Another Science Fiction: Advertising the Space Race 1957-1962 [Paperback]

Megan Prelinger (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 13, 2010

The late 1950s and early '60s were the golden age of science fiction, an era when the farthest reaches of imagination were fed by the technological breakthroughs of the postwar years. While science fiction writers expressed the dreams and nightmares of the era in pulp print, real-life rocket engineers worked on making space travel reality. The imaginations of many Cold War scientists were fed by science fiction literature, and companies often promoted their future capabilities with fantastical, colorful visions aimed at luring young engineers into their booming workforce. In between the dry articles of trade journals, a new visual vernacular sprang up. Aerospace industry ads pitched the idea that we lived in a moment where anything was possible — gravity was history, and soon so would be the confines of our solar system. Another Science Fiction presents nearly 200 entertaining, intriguing, inspiring, and mind-boggling pieces of space-age eye candy.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A brilliant tour through the iconography and literature of America's grandest corporate dreamtime, the Space Age." —William Gibson, author of Neuromancer and Pattern Recognition

"I wish I had this book when I started Mad Men. This is exactly what I look for, a concise visual-historical reference of mid-century advertising. Megan Prelinger has uniquely and beautifully taken us on a trip back to space." —Gay Perello, Prop Master for Mad Men

"Stupendous." —Jonathan Lethem, author of Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress of Solitude

"To the author of this remarkable work must go well-deserved laurels for rescuing rocket/space ad artwork from virtual obscurity. Megan Prelinger's book is a treasure that should find a worldwide readership of space historians, lovers of space art, and all who seek to understand the evolution of humanity's transition to a space-faring species." —Fred Ordway, former member of the Wernher von Braun rocket team and consultant to Stanley Kubrick for 2001: A Space Odyssey

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Blast Books (April 13, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0922233357
• ISBN-13: 978-0922233359
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #156,290 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Megan Prelinger is an independent historian and a lifelong collector of space history ephemera and science fiction literature. She is co-founder and architect of information design of the Prelinger Library, a private research library open to the public, which houses more than forty thousand books and other print artifacts on North American regional and land use history, media and cultural studies, and technology, including a space history collection. She is also a naturalist and rehabilitator of aquatic avian species. She lives and works in San Francisco.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nostalgia for the future that never was, March 31, 2010

By 

J. Veazey "Speed Reader" (Houston, TX USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Another Science Fiction: Advertising the Space Race 1957-1962 (Paperback)

If you were a youngster like me during the dawn of The Space Age, this book is a trip down memory lane.

I read and watched everything I could find about space travel and aviation, so most of these ads passed by my eyes at one time or another.

It was fun turning the pages and coming upon an image that I hadn't seen in 50 years or more. It recalled to me the wonder and the fabulous anticipation I felt at the time as man made his first baby steps into space.

The book is also kind of depressing, to see visions of a future that never arrived. The shuttle looks likes like a bus with wings, not the sleek streamlined spacecraft of the 50's. The ISS looks like a floating junk yard compared to the giant rotating wheeled space stations of those days. Damn it, I want my private spaceship, my vacations on the moon, tourist trips to Mars, day trips to the giant wheel space stations. What happened to the future we were promised in all these ads?

Oh well, if you're a Baby Boomer, and you were/are a space enthusiast who grew up in the late 50's and early 60's, you WILL enjoy this book.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Treasure, June 28, 2010

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Gilbert Huey (Georgia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Another Science Fiction: Advertising the Space Race 1957-1962 (Paperback)

For those of us who grew up during the golden age of space exploration, this book is a treasure trove. Although I had never seen most of the illustrations they transported me back to those exciting days when America had vision, courage, and commitment. Now as we shut down the shuttle program, I wonder what happened.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars To the Moon -- And Beyond!, June 11, 2010

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takingadayoff "takingadayoff" (Las Vegas, Nevada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Another Science Fiction: Advertising the Space Race 1957-1962 (Paperback)

I came across some old Look and Life magazines at a thrift shop recently. They all featured John F. Kennedy - his inaugural as president, his assassination, the funeral, Jackie and the kids one year after. Important and memorable topics, but when I actually sat down to look at the magazines, I found that I was flipping past the articles and studying the ads. Buicks and Studebakers and Chevys, cigarettes, whiskey and beer, typewriters, canned soup, TV dinners. They were fascinating.

Author Megan Prelinger collected the best and most interesting ads from five years worth of aviation and technology magazines. The result is Another Science Fiction, a document that is probably more revealing about the era than the collected articles in those same magazines, and certainly more entertaining.

The overall impression is one of optimism and the expectation that science and technology will pave the way to a bright future. We're going to the moon. ... and beyond!

Contrast that with aviation and technology magazines of today. The ads are overwhelmingly military-themed, featuring weapons and soldiers. They are utilitarian ads, using photographs and text.

The space age ads are also often utilitarian and direct, but just as often they are whimsical or futuristic. Many are works of art. The Martin Company (later Martin-Marietta, then Lockheed-Martin) used many paintings by graphic artist Willi K. Baum, most of which would not look out of place in a modern art gallery.

On opening Another Science Fiction, I first looked at all the images, and then read the text later. It was fun to start to recognize the style of some of the regular artists for the various companies. The text was informative, explaining what some of the ad campaigns were about (some of the products advertised were pretty technical and specific to the space and aviation industries). Prelinger also talks about how the space race influenced the appearance of books and magazines, TV and movies.

The result is a crash course in one brief shining moment in American history.