Space Ships! Ray Guns! Martian Octopods!: Interviews with Science Fiction Legends
Richard Wolinsky, editor
“Amazing, astounding, fantastic – and ingeniously organized and edited.”
–Jonathan Lethem
In these highly-candid radio interviews, more than fifty legendary, larger-than-life personalities trade anecdotes about the Golden Age of science fiction. Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison, Philip K. Dick, Isaac Asimov, Margaret Atwood, Fritz Leiber, Frank Herbert, and many more, depict the wild personalities, sparks of contention, and vivid imagination that made science fiction thrive.
Today, depictions of aliens, rocket ships, and awe-inspiring, futuristic space operas are everywhere. Why is there so much science fiction, and where did it come from anyway? Radio producer and author Richard Wolinsky has found answers in the Golden Age of science fiction, between 1920 and 1960.
Wolinsky and his fellow writers and co-hosts Richard A. Lupoff and Lawrence Davidson, interviewed a veritable who’s who of famous (and infamous) science-fiction publishers, pulp magazines, editors, cover artists, and fans. The interviews themselves, which aired on the public radio, Probabilities, span over twenty years, from just before the release of Star Wars through the dawn of Y2K.
Probabilities was the home of a vivid cross-section of the early science fiction world, with radio guests offering a wide range of tales, opinions, theory, and gossip. It speaks to how, in the early days, they were free to define science fiction for themselves and push the genre to explore new ideas and new tropes in creative (and sometimes questionable) ways.
Space Ships! Ray Guns! Martian Octopods! is ultimately a love letter to fandom. Science fiction wouldn’t have survived as a genre if there weren’t devoted fanatics who wrote fanzines, organized conventions, and built relationships for fandom to flourish.
“20th-century U.S. science fiction culture, as incubated in the pulp magazines, is arguably as formative on our 21st century techno-media-sphere as anything could possibly be. We dwell in the world these brainy outsiders dreamed into being, for better and worse. All future scholars of this improbable occurrence will surely now work with this amazing, astounding, fantastic – and ingeniously organized and edited – book open on their desks. Speaking as a reader, it’s a great and breathless ride, full of gossip, weird insight, and self-reflection – all made possible by Wolinsky’s (and Lupoff’s, and Davidson’s) commitment to giving the players the chance to be heard, and the inducement to think aloud.”
–Jonathan Lethem
“It’s a gaudy patchwork quilt of raw gossip and old radio chatter, but it’s also the world’s most authentic portrait of the real-life of professional SF fantasists. Read this book, and you’ll feel like you’ve hung out drunk inside the Hugo Loser’s Suite at Worldcon for a hundred solid years.”
–Bruce Sterling, Hugo Award winning author of Pirate Utopia
“Space Ships! Ray Guns! Martian Octopods! is a rollicking oral history of science fiction. Richard Wolinsky was—and is!—an incredible interviewer. As editor of this volume, he has pulled together origin stories, gossip, and tales of writing and publishing from the titans of the genre, including Isaac Asimov, Margaret Atwood, Philip K. Dick, Harlan Ellison, Frank Herbert, Ursula K. Le Guin, Kurt Vonnegut, and many more. Open the book to any page, and I promise you will learn something new about science fiction, the art of writing, and the humor, heartbreak, and sometimes cattiness of writers.”
—Lisa See, New York Times bestselling author
“This is the book I’ve always wanted to read without knowing it—a gossipy, beautifully assembled oral history of American science fiction from the pulp era to the early sixties. A gold mine of anecdote, advice, and invective, it’s one of the few books on the subject that will entertain and enlighten both newcomers and longtime fans. It belongs in the library of anyone with even the slightest interest in the story of how science fiction conquered the world.”
—Alec Nevala-Lee, Hugo Award finalist for Astounding
“Don’t settle for secondhand accounts when you can keep company with greats like Ray Bradbury, Ursula K. Le Guin, Theodore Sturgeon, Anne McCaffrey, and so many others. Chronicling creative ferment and surging with insights, this oral genre history achieves liftoff from the first page and shoots for the stars.”
