Rayguns and rockets! Spacesuited heroes caught in the tentacles of evil insectoid aliens! Who
could resist such wonders? Science-fiction paperbacks exploded over the 1940s and '50s literary
landscape with the force of an alien gamma bomb. Titles such as Rodent Mutation The Human Bat
vs The Robot Gangster Dawn of the Mutants and Mushroom Men from Mars appeared from
fly-by-night publishers making the most of the end of post-war paper rationing. They were brash
and seductive - for around a shilling the future was yours. The stories were often conceived
around a pre-commissioned cover and a title suggested by the publisher and the writers were
paid by the word and sometimes not paid at all. Titles were knocked out at a key-pounding pace
sometimes over a weekend by authors now lost to literary history (plus a few professionals who
could spot an opportunity) who were forced to write under pseudonyms like Ray Cosmic Steve
Future Vector Magroon or Vargo Statten. Despite the tight deadlines and poor pay the books'
cover artists still managed to produce works of multi-hued brain-bending brilliance and
collected here is an overview of their output during an unparalleled period of brash optimism
and experimentation in publishing.
