In recent years, Joss Whedon’s Firefly and Serenity have brought the Space Western back to the public eye. Though not a commercial success, Whedon’s tales of the crew of the Serenity have sparked a new interest in the cowboys from space.
The first Science Fiction pulp stories were not adventure-oriented. The Gernsbackian formula was typically about scientists or inventors. These poorly written tales tended to stop what little action they had to give lectures on technology, info-dumps that would be as ridiculous as you or I stopping to explain how a digital watch or traffic light works. This was one of John W. Campbell’s innovations in 1938, to say, the technology is a given, get on with the story.
This type of Science Fiction was popular within a very small circle of readers between 1926-1930, the first years of Gernsback’s Amazing Stories. What changed it was not an act of artistic revolt or innovative genius, so much as commercially driven ‘dumb luck’. W. L. Clayton wanted new pulps and charged editor Harry Bates to fill a missing fourth, since covers were published in batches of four. When Bates saw a copy of Amazing Stories he decided he’d try Science Fiction too. Unlike Gernsback, Bates was no crusader for the future of technology. He was just an editor of fiction, be it detective, Western or any other kind of pulp. What did Bates know about Science Fiction? Very little.
If you’d like to read the rest, please check out Monster 3:From the Pages of Dark Worlds Quarterly