Introspection is a bug-bear that affects most genres of popular culture once the purveyors and consumers of the genre begin to take themselves seriously. Usually this introspection takes as its points of departure attempts to define historically just exactly what the genre is; then through the establishment of rules for inclusion and exclusion it tries to demarcate those practitioners who belong (or don't belong) in the genre.

Science Fiction has been experiencing such growing pains for some time now…. (pp. 58-9)

The clearest example is Astounding Science Fiction: July, 1939, a facsimile reprint of "the first 'great' issue" of that classic SF pulp "produced under the editorship of John W. Campbell, Jr."…

For SF historians, the association of John Campbell's editorship with Astounding stands as the event in the "Golden Age" of science fiction. Campbell's Astounding is revered for giving birth to much of the early work of such...