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By David Rothman

AmazingOct31 When the five facts below reached me from Discover, under the headline “20 Things You Didn’t Know about…Science Fiction,” I was a little surprised. I’m hardly a sci-fi maven, but all five were familiar. How about you?

1 Arguably the inspiration for much science fiction traces back to classical mythology. Think of it—Earthlings abducted by beings from the sky, humans morphing into strange creatures, and events that defy the laws of nature.

2 Birth of the (un)cool: In 1926 writer Hugo Gernsback founded Amazing Stories, the first true science-fiction magazine.

3 Gernsback loved greenbacks. He tried to trademark the term science fiction, and he paid writers so little that H. P. Lovecraft later nicknamed him “Hugo the Rat.”

4 Rat’s revenge: The most famous sci-fi writing award is called the Hugo.

5 Writers for the early pulp magazines would often write under multiple pseudonyms so they could have more than one article per issue. Ray Bradbury—taking this practice to another level—used six different pen names.

That said, most of the facts toward the end of the list were new to me—for example:

18 When sci-fi visionary Philip K. Dick inadvertently re-created a Bible scene in his book Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, he became convinced that the spirit of the prophet Elijah had overcome him, kicking off a long bout of schizophrenia.

19 After Dick’s death, fans built an android likeness of him that mimicked his mannerisms and quoted his writings.

20 In 2005, the Dickbot was misplaced by a baggage handler. It remains at large.

(Discover item and image found via MobileRead, which also carries a pointer to My Digital Generation, a free book by Shaun McGill.)

 
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