Besprekingen
Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert… door Alec Nevala-Lee
Early in his career, Campbell offered a clear, if limited, definition of science fiction and the sorts of heroes it should produce. The ideal science fiction protagonist, he said, should be a “competent man”: “a hero with the sensibilities of an engineer confronting challenges that only science could solve.” It was the sort of fiction epitomized by Heinlein and written today by such writers as Andy Weir. The lack of such an engineering focus was one factor that kept a younger writer like Ray Bradbury from ever appearing in the magazine.
For a man who prided himself on his rationality, Campbell proved himself to be a sucker for every crank idea that came along, most notably the Dianetics of L. Ron Hubbard that laid the groundwork for the cult of Scientology. He encouraged Asimov to burden his stories with characters with psionic abilities—qualities even his robots eventually acquired. Before he realized his long-held ambition to get rich by founding a religion, L. Ron Hubbard was the best-selling writer in Campbell’s stable. Campbell created a fantasy magazine as a more appropriate venue for him than Astounding. As he aged, Campbell became less and less tolerant of challenges to his beliefs, an intransigence that was a factor in the breakup of his first marriage.
None of these Golden-Agers had especially enlightened views on the status of women. Kay Tarrant spent her whole career unacknowledged at Campbell’s side doing all the practical, unglamorous work of magazine publishing. None of the writers had first marriages that went the distance, and Asimov was known by women in publishing as “the man with a thousand hands.”
To give Campbell his due, he had an eye for talent and an early vision of what science fiction could be. He had a major influence on Asimov’s Foundation series and helped him formulate his three laws of robotics. He provided a venue for Hubbard’s best work and encouraged Heinlein to stay in the game when he had doubts about writing as a career. And, best of all, his magazine helped shape the genre as it emerged from the pulp tradition.
The 4 men were all born before 1921, and were middle class male Americans of European ancestry; 3 were non-religious WASPs. (Asimov was born in Russia and immigrated to New York as an infant; he was Jewish). None of them was religious. All four divorced and remarried. People who were young adults 1937-45 lived through the Great Depression, the Second World War, and most lived through the Cold War, and the 1960s. All four were arguably progressive at times, on some social and political issues. Campbell had explicit and implicit racist and sexist views, which Nevala-Lee exposes.
Campbell had published some stories in the pulps the early 1930s, and became the editor of Astounding Stories in 1937. Campbell changed the name of the magazine to Astounding Science Fiction. Robert Silverberg, in his essay “The Making of a Science-Fiction Writer” in the anthology World of Wonders described the magazine as “austere and dignified” unlike the several other professionally published magazines at that time which were “garish” and “trashy-looking”. Silverberg, who had some experience in the SF markets of the 1950s, faintly praised Campbell for improving the literary standards of SF publishing:
"Science fiction in 1944 ... still was deeply rooted in pulp-magazine narrative traditions. The typical ... story began fast. with the hero in deep trouble and zipped along in a series of quick scenes ... of physical action and a great deal of dialog until it reached its climax and resolution. ....
"Campbell's Astounding ... was an honourable exception. Campbell despised the idiocies of pulp fiction and urged his writers to produce the mature copy that such slick magazines as The Saturday Evening Post or The New Yorker might want to publish in the year 2150. ... Yet the stories Campbell published ... generally made use, in disguised and improved form, of the melodramatic conflicts and stock reactions of the pulp magazines and the writing, though clean and efficient, rarely rose far above the level of simple functional prose." Citation: World of Wonders, "Flowing from Ring to Ring" discussing "No Woman Born" by C.L. Moore.
Part 2 of Nevala-Lee’s Astounding, titled “The Golden Age”, covers Campbell’s relationships with Heinlein, Asimov and Hubbard before the U.S.A. built up its capacity to manufacture weapons and entered WW II. Part 3 covers the years the United States was a combatant in the World War, 1941-45.
Hubbard was a popular writer in the pulp periodicals in the 1930s; he sold a few stories to Campbell and Astounding in the 1940s. He is remembered as the founder of the “dianetics” (a pseudo scientific form of personal therapy), and the founder and leader of Scientology.
