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spacenoirdetective · 3 months ago

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Virgil Finlay, "The Sand Painters", Fantastic Universe, April 1957

#virgil finlay #fantastic #fantastic universe #pulp magazine #pulp art #scifi pulp #pulp scifi #50s art #50s pulp #50s scifi

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vintagegeekculture · 2 years ago

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“Space is a Province of Brazil”

A lot of 1950s science fiction novels predicted Brazil would become a super-power, either the only one remaining on earth, or a rival to the Soviet Union and United States.

This is mainly because the cold war should more accurately be divided into two halves, and in the earlier, more frightening phase of the cold war in the 50s and 60s, atomic war was taken as an absolute inevitability. If so, it stood to reason that southern hemisphere countries like Brazil would be the ones to take the lead in space travel right afterward, as the Northern Hemisphere destroys itself. The best example of this is John Wyndham’s future history, “The Outward Urge” (also known as “The Troons of Space,” as it is an intergenerational story of the Troon Family). In that one, Brazil becomes a world power after the atomic wars. The bolsterous, self confident Brazilians in that one proclaim that “Space is a province of Brazil.”

Another example would be L. Sprague de Camp’s “Viagens Interplanetarias” or Planet Krishna stories, where Brazil’s rise is due (once again) to an atomic war that cleared the northern hemisphere, drugs from the Amazon Rain Forest, its position on the Equator allowing it to take the lead in space travel. The series gets its name from the Interplanetary Travel Company in Portuguese.

Australia, another southern hemisphere country, becomes a world power in a lot of future histories, but not as often as Brazil does. A good example of this would be Cordwainer Smith’s Norstrilia, a planet colonized by Australia that keeps alive the way of life of Australian rural sheep ranchers.

#brazil #50s scifi #scifi history

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knightotoc · 11 months ago

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"In my father's day, a night operator, whose name he'd have known, could've told him who'd called. It would probably have been the only light on her board at that time of night, and she'd have remembered which one it was, because they were calling the doctor.

"But now we have dial phones, marvelously efficient, saving you a full second or more every time you call. Inhumanely perfect, and utterly brainless. And none of them will ever remember where a doctor is at night when a child is sick and needs him. Sometimes I think we're refining all humanity out of our lives."

-- The Body Snatchers, Jack Finney, 1955

#invasion of the body snatchers #the body snatchers #jack finney #50s scifi #now i'm curious about the transition away from phone operators #and if it was more or less upsetting than today's transition to 10-minute ai-voiced phone trees before you can speak with someone #modern inhuman refinements don't even save time #on the other hand we don't assume today that customer service are women and doctors are men (even tho this is still largely true)

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unfotograma · 1 year ago

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Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956)

#Earth vs. the Flying Saucers #1956 #filmstills #film stills #scifi #50s scifi #science fiction

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intergalactic-io · 2 years ago

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Terrific art!

The funniest thing about this image is that most Forbidden Planet posters/art use the “Robbie carrying Altaira” design despite the fact that it never happens in the movie. Robbie, while integral to the plot, spends more time distilling alcohol for a lush than doing stuff in the A Plot.

Anyway, watch the movie, it’s brilliant!