There are always new writers entering the realms of science fiction, but there are certain periods when the creative clutch of eggs is more fertile than at other times. This is closely related to the state of the market. In the period up to 1955, there were three such hatchings: 1927–29, when writers reacted to the birth of the sf magazine; 1937–40, when they responded to the growing number of sf publications and to Campbell's requirements at Astounding ; and 1947–54, when writers reacted to the post-war boom in science fiction.

The difference between the third boom and the second was that with the second boom many of the first wave of writers began to fade and either stopped writing altogether or moved to the comic-book field. Science fiction rapidly matured in the 1937–40 period and few of the pioneer writers could adapt. However, the writers of the second wave were more than able to continue into the fifties. Many of them rejoiced in the taboo-breaking that newcomers such as Philip José Farmer stimulated. Some, such as Theodore Sturgeon and Fritz Leiber, actively encouraged it. This meant that the 1950s had the greatest concentration of talent that the science-fiction field had yet seen at a time when the market expanded to a greater extent than before. In fact it was arguably the most fertile period in science fiction's history. This fertility lasted until the mid-1960s, when, as we shall see, the ‘new wave’ revolution and other factors shattered the boundaries of science fiction. In more recent years the influence of the wider sf media and the amalgam of science fiction with fantasy has brought more diversity to the field, but not the same proportion of creativity. The 1950s saw the greatest flowering of science-fiction talent the field has ever seen.

To cover these authors in any detail is a huge task, and the following survey must, perforce, be fairly superficial. Even so I intend to cover the works of about 60 writers, some in more detail than others. What I particularly want to cover are the various influential talents that emerged during the 1950s, as well as earlier writers who adapted during the decade, and the extent to which this was affected by the different magazines and markets available.