to have moved to the digest size and away from the traditional pulp-style magazine. Once again the focus is on the magazines and comics that were available in the UK, whether they are British produced or just UK editions of US magazines.

The chapter finishes with a list of magazines that were around during the 1950s. Which once again will prove a useful resource for anyone interested in the history of Science Fiction. Now really, before I got on to the magazines I should have discussed the comics. My introduction to sci-fi in comics came with the Uk Starlord and then 2000AD titles. So it was interesting to see what had been available before that. Obviously, I was aware of Dan Dare, although I hadn't really spent much time looking into those stories from the Eagle comic. The book looks at Dan Dare in-depth, from its initial inception right through to its demise (and its brief resurrection in the 1980s).

Other comics that are mentioned certainly pale into insignificant compared to Dan Dare, but it is good to know the history of British Sci-fi in comics, along with the huge market of US superhero titles that tend to flood the market now.

The book is lavishly illustrated throughout and I found no spelling errors or grammar problems.

As I am sure you can already guess, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and will be referring back to it often in future. I received the book from Pen and Sword Publishing as a review copy, but I would gladly have bought it. It would actually be very nice if they followed it up with further volumes looking at the science fiction that came out of other decades and the impact that had.

The book can be purchased directly from Pen and Sword HERE.

Retro Rocket No. 3

I have been working on this one for a long time… and there are a lot of photos in this tutorial!

After the initial Retro Rocket came out looking perfect for a Flash Gordon style game I found a shower radio that I felt had potential to become a much more “1950’s” feel rocket. This was the result!

What follows is an extensive photo tutorial on how I constructed the model. Firstly, I had the radio lying around for a while and I spotted the little clip-on torches in a pound store. I knew immediately that I had to get some of the torches to use as rocket engines (they couldn’t have been much more perfect).

I stripped down the radio, and disposed of the internal workings. The three knobs were dumped into the bits box and I glued the case back together again. As you can see, the battery compartment makes an idea cargo hatch.

I took these photos just to get an idea of how the rocket might look in flight (note the knobs had not quite been abandoned when i took these photos).

Next up I had to fit the rocket engines, I could have gone with just the two, but I felt a third top engine made it look a little different from my first Retro Rocket and also helped with the balance of the look of the model. I removed the clips from the torches and then sanded down the ball joint at the angle that best fit the curve of the rocket’s body. To attach them to the body I drilled and pinned them, this gave me a little play in positioning so that I could get them exactly lined up.

Once the two side engines were in place (the top engine was left off while I finalised what I was doing with that part of the model) I filled and sanded the joints. I didn’t feel that the round curved rod that supported the engine look substantial enough for my liking so I decided to add a fin in behind the rod. Not an easy task, as there are four different curved surfaces that needed to fit perfectly. I started by cutting paper patterns to work from.

Once I had a good fit with the pattern I traced it on to a piece of plastic sheet ( had thought it was acrylic, but when I started to cut it I realised it was clear polystyrene sheet).

I cut the fins out using a scroll saw. Unfortuantely, as the polystyrene sheet cut it heated up and I got quite a lot of melted debris along the cut lines (this wouldn’t have happened with acrylic sheet). I new I would have to file the files quite a bit to get them to fit, but it turned out to be a bit more than I would have liked!

This is the final fit, before a little filling and sanding.

Now I moved on to the cockpit window. I wanted a typical domed shaped cockpit and found a ball (from a vending machine in a supermarket) that was just the right size. Now as the dome was half clear I initially considered leaving it clear and building a cockpit with pilots into the model. However, on closer examination I decided that the dome was in poor condition and also had both the plastic injection nipple and a small air hole that would need to be filled. I also considered having a roof over the back half of the cockpit. But I wanted to keep it fairly simple, in keeping with the period feel.

Once I had cut the dome, I filed it until it sat reasonably well onto the curved body of the rocket.

At this stage I also decided to use my laser cutter to add some detail to the rear of the rocket. I cut two panels of acrylic, a round door and a back plate. Glued them together and stuck them to the back of the model… it finished that part off very nicely!

Returning to the dome, with it firmly glued in place I filled around the edge, as well as the two holes on top.

Next I needed to fill the holes in the body. For this I used car body filler. A two part filler that sets in ten to fifteen minutes. Once set it can be machined or sanded, it is also very useful for gluing certain materials that don’t stick very well with other adhesives.

Once I had done the filling and some sanding I returned to the join around the cockpit canopy. Some kind of border was needed between the ship and the canopy. I used a pre-cut strip of polystyrene (plasticard). I glued it at the back of the canopy and the worked my way around slowly bending the strip and gluing it in place. Once I had gone all the way around the dome I cut the plastic strip with a craft knife, filled the joint and then filed it down.

I was finally ready to attach the third engine to the top of the rocket.

Once the engine was in place I felt the model was ready to receive a coat of primer. The paint evens up the look of the model, revealing flaws and showing what needs sanding.

As the model is to be used on a wargames table it will need to sit on a runway or launch pad. I decided that the rocket needed an undercarriage. Rather than hunt around for existing wheels to use I scratch built them from some acrylic and several different diameter plastic rods.

Once I had built the undercarriage I glued it in place.

As the under carriage was glued on to the surface of the rocket I needed some hatch doors. I returned to the plastic strips and cut three pairs of doors.

I glued the strips either side of each wheel. With a little black paint in between it would look like a recess.

The final part of the model was the weapons. I wanted something that looked suitably “Sci-Fi”, I also wanted them to not look too aggressive, possibly only sensors, not necessarily weapons. I raided my bits box and found some old Epic bits, some wheels and a couple of modern shells.

On to the painting, I gave the model another coat of primer and then sprayed it with a coat of chrome paint. I think it was a little cold in the garage when I sprayed it as I was really not satisfied with the finish.

I decided I wanted to have a flag on the the model, the intention was to create something that was reminiscent of a swastika, but was different enough that it would not have any of the associations…

To paint the flag I took out my airbrush. Now I must point out that haven’t used an airbrush in over twenty years, and back then I used it while painting on board or paper, I have never actually used one on a model before.

So this was a new experience, an something that I will be doing more of in the future. I laser cut some masks in sticky backed plastic (I didn’t have any proper masking film handy) and then applied them to the model.

I masked the rest of the model off with kitchen roll and then sprayed the un-masked areas purple.

Once the purple had dried, I applied the next level of masks and sprayed with black paint. Unfortunately I was a little over enthusiastic, or probably should have applied the paint a little slower. It bled under the mask in places and so I ended up touching it up with a brush by hand.

I applied the rest of the colours with a brush and they turned out pretty well…