Australian science fiction

Australia, unlike Europe, does not have a long history in the genre of science fiction. Nevil Shute's On the Beach, published in 1957, and filmed in 1959, was perhaps the first notable international success. Though not born in Australia, Shute spent his latter years there, and the book was set in Australia. It might have been worse had the imports of American pulp magazines not been restricted during WWII, forcing local writers into the field. Various compilation magazines began appearing in the 1960s and the field has continued to expand into some significance. Today Australia has a thriving SF/Fantasy genre with names recognised around the world. In 2013 a trilogy by Sydney-born Ben Peek was sold at auction to a UK publisher for a six-figure deal .

Early (pre-Second World War) Australian science fiction was often what today one could consider racist and xenophobic, fueled by contemporary worries about invasion and foreigners. But by the 1950s, just as the genre in the United States and pretty much anywhere else, it became influenced by the issues of technological progress and globalization. 1952 marked the year of the first regular Australian science fiction conventions.

The origins of Australia's local science fiction industry sprang from a wartime embargo on the import of various non-essential goods from outside Australia, particularly from America. The Pulp Fiction Exhibition at the University of Otago noted: "In 1939, the Australian government placed an embargo on American pulp magazines. This decision was prompted by the moral majority, who claimed comics and other 'objectionable' material were undermining societal mores, and an importation crisis due to World War II."

In World War II, Darwin had received a heavier air raid than Pearl Harbor. Broome, Katherine and Cairns had also been bombed. Japanese submarines were attacking Sydney, and Spitfires and Zeroes were fighting it out above Australia's northern coasts and towns. The only American science fiction that arrived in Australia were in British editions. The only authentic American SF magazines to reach Australia in this period arrived as ballast in ships. Imported science fiction was an unthinkable luxury in Australia under these circumstances, yet thanks to government inertia the embargo was not lifted until thirteen years after the war ended, in 1958. The unrestricted return of non-Australian science fiction marked an end to one period of growth in Australian homegrown science fiction writing and publication.

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Wikipedia