War and Peace in British Science Fiction Fandom, 1936–1945

Fans of science fiction offer an unusual opportunity to study that rare bird—a “public” view of science in history. Of course science fiction fans are by no means representative of a “general” public, but they are a coherent, interesting, and significant group in their own right. In this article, we follow British fans from their phase of self-organization just before World War II and through their wartime experiences. We examine how they defined science and science fiction, and how they connected their interest in them with their personal ambitions and social concerns. Moreover, we show how the war clarified and altered these connections. Rather than being distracted from science fiction, fans redoubled their focus upon it during the years of conflict. The number of new fanzines published in the midcentury actually peaked during the war. In this article, we examine what science fiction fandom, developed over the previous few years, offered them in this time of national trial.