Part 4, “The Double Minds”, addresses some of Campbell’s interests: science, progress, mental health. Part 4 notes Campbell’s involvement in attempting become a therapist using the dianetics theories, and Campbell’s editorials in Astounding promoting dianetics. Nevala-Lee suggests that Campbell was curious about unproven science, and overconfident in his own scientific judgment.
The Campbell biography adds to the literature on speculative fiction in the 20th century.
Nevala-Lee is ambivalent about whether Campbell believed in Hubbards dianetics, and unclear about some of the other ideas that Campbell explored, endorsed or promoted. He begins Part 4 with a quotation from S.I. Hayakawa’s 1951 essay “From Science-Fiction to Fiction-Science” (in ETC., the journal of the Institute of General Semantics):
“The art [of science fiction] consists in concealing from the reader, for novelistic purposes, the distinctions between established scientific facts, almost established scientific hypotheses, scientific conjectures, and imaginative extrapolations ... The danger of this technique lies in the fact that the writer of science fiction ... may enventually succeed in concealing the distinction between the facts and his imaginings from himself.”
This applies to the Campbell’s views of general semantics and Hubbard’s dianetics; also his views on science, education, nuclear power, cybernetics, cognition, perception, and space travel.
Nevala-Lee mentions Campbell’s other explorations of scientific and parascientific concerns of the mid-20th century. He mentions the Canadian writer Alfred Vogt - A. E. Van Vogt, Van Vogt, who was an enthusiast of Korzybski’s General Semantics, now considered to be a self-help pseudo-science psychotherapy movement, and of Hubbard’s dianetics. General Semantics was considered more seriously in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, according to Wikipedia, by SF and general readers and writers, including Heinlein, Campbell and Van Vogt:
“During the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, general semantics entered the idiom of science fiction. Notable examples include the works of A. E. van Vogt, The World of Null-A and its sequels. General semantics appear also in Robert A. Heinlein's work, especially Gulf. Bernard Wolfe drew on general semantics in his 1952 science fiction novel Limbo. Frank Herbert's novels Dune and Whipping Star are also indebted to general semantics. The ideas of general semantics became a sufficiently important part of the shared intellectual toolkit of genre science fiction to merit parody by Damon Knight and others; they have since shown a tendency to reappear in the work of more recent writers such as Samuel R. Delany, Suzette Haden Elgin and Robert Anton Wilson.”
Nevala-Lee, perhaps being cautious about provoking Scientology, does not label Hubbard a grifter, or Campbell a grifter or a dupe. Dianetics, like general semantics, appeared to be a new science. Campbell experimented with both.
Nevala-Lee’s discussion of Campell’s influence on the SF genre has problems. He refers to the period 1937-41 as the Golden Age, while many refer to 1938-1946 as the “Golden” age in the USA.
In the 19th century and first decades of the 20th century people in Europe and North America were exposed, to some degree, to information about scientific theories and discoveries, technological change, progress in medicine, theories about the mind, and to movements to improve society by developing the abilities of individuals. Many works of fiction appeared as short stories or episodes in a serial, like detective, crime, police, military, nautical, railroad, adventure, horror, supernatural, or cowboy, fiction in penny dreadfuls, dime novels and the pulp magazines. Stories with a scientific premise became popular, to the point of becoming a new category of fantasy literature. Hugo Gernsback founded Amazing Stories in 1926 and the Science Fiction League in 1934. Amazing published the addresses of writers of letters to the editor, which allowed fans to find each other and form local fan groups. SF fans tended to view science as a method with value to create technological progress, which gave some countries advantages in war, commerce and living standards. Some fans were New Deal liberals or progressives. Some fans, even in the U.S.A., were pro-labour, socialist or communist. Some fans were American nationalists, social conservatives, laissez-faire liberals, proto-libertarians or interested in science and SF as sources of ideas for inventions.
The Golden Age was notable for an increased insistence that SF involve a scientic premise (as opposed to magical premise), the dominance of hard science fiction over other versions of fantasy and science fiction, an humanistic and techno-optimistic emphasis, and an increase in the social credibility of SF. Progress in science and techology was assumed to lead to improved conditions of life and progress in civilization.
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Galaxy and came on the market in 1949 & 1950. They offered higher rates than older magazines. Writers began sell long fiction to publishers for the paperback book market. Robert Silverberg wrote in his essay “The Making of a Science-Fiction Writer” in the anthology World of Wonders that many writers gave up on dealing with the “increasingly difficult and dogmatic John Campbell”.
