RE: movie review: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Yeah, the episode was called "Mirror, Mirror" ... alternate Spock had a goatee! I did see Shatner's trip; he clearly was greatly moved. I would have been too, even if I hadn't played a starship captain.
I've heard of the Perry Rhodan series, but I've never actually seen one--I wonder if they've been translated to English? But you're right, just about everything on TV and movies today came first in SF writing--I devoured a lot of 50s and 60s SF when I was a kid. My junior English teacher was the daughter of E.E. "Doc" Smith, who was hugely popular, and was probably the king of space opera. He started publishing in the 1920s! Then there was L. Frank Baum, who created probably the first fictional robot in the second Oz book, "The Land of Oz". That came out in 1904.
I think I have mentioned Perry Rhodan some time ago. Its the biggest SF series ever, starting in 1961 and has sold 2 billion copies by now. It was briefly translated and published in the US during the late 60s or 70s, but it was not as successful there. Too much competition perhaps, or may be it was not a medium the Americans were used to. Its kind of a booklet, a bit smaller than a A4 paper, with 66 pages, and it was only 50 cent or so. They were sold at paper stands, not book stores. There were a number of other booklets (we say Hefte) in several genres, like Western stories, Crime, Love, Horror and even WW2 stories. But Perry Rhodan was the only SF series I kwnow of. Though, it soon got a spin off, called Atlan, who was Perry Rhodan's alien buddy, so the stories kind of overlap. If you want a bit more info have a look here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Rhodan
Of course there were books that may or may not be SF, also before Jules Verne. Its always a matter of interpretation what SF is supposed to look like. Especially on the science part things get a bit hazy if you look back in time. The oldest SF story I read was from ancient Greece - it was a proper Space Opera with thousands of flying chariots and creatures at war in the sky, really weird stuff. But there was no concept of spaceships as we understand it, it was more like gods and demons and such. So more what we would call Fantasy today.
Similar goes for the Oz story. Is the tin man a robot? Is Oz a alternate reality? One could say so, although its never been called that in the book. Or the famous Frankenstein story - thats actually a SF.
E.E. Smith doesn't ring a bell either, but may be I have read something some time ago. I have read some old SF books at one point, like Stanislav Lem and other, but thats long ago.
Sometimes things don't translate well from one county/language to another, so that might be part of it. After all, a lot of Americans still don't get American SF, let alone that from other countries. The shorter format might have been a turn-off for many readers, too, although now novellas are becoming more popular as e-books.
I could go on about the Oz books for ages, but in the end they're straight up fantasy, despite having the occasional SF element. Tik-Tok was a robot, no doubt about it, but he had to be wound up, like a music box, to work. The Tin Woodman, on the other hand, was a regular person whose body parts were chopped off, one after another, after the Wicked Witch enchanted his ax. They were replaced to a local tinsmith--you won't see that it most modern versions! Baum treats Oz like a real place, and hints dropped here and there would suggest it's somewhere in the South Pacific. In my (so far unpublished) novel Oz was indeed there, but was transported along with other magical lands to its own dimension. Increased incursions by the outside world caused the change, as planes and ships gained greater range.
Well, perhaps it was the translation (which also increases the production cost), or other factors. For example, that in the US you had a good selection of SF authors that also wrote lots of short stories in those days, which were available in SF magazines for small money. In Germany, SF was a absolute fringe genre still, and often frowned about. German SF authors writing proper novels was basically unheared of back then.
On top of that, proper books were rather expensive, while those novella format booklets were only a few cent. Just right to read a few pages while you are going to work or school in bus or train or so. And they were easy to read, yet entertaining. For the main stream taste, there were the Western and Detective stories (and the Horror stories, but they were also seen as "weird") for the men, and Romance stories for the women. Like I said, Perry Rhodan was only for a minority of customers - but they were soon real hard core fans, who religiously bought every new issue. Often enough they were sold out very quickly, which was a problem because Perry Rhodan is a continous story line, unlike most of the other novella series used to be. You can read only a single one, or just some random ones, and understand and enjoy them. But the full picture of things going on is only showing if you read every new issue. Which is exactly how its intended, of course.
Its crazy, to think that the series is now going on for 60 years, authors died and new ones came in - and they never missed a single weekly issue! People, who want to start reading it now, have a lot of catching up to do... :)
Btw., there is even a movie "Perry Rhodan", a Italian production from around 1970 - which is outright terrible. Like most Italian movies from this time, and SF movies especially. Too bad nobody every picked that up ever again, it would make a brilliant space opera material today. And whats Star Wars with its poxy 7 or 8 movies - from Perry Rhodan you could make a few thousand. :)
I never really dived into the Oz stuff, it always seemed a bit too freaky to me, even for a fantasy story. And a bit childish, but may be thats because of the movie adaptations. And now it would mean a lot of catching up to do for me... :)
I had subscriptions to a few of those SF magazines! SF short stories are what I first started trying to sell, back in the days when fiction magazines were still big. It wasn't until a few years ago that I finally sold one ... something like forty years later.
The Oz books actually were children's stories, so ... there you go. But as the fans got older they still held onto the love of the books, so now much of the new Oz products are designed for adults, or for "the whole family", which often disappoints. "Wicked" is very adult material, and a well made fantasy. My own Oz book will be readable by young adults, but has more of an adult sensitivity ... if I ever get the darned thing published.