Campbellian adj.

A story which followed Campbellian formula by taking space travel for granted and starting from there.

It is a matter of solid scientific, Campbellian fact that a combination of high temperature and high humidity reduces the physical capacity of any individual; particularly his capacity for enjoyment. And if we don’t go to Conventions to enjoy them, why not save our money and swelter at home?

Modern (Campbellian) SF was written at a time when technology was thought to be able to do anything.

SF descended from Campbellian ‘modern’ SF—which is, still, what U.S. SF is in large part—could use practitioners well acquainted with descriptive-fiction techniques and technical standards.

As a way to begin a discussion of hard SF, it is surely useful to examine when and how the term emerged…. Gregory Benford recalled a conversation with Poul Anderson in the early 1960s when they employed the phrase “Campbellian science fiction.”

There was a sort of vague polemical point in the back of my mind here, to show that a significant impact can be made upon a society by someone even if they are not particularly competent and Heinleinian and Campbellian. A non-super-man. I suppose you could contrast this with my first story, ‘The Empty Man,’ where the character is a Campbellian superhero.

What he does very well…is to suggest the importance of ‘Golden Age’ sf to its readers, why Campbellian sf appealed to them, and that we need to think of modern sf as a very different beast before we start arguing over histories.