Judith Merrill was a member of the late 1930s fan group, the Futurians, which was formed as a breakaway from the Brooklyn based New York chapter of the Science Fiction League. Nevala-Lee mentions her in an anecdote involving Asimov, but not recognize her as a fanzine editor, editor, or for her roles as one of the founders of the a href=“https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milford_Writer%27s_Workshop”>Milford Workshop, and in the campaign to raise the literary standards of SF.
Readers’ tastes changed. The Golden Age ended. It was Golden for some, but its lustre has tarnished.
Heinlein had left the US Navy in 1934 for medical reasons. He sold several stories to Campbell as the editor of Astounding. Campbell was impressed by Heinlein and tried to cultivate him. Many of Heinlein’s acclaimed works were published after 1947, and were not published in Astounding. The Green Hills of Earth was first serialized in the Saturday Evening Post in 1947. Starship Trooperswas serialized in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1959. Stranger in a Strange Land was published by a book publisher in 1961.
Heinlein had progressive views in the 1930s but was a Goldwater Republican and a libertarian by the 1950s. Campbell and Heinlein supported the U.S. military and government in the Cold War, the Space Race, the Vietnam War, and on other issues. They lost support among fans and writers. New Wave science fiction became popular: "The New Wave was partly a rejection of the Golden Age of Science Fiction. ...The New Wave was not defined as a development from the science fiction which came before it, but initially reacted against it. New Wave writers did not operate as an organized group, but some of them felt the tropes of the pulp magazine and Golden Age periods had become over-used, and should be abandoned .... Scientific and technological themes [had been] more important than literary trends to Campbell, and some major Astounding contributors Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, and L. Sprague de Camp had scientific or engineering educations" Wikipedia, February 2023, New Wave Science Fiction
Ironically, Stranger in a Strange Land and some derivative stories were popular reading material in the countercultural movements of the 1960s. Heinlein’s reputation has declined, as noted in the 2007 Los Angeles Times article The descent of a sci-fi guru.
Nevala_Lee cannot explain how ideas moved among Campbell’s contacts, and which of them influenced the others. He thinks that Campbell influenced SF, and that SF influenced culture and society. Some readers’ life choices to work in science, or for NASA were influenced by reading SF. SF stories influenced ethics and politics - the influence has not been and cannot be measured. Campbell’s role in promoting SF may, but cannot be proved to, have influenced education, industry, economics or individual decisions.
Fast-forward forty or so years, and we have this new life of Fuller, by an ostensible admirer, and Nevala-Lee finds much to be dubious about. Too much hard drinking, too many dubious sexual adventures, too much exploitation of other folks' intellectual property, and too much personal myth making. My overall reaction; so what? This all seems par for the course for a self-invented American man of affairs of the 20th century: "There is no such thing as an original sin." Still, there is the critique Fuller's personal style might be one of the man's most notable lingering influences, and he basically created the template of entrepreneur as public philosopher, as exemplified by the Silicon Valley Set. Still, that Nevala-Lee can trace continued Fuller's influences in the worlds of architecture, the physical sciences, and applied humanities is what impresses me most; this is considering that Fuller's real original goal was to become the Henry Ford of private housing, not the guru of geodesic domes. Keeping in mind that this is a rather dry read, there is much food for thought here.
To begin this review, I will frame it in the context of two other biographies in the "great man" archetype. The first is Andrea Wulf's biography of Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859)—"The Invention of Nature." The second is Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs (1955-2011). All three of these biographies are "critical," in the sense that they don't shy from the personal failings of each of these men (Jobs and Fuller in particular had very strong "reality distortion fields" which often prevented all but the most dogged of investigative journalists from approaching truth). Apparently there are a number of biographies of Fuller already, although it sounds like many of them have been swept up in mythology as opposed to history (still useful, but in a different way).
