NEBULA AWARDS SHOWCASE 2010 looks at that history from the viewpoint of the early pulp magazines, printed on cheap newsprint so fragile we are lucky any exist and have not been dissolved away by the acid that comprised them. One account is by celebrated anthologist Robert Weinberg, whose "Early SF in the Pulp Magazines" gives profound notice of the pioneering work of publisher Frank A. Munsey. Munsey launched an all-fiction magazine called ARGOSY. In December 1896, Munsey realized that readers want the FICTION a magazine contains, and could care less about the heavy, coated paper stock it was printed on. So began the "pulps" (magazines printed with cheap wood pulp paper). Soon, the pulp magazine that launched a million-and-one careers was born – "Amazing Stories" in April 1926 by a Luxembourg immigrant by the name of Hugo Gernsback.
Author David Drake provides a vast description of "The Golden Age" of SF pulps – July 1939 through 1945 (World War II eventually ended the reign of pulps – momentarily) – brought about by the colossal work of SF editing pioneer John W. Campbell. Campbell edited ASTOUNDING (which changed in the 1960s to the modern-day ANALOG Magazine).
It is interesting to note that another description by Robert Silverberg, "Science Fiction In the Fifties: The Real Golden Age" pins the Golden Age as "1939-1942" rather than ending as late as 1945. Whoever you want to trust, Silverberg believes the original Golden Age was merely a "false dawn" and the 1950s – with a sudden surge of a plethora of new SF magazines – was the actual, true Golden Age of SF. He writes that in 1953, there were "nearly forty" of the magazines, compared to the past list of titles, never amounting to more than "eight or nine at once." And writers could make a living in the short form, selling nearly everything they wrote.
"Writing SF in the Sixties" by Frederik Pohl and Elizabeth Anne Hull details the beginning careers of New Age SF pioneers Harlan Ellison, Larry Niven, Walter Miller Jr., and Ursula K. LeGuin.
In NEBULA AWARDS SHOWCASE 2010, Algis Budrys is featured as one of the Solstice Award winners (for excellence in SF publishing). Reprinted here are various samples of his book review column from GALAXY Magazine.
Another Solstice Award winner is Kate Wilhelm with her delightful story, "Rules of the Game." RULES gives us a woman who has to deal with the sudden appearance of her dead husband – a genuine scumbag, a real cheating sack -- who returns as a ghost. WHY he returns leads to a whole series of discoveries – and revenge is certainly one of them.
The third Solstice Award winner "Marty the Other" Greenberg, details his career as an anthologist and how Tekno Books was conceived, with a bit of SF anthology publishing history.
Kevin J. Anderson recounts "Science Fiction in the 1970s" with the release of "Star Wars" and the first "Star Trek" film and how Hollywood fully installed the tropes of SF into the mainstream. (I served as editor of Kevin's juvenile SF review columns in a long-ago and oh-so-far-away SF fanzine called ANTITHESIS. He was absolutely floored by the DUNE movie, and that inspiration allowed him to continue with books inspired by Frank Herbert.)
"Into the Eighties" by Lynn Abbey describes the development of the shared-world franchises, wherein literature became nothing but expensive merchandise, not unlike store posters or the latest calendar, establishing a new low for a genre suddenly becoming respectable.
Author Emeritus M.J. Engh has a notable story, "Talking About Fangs" as the real life (and death) of a believable vampire. Speaking of vampires, when we hold onto our Puritan American upbringing, history is written again in publishing, bringing us the stupid vampire continuing novel series, summed up more concisely in "Science Fiction in the 1990s: Waiting for Godot . . . Or Maybe Nosferatu" by Mike Resnick. The author makes the case that SF and Fantasy are completely absorbed into the mainstream and look more mainstream everyday. Sadly. Who would have thought the renegade, unchecked, untamed, wild and wooly New Age and all that came before would have been ABSORBED by the mainstream so efficiently?
Andre Norton Award winner Ysabeau S. Wilce has a portion of her young adult novel, "Flora's Dare," included here.
Jody Lynn Nye reflects on cinema SF and its power to propel the SF genre in "Medium With a Message."
An excerpt from the scripts for the Nebula Award-winning best film, the animated "WALL-E," is included. For excellence in screenwriting, the acceptance speech from Josh Whedon is also presented.
Finally, a tribute is paid by Tom Doherty, TOR Books, to Harry Harrison, Grand Master. Doherty reviews Harrison's work with "The Stainless Steel Rat" and "Deathworld" books. Included is Harrison's classic story, "The Streets of Ashkelon." 
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