—Alvaro Zinos-Amaro, Hugo Award finalist
Richard Wolinsky co-hosted and produced Probabilities, a half-hour radio program devoted to science fiction, mystery and mainstream fiction, from 1977 to 1995 on KPFA-FM. He took the program solo in 2002, renamed it Bookwaves, and it is still running. Along the way, he has spoken with most of the English-speaking world’s leading authors, including Peter Carey, Joseph Heller, William Kennedy, Margaret Atwood, Anne Rice, Gore Vidal, James Ellroy, Joyce Carol Oates, Norman Mailer, Salman Rushdie, E.L. Doctorow, and many others. Wolinsky’s interviews have been published in numerous venues, including the San Francisco Bay Guardian, Heavy Metal, Mystery Scene Magazine, and in such books as Feast of Fear: Conversations with Stephen King, The Louis L’Amour Companion, and Macabre II: Stephen King & Clive Barker. Wolinsky was born and raised in New York City and has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1978.
Table Of Contents
The Probabilities Interviews by Richard Wolinsky
Foreword by by Richard A. Lupoff
Chapter One—Space Ships! Ray Guns! Martian Octopods!: Science Fiction in the 1920s
Birth of a Genre
The Early Pulps
Hugo Gernsback & Amazing Stories Writers of the Twenties
Jack Williamson
Claire Winger Harris
Victor Rousseau
Otis Adelbert Kline
E. “Doc” Smith
The Other Magazines: Argosy & the Bottom Feeders
Chapter Two—The Story of Weird Tales
Mad Scientists & Monsters
It Came From Indianapolis
H.P. Lovecraft: A Twentieth-Century Poe
Clark Ashton Smith: The Bard of Auburn
Portraits of the Writers
Robert E. Howard
Seabury Quinn
E. Hoffman Price
Frank Belknap Long
Fritz Leiber
Robert Bloch
Chapter Three—The Years of the Depression: Triumph of the Pulps
On the Racks in the 1930s
Writing for the Magazines
The Future Is Today Wonder Stories, Charlie, Mort & The Gang Astounding: From Bates to Tremaine
Amazing Stories: Santa Claus Sloane & the Astonishing Ray Palmer Doc Savage: More Like a Comic Book
Meanwhile, Back at The Ranch . . . The Authors of the Thirties
Ed Earl Repp
Ray Cummings
Otto Binder
Charles Willard Diffin
Lawrence Manning
C.L. Moore
Murray Leinster
Fletcher Pratt
Carl Jacobi
Stanley G. Weinbaum
The Hawk Carse Stories
The Gentle Satire of Stanton A. Coblentz
On the Water with Ed Hamilton
Theodore Sturgeon Starts to Write
Books of the Thirties
The Pulp Merry-Go-Round
Is This Any Way To Make A Living?
Chapter Four—The King of Science Fiction: John W. Campbell & Astounding A Whole New Ball Game
John Campbell, the Man Unknown—Campbell’s Fantasy Magazine
Campbell as Editor
John W. Campbell’s Personality
Campbell’s Editorial Policies
Campbell’s Later Years
Chapter Five—World War II & Beyond: Science Fiction in the Forties
World War II & the Science Fiction Pulps
On The Home Front: The Magazines Continue
Writing After the War Amazing Stories & Fantastic Adventures: Palmer & Browne Hold Down The Fort
Ray Palmer & the Shaver Mystery Planet Stories: Pulpiest Of the Pulps Thrilling Wonder Stories Legacy for the Future
Masters of the Genre, Part One: Robert Heinlein
Masters of the Genre, Part Two: Ray Bradbury
Writers of the Forties
Jack Williamson
Robert Bloch
Ed Earl Repp
A.E. van Vogt
Arthur J. Burks
David H. Keller
Henry Kuttner
Leigh Brackett
Theodore Sturgeon
L. Ron Hubbard
It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s a Comic Book
Labors of Love: The Specialty Publishers
Chapter Six—The Fifties: The World Rushes In
Magazines, Magazines, & More Magazines
The Rise & Fall of the Magazines
Housebound But Not Limited: Horace Gold & Galaxy The Magazine of Fantasy And Science Fiction: Anthony Boucher & J. Francis McComas
Jane Roberts Gets Published Amazing & Fantastic: Howard Browne Goes for Class
