by Victoria Silverwolf

Now that we're well into the first year of a new decade, it's possible to look back on the recently ended 1960's and acknowledge that it's been a time of extraordinary changes in society.  Music, clothing, civil rights, the peace movement, and so forth.  Even in the relatively tiny world of imaginative fiction, the so-called New Wave has hit the field like a tornado.

Many of these revolutions have been led by youths.  Recently, many young people in the United States have been demanding the right to vote at the age of eighteen instead of twenty-one.  (Shades of Wild in the Streets!)

A typical demonstration promoting the lowering of the voting age.  This one happened in Seattle last year.

On June 22 of this year President Nixon signed an extension of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, requiring that the voting age be eighteen in all federal, state, and local elections.  However, the constitutionality of this extension is under question, so don't celebrate yet.

Nixon had doubts about the constitutionality of the extension even as he signed it, so he ordered a court case to decide the issue.

The latest issue of Fantastic reflects the changes that have been going on, with the New Wave movement influencing a great deal of fiction and nonfiction in its pages.  Don't worry; there's enough Old Wave content to satisfy traditionalists as well.

Cover art by Jeff Jones.  Note that the Fantastic Illustrated feature promised on the cover does not actually appear in the issue.

Continue reading [July 12, 1960] The New Generation (August 1970 Fantastic) →