The way that these three books differ is in the temporal perspective they've been able to achieve. Jobs just died a few years ago, so although Isaacson was able to speak of Jobs' influence during his lifetime, it is still too soon to tell how Jobs will shape the 21st century. With Humboldt, at the distance of a few centuries, it is possible to follow his influence on the arc of a number of different disciplines in generations of subsequent thinkers (which Wulf does a brilliant job of documenting). Nevala-Lee has had the luxury of being just far enough away from Fuller in time to be able to craft a book that not only documents all the intimate eccentricities of Fuller, but is also able to paint a picture of some of his influence on future generations of research (although I wish more of the book was dedicated to this subject, as Wulf had done; there is no mention of the Buckminster Fuller Institute, for example).
Another similarity between Humboldt, Fuller, and Jobs is that they were all generalists (or, some people might say, experts in a wide range of disparate fields). Fuller in particular capitalized on the articulation of his contributions through a generalist role (implicitly and often explicitly critiquing a societal trend towards specialization). Myself and a number of my peers have follow in this vein in our own professional careers, partially due to the influence of these men.
Now to turn our attention to Fuller himself:
If you had known Fuller in the earlier decades of his life, you would not have believed that he would achieve so much influence and esteem in his later years. Fuller struggled with alcoholism for much of his life. Despite his upper-class heritage, he had a bumbling professional life, with various fits and starts throughout his entire career. Similar to the way in which Enzo Ferrari didn't found the car company for which he is famous until he was fifty, Fuller only began to achieve success in his fifties.
Fuller also had a series of three long-term extra-marital relations with women in their early twenties, which would be judged as inappropriate (both then and now). Similar to Jobs, he also had the unfortunate habit of taking credit for the inventions of others (Tensegrity, for example).
I've always associated Fuller with California (despite the fact that Fuller spent most of his life based out of the Northeast and the Midwestern US). More than anyone else, Fuller could be credited with popularizing the Silicon Valley ethos. Back in the 1920s, he began popularizing a concept known as "ephemeralization," which documented the way in which technological progress was resulting in the physical mass of the things we use to be decreasing towards the asymptote of zero (the classic example of this being the airline industry). He was a big advocate of what we now call the sharing economy (counter to architects such as Christopher Alexander, who believed that people can bring more aliveness to the built environments they make their homes when they have the agency that comes with ownership as opposed to tenancy). He also was somewhere between a scientist and a public relations agency, often stretching science into the realm of metaphysics and cosmology. All of these tendencies are dominant within the archetype of Silicon Valley today. Fittingly, Stanford University is the home of Fuller's mammoth archives, and San Francisco is the home of the Buckminster Fuller Institute.
Additionally, Fuller's mechanistic analogies—the most famous of which might be "spaceship earth"—often undermine a living-systems paradigm; this too is something that Silicon Valley has inherited.
Despite documenting Fuller's shortcomings, the book is still predominantly a celebration of Fuller's magnificent achievements, and if anything, the reader comes away all the more impressed that Fuller could have achieved so much when held in the perspective of the personal challenges he faced.
In the case of the Asimov, Heinlein, and Hubbard, all of whom have the subject of previous biographies, Nevala-Lee expands their stories by showing their faults along with their virtues. One of my favorite aspects of Astounding is the amount of attention paid to the women. Many of these women wielded vast influence on the four men and on science fiction itself. With the exception of Virginia Heinlein, previous works have, at best, relegated these women to the sidelines, or worse, cast them into the role of villain and hung all of the man’s faults and missteps on them.
Astounding tells the story of these figures instead of just chronologically listing facts about them, resulting in a book that even a casual fan will appreciate.
The author provided biographies of four notables within his book: John Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, and L. Ron Hubbard. However, the characters of these science fiction luminaries had little to admire.
Campbell was interested in psychology and its potential to create a new man. Since Campbell was a racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic, I shudder at what he might have evolved if his philosophy had been accepted. This was why he was attracted to Hubbard, who shared a similar interest. Shortly after the two met, Hubbard began developing a new form of psychotherapy called Dianetics. Decades later his pseudoscience was repackaged as a new religion, Scientology. He firmly believed that if he had not given this religion to the world, there would have been "social and economic chaos." When Campbell broke with Hubbard, Asimov knew that this split was inevitable since "no movement can have two Messiahs." This statement fostered my opinion that Hubbard demonstrated paranoia and narcissism to the point of megalomania.