Successors To Howard Browne: Paul W. Fairman & Cele Goldsmith
Dead On Arrival: Worlds Beyond Running With the Pack: If: Worlds of Science Fiction The List Goes On: Infinity & Science Fiction Adventures Ray Palmer Goes It Alone: Other Worlds & Universe Imagination & Rogue: The Publishing Empire of William Hamling Fantastic Universe & Satellite: Leo Margulies & His Publishing Empire
Doc Lowndes: Editor Without a Budget
Bottom of the Barrel: Rocket Stories & John Raymond
But Wait, There’s More: Marvel, Cosmos, & The Rest
The World of Small Presses
The Hydra Club & The Milford Writers’ Conference
Science Fiction for Fun & Profit: Writers of the ’50s, Their Ideas, Their Books, & Their Stories
William F. Nolan
Arthur C. Clarke
Philip K. Dick
Harry Harrison
Algis Budrys
Marion Zimmer Bradley
Theodore Sturgeon
Frank M. Robinson
Jack Williamson
“The Covenant”
Jane Roberts
The Rise of the Paperbacks
Bantam & Ballantine
Ace Books
Avon Books
Universal Publishing
Regency Books
Television
Science Fiction Comes of Age: The Hugo Awards
Chapter Seven—From the Science Fiction League to the Futurians: Fans for All Seasons
The Origins Of Fandom
War with the Futurians
John Michel
The Futurians Begin Growing Up
Writing About the Futurians
Fandom Outside New York
Let’s Join a Rock & Roll Band ’Cause The Groups All Live Together
Fandom Goes On
Appendix I—Origin Stories: Reading & Writing That Crazy Buck Rogers Stuff
Appendix II—List of Interviews
About Lawrence Davidson
About Richard A. Lupoff
About Richard Wolinsky
Space Ships! Ray Guns! Martian Octopods!: Interviews with Science Fiction Legends
Richard Wolinsky, editor
“Amazing, astounding, fantastic – and ingeniously organized and edited.”
–Jonathan Lethem
In these highly-candid radio interviews, more than fifty legendary, larger-than-life personalities trade anecdotes about the Golden Age of science fiction. Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison, Philip K. Dick, Isaac Asimov, Margaret Atwood, Fritz Leiber, Frank Herbert, and many more, depict the wild personalities, sparks of contention, and vivid imagination that made science fiction thrive.
Space Ships! Ray Guns! Martian Octopods!: Interviews with Science Fiction Legends
by Richard Wolinsky, editor
ISBN: 978-1-61696-442-9 (print); 978-1-61696-443-6 (digital)
Published: September 2, 2025
Available Format(s): digital, trade paperback
Today, depictions of aliens, rocket ships, and awe-inspiring, futuristic space operas are everywhere. Why is there so much science fiction, and where did it come from anyway? Radio producer and author Richard Wolinsky has found answers in the Golden Age of science fiction, between 1920 and 1960.
Wolinsky and his fellow writers and co-hosts Richard A. Lupoff and Lawrence Davidson, interviewed a veritable who’s who of famous (and infamous) science-fiction publishers, pulp magazines, editors, cover artists, and fans. The interviews themselves, which aired on the public radio, Probabilities, span over twenty years, from just before the release of Star Wars through the dawn of Y2K.
Probabilities was the home of a vivid cross-section of the early science fiction world, with radio guests offering a wide range of tales, opinions, theory, and gossip. It speaks to how, in the early days, they were free to define science fiction for themselves and push the genre to explore new ideas and new tropes in creative (and sometimes questionable) ways.
Space Ships! Ray Guns! Martian Octopods! is ultimately a love letter to fandom. Science fiction wouldn’t have survived as a genre if there weren’t devoted fanatics who wrote fanzines, organized conventions, and built relationships for fandom to flourish.
