space fiction n.

science fiction set in space or on other worlds, or involving space travel n.

SF Criticism

  • 1929 L. E. Foltz Letter in Science Wonder Stories Sept. 378 page image

    ‘The Problems of Space Flying’ brings out a lot of obvious points apparently overlooked by space fiction writers. However, such detail properly belongs in an article, not in fiction.

  • 1937 Letter in Weird Tales Sept. 380/1 page image

    I wish you would go light on the space-fiction and scientific stuff. A little for those who like it, yes. But not too much. Keep WT weird.

  • 1948 W. Sheldon Perfect Servant in Startling Stories July 116/1 Walt Sheldon bibliography

    In Vienna I make my reputation on musicals. So I come to Hollywood. So what do they give me? An epic. About the future, yet. The story they get from a magazine called Atomic Space Fiction. I can’t even understand it. It opens in a laboratory. How do I know if the laboratory Soumazowsky, my technical adviser, builds is authentic?

  • 1952 Space Science Fiction May 2/1

    We like good space fiction, and we intend to bring you the best of it… The space-opera of flashing rayguns and invincible heroes has long since been overdone.

  • 1979 Daily Telegraph 14 Dec. 13/3

    Star Trek is the latest in an increasing number of space fiction films which…tend to find individuality.

  • 2006 P. Di Filippo On Books in Asimov’s Science Fiction Sept. 137/1 page image Paul Di Filippo

    Eric Brown…[has] found a scientifically respectable way to combine zombie fiction and space fiction, to the one-shot betterment of both genres.


Research requirements

antedating 1929

Earliest cite

A letter to Science Wonder Stories

Research History
Fred Galvin submitted a 1948 cite from Walt Sheldon's "Perfect Servant".
Jesse Sheidlower submitted a 1928 cite from a letter to Science Wonder Stories.
Jesse Sheidlower submitted a 1937 cite from a letter to Weird Tales.

Last modified 2020-12-16 04:08:47
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.