Broadcaster Richard Wolinsky joins the Plutopia News Network to discuss Spaceships, Ray Guns, Martian Octopods, his oral history weaving decades of interviews with science fiction writers, editors, and fans into a portrait of the genre’s formative years. He describes the financial struggles of pulp writers, the influence and contentious politics of editors, and the friendships, rivalries, and correspondence that sustained the field. Sharing memories of figures including Isaac Asimov, Harlan Ellison, and Philip K. Dick, Wolinsky reflects on assembling the book and regrets missing opportunities to interview pioneering women writers. The conversation also explores science fiction’s relationship with Hollywood, with Wolinsky criticizing its neglect of classic stories and arguing that the success of Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind in 1977 transformed the genre’s commercial prospects, fandom, and place in mainstream culture.
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Richard Wolinsky:
Film, forget it. Forget it. It wasn’t until Star Wars and Close Encounters that Hollywood woke up to the fact that there was actually money in science fiction.
The other thing that I want to point out here, because it does have a little to do with my book, is that in 1977 the world of science fiction changed—not a little, but everything changed. Absolutely everything.
Writers who were struggling became bestsellers. The mainstream suddenly merged with science fiction, and everything in this book leading up to ’77 just in a way vanished because suddenly the world changed.
The conventions changed. The fandom changed. The kinds of stories being written and adapted changed.
Everything changed. And I don’t think people are aware of how much those two movies, in particular, but probably Star Wars more than anything else, changed the face of our national culture.
Richard Wolinsky’s Podcasts
- Radio Wolinsky: posted weekly on Sunday or Monday and contains full edited interviews.
- Bookwaves: Richard’s one-hour show Thursdays 1 pm Pacific time at KPFA 94-7FM in the Bay Area or kpfa.org. After Thursday, it becomes a podcast. It includes interviews edited for time, and sometimes two interviews edited to 27 minutes each, plus local theatre reviews.