“20th-century U.S. science fiction culture, as incubated in the pulp magazines, is arguably as formative on our 21st century techno-media-sphere as anything could possibly be. We dwell in the world these brainy outsiders dreamed into being, for better and worse. All future scholars of this improbable occurrence will surely now work with this amazing, astounding, fantastic – and ingeniously organized and edited – book open on their desks. Speaking as a reader, it’s a great and breathless ride, full of gossip, weird insight, and self-reflection – all made possible by Wolinsky’s (and Lupoff’s, and Davidson’s) commitment to giving the players the chance to be heard, and the inducement to think aloud.”
–Jonathan Lethem
“It’s a gaudy patchwork quilt of raw gossip and old radio chatter, but it’s also the world’s most authentic portrait of the real-life of professional SF fantasists. Read this book, and you’ll feel like you’ve hung out drunk inside the Hugo Loser’s Suite at Worldcon for a hundred solid years.”
–Bruce Sterling, Hugo Award winning author of Pirate Utopia
“Space Ships! Ray Guns! Martian Octopods! is a rollicking oral history of science fiction. Richard Wolinsky was—and is!—an incredible interviewer. As editor of this volume, he has pulled together origin stories, gossip, and tales of writing and publishing from the titans of the genre, including Isaac Asimov, Margaret Atwood, Philip K. Dick, Harlan Ellison, Frank Herbert, Ursula K. Le Guin, Kurt Vonnegut, and many more. Open the book to any page, and I promise you will learn something new about science fiction, the art of writing, and the humor, heartbreak, and sometimes cattiness of writers.”
—Lisa See, New York Times bestselling author
“This is the book I’ve always wanted to read without knowing it—a gossipy, beautifully assembled oral history of American science fiction from the pulp era to the early sixties. A gold mine of anecdote, advice, and invective, it’s one of the few books on the subject that will entertain and enlighten both newcomers and longtime fans. It belongs in the library of anyone with even the slightest interest in the story of how science fiction conquered the world.”
—Alec Nevala-Lee, Hugo Award finalist for Astounding
“Don’t settle for secondhand accounts when you can keep company with greats like Ray Bradbury, Ursula K. Le Guin, Theodore Sturgeon, Anne McCaffrey, and so many others. Chronicling creative ferment and surging with insights, this oral genre history achieves liftoff from the first page and shoots for the stars.”
—Alvaro Zinos-Amaro, Hugo Award finalist
Richard Wolinsky co-hosted and produced Probabilities, a half-hour radio program devoted to science fiction, mystery and mainstream fiction, from 1977 to 1995 on KPFA-FM. He took the program solo in 2002, renamed it Bookwaves, and it is still running. Along the way, he has spoken with most of the English-speaking world’s leading authors, including Peter Carey, Joseph Heller, William Kennedy, Margaret Atwood, Anne Rice, Gore Vidal, James Ellroy, Joyce Carol Oates, Norman Mailer, Salman Rushdie, E.L. Doctorow, and many others. Wolinsky’s interviews have been published in numerous venues, including the San Francisco Bay Guardian, Heavy Metal, Mystery Scene Magazine, and in such books as Feast of Fear: Conversations with Stephen King, The Louis L’Amour Companion, and Macabre II: Stephen King & Clive Barker. Wolinsky was born and raised in New York City and has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1978.
Table Of Contents
The Probabilities Interviews by Richard Wolinsky
Foreword by by Richard A. Lupoff
Chapter One—Space Ships! Ray Guns! Martian Octopods!: Science Fiction in the 1920s
Birth of a Genre
The Early Pulps
Hugo Gernsback & Amazing Stories
Writers of the Twenties
Jack Williamson
Claire Winger Harris
Victor Rousseau
Otis Adelbert Kline
E. “Doc” Smith
The Other Magazines: Argosy & the Bottom Feeders
Chapter Two—The Story of Weird Tales
Mad Scientists & Monsters
It Came From Indianapolis
H.P. Lovecraft: A Twentieth-Century Poe
Clark Ashton Smith: The Bard of Auburn
Portraits of the Writers
Robert E. Howard
Seabury Quinn
E. Hoffman Price
Frank Belknap Long
Fritz Leiber
Robert Bloch
Chapter Three—The Years of the Depression: Triumph of the Pulps
On the Racks in the 1930s
Writing for the Magazines
The Future Is Today
Wonder Stories, Charlie, Mort & The Gang
Astounding: From Bates to Tremaine
Amazing Stories: Santa Claus Sloane & the Astonishing Ray Palmer
Doc Savage: More Like a Comic Book
Meanwhile, Back at The Ranch . . . The Authors of the Thirties
Ed Earl Repp
Ray Cummings
Otto Binder
Charles Willard Diffin
Lawrence Manning
C.L. Moore
Murray Leinster
Fletcher Pratt
Carl Jacobi
Stanley G. Weinbaum
The Hawk Carse Stories
The Gentle Satire of Stanton A. Coblentz
On the Water with Ed Hamilton
Theodore Sturgeon Starts to Write
Books of the Thirties
The Pulp Merry-Go-Round
Is This Any Way To Make A Living?
Chapter Four—The King of Science Fiction: John W. Campbell & Astounding
A Whole New Ball Game
John Campbell, the Man
Unknown—Campbell’s Fantasy Magazine
Campbell as Editor
John W. Campbell’s Personality
Campbell’s Editorial Policies
Campbell’s Later Years
Chapter Five—World War II & Beyond: Science Fiction in the Forties
World War II & the Science Fiction Pulps
On The Home Front: The Magazines Continue
Writing After the War
Amazing Stories & Fantastic Adventures: Palmer & Browne Hold Down The Fort
Ray Palmer & the Shaver Mystery
Planet Stories: Pulpiest Of the Pulps
Thrilling Wonder Stories
Legacy for the Future
Masters of the Genre, Part One: Robert Heinlein
Masters of the Genre, Part Two: Ray Bradbury
Writers of the Forties
Jack Williamson
Robert Bloch
Ed Earl Repp
A.E. van Vogt
Arthur J. Burks
David H. Keller
Henry Kuttner
Leigh Brackett
Theodore Sturgeon
L. Ron Hubbard
It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s a Comic Book
Labors of Love: The Specialty Publishers
Chapter Six—The Fifties: The World Rushes In
Magazines, Magazines, & More Magazines
The Rise & Fall of the Magazines
Housebound But Not Limited: Horace Gold & Galaxy
The Magazine of Fantasy And Science Fiction: Anthony Boucher & J. Francis McComas
Jane Roberts Gets Published
Amazing & Fantastic: Howard Browne Goes for Class
Successors To Howard Browne: Paul W. Fairman & Cele Goldsmith
Dead On Arrival: Worlds Beyond
Running With the Pack: If: Worlds of Science Fiction
The List Goes On: Infinity & Science Fiction Adventures
Ray Palmer Goes It Alone: Other Worlds & Universe
Imagination & Rogue: The Publishing Empire of William Hamling
Fantastic Universe & Satellite: Leo Margulies & His Publishing Empire
Doc Lowndes: Editor Without a Budget
Bottom of the Barrel: Rocket Stories & John Raymond
But Wait, There’s More: Marvel, Cosmos, & The Rest
The World of Small Presses
The Hydra Club & The Milford Writers’ Conference
Science Fiction for Fun & Profit: Writers of the ’50s, Their Ideas, Their Books, & Their Stories
William F. Nolan
Arthur C. Clarke
Philip K. Dick
Harry Harrison
Algis Budrys
Marion Zimmer Bradley
Theodore Sturgeon
Frank M. Robinson
Jack Williamson
“The Covenant”
Jane Roberts
The Rise of the Paperbacks
Bantam & Ballantine
Ace Books
Avon Books
Universal Publishing
Regency Books
Television
Science Fiction Comes of Age: The Hugo Awards
Chapter Seven—From the Science Fiction League to the Futurians: Fans for All Seasons
The Origins Of Fandom
War with the Futurians
John Michel
The Futurians Begin Growing Up
Writing About the Futurians
Fandom Outside New York
Let’s Join a Rock & Roll Band ’Cause The Groups All Live Together
Fandom Goes On
Appendix I—Origin Stories: Reading & Writing That Crazy Buck Rogers Stuff
Appendix II—List of Interviews
About Lawrence Davidson
About Richard A. Lupoff
About Richard Wolinsky