Although both Heinlein and Asimov were friend of the younger Hubbard, they distanced themselves from Dianetics and Scientology. However, each had their flaws. Asimov was a chronic philanderer, which resulted in divorce and estrangement from his son. Heinlein, referenced frequently as the "Dean of Science Fiction Writers," espoused militarism in many of his works.
As I said early, I read several authors from the Golden Age of Science Fiction, including Asimov (The Foundation Trilogy) and Heinlein (Stranger in a Strange Land). However, when one looks at the characters of the authors whose books I relished, there is little to be desired. Sometimes it is better to divorce the works from the men themselves.
Overall, I enjoyed peeking into the lives of the authors who made science fiction popular to the general public, which resulted in such classic literature as 2001: A Space Odyssey and the Star Wars film series. Many of the early astronauts chose their careers being inspired by the science fiction of their youth.
Following the career of John W. Campbell and how he managed the magazine "Astounding" (now known as "Analog") and nurtured (even directed) the careers of many notables of the so-called Golden Age of Science Fiction. Arcing through history, through the depression, WWII and on to the 60's, it's a good survey of SF, and the culture around it. Sometimes I felt like I learned more about favorite authors than I wanted to know - but it's an excellent survey for anyone interested in SF.
Neval-Lee tells Campbell's story - the main focus - from birth through the brilliant forties when Astounding was the top magazine in the field and on through Dianetics to his death in the early seventies. It's almost a history of science fiction in the 20th century and a must read for fans of the Golden Age. For a fuller review see https://www.sfcrowsnest.info/astounding-john-w-campbell-isaac-asimov-robert-a-he...
In "Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction" by Alec Nevala-Lee
"'How long has this racket been going on? And why didn't anybody tell me about it sooner'"
Heinlein to Campbell after selling "Life-Line" in 1939, In "Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction" by Alec Nevala-Lee
"'There are about five consistent, adult science fiction writers in the business: de Camp, Heinlein, Hubbard, van Vogt, and, if he'll only work at it a little, del Rey.'"
In a letter from Campbell to Heinlein, In "Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction" by Alec Nevala-Lee
I started reading science fiction in the '80s. I never enjoyed the Hubbard stories I read in anthologies. Then I found out about Dianetics. His self-created biography including multiple resurrections was more fantastic than any of his fiction. :-) Campbell, as many have observed, took science fiction to “another level”. I'm a little surprised Andre Norton was omitted in this write-up. I remember the day I became a fan of hers when a friend of mine at the time told me to choose three books: "Galactic Derelict" was one of them. Mao Tse Tung's "Strategy and Tactics" was another. What was I thinking? I was only going with my interests. Our elementary school also passed out monthly catalogs for the Scholastic book club, and there I found Norton's first biggie, "Star Man's Son, 2250 AD". I seem to have become that character until I realized girls weren't all that impressed. Sure, Norton's science fictions and fantasies are usually qualified as "young adult", but I still read one occasionally. I was never too impressed by Hubbard, Pohl, Campbell, but Asimov and also Heinlein still continue to amaze me. And where's James Blish? "Cities In Flight", another grand space opera, has plenty of descendants in today's science fiction world. Even though it's a bit weird in that the Oakies launch entire cities into space because Earth is a bummer, I saw plenty of Blish in Dan Simmon's "Hyperion" series, another meh space opera, and of course Blish also wrote novels based on the Star Trek TV series. Andre Norton's novels inspired me to write when I was 12. I'm still doing it. And still having fun.
I have read every single story and book mentioned in Nevala’s-Lee and I’m not even American, and own copies of every book named. I indeed got hooked in the 80s as I said, reading every single SF book our local library had. And when I had read them all, I relentlessly pestered to the librarian to check to see if there were others she could order (IN English). She was not amused, clearly believing that the ones already on the shelves were taking up space they didn't deserve. She also couldn't understand why a boy would want to read about spaceships and aliens (not very common in Portugal at the time).
One of my great thrills was in college when late, late one night a friend and I, high as kites, decided for fun to call the phone number listed in the back of a Harlan Ellison collection of stories (I was already into the BBS craze at the time). It was supposedly his number with an invitation to call him, but we assumed it was phony. It wasn't. We woke him up. He was wonderfully rude and insulting, then settled in to discuss current literature with him until he pronounced us total nitwits and told us not to call him again until we had something interesting to say. I'll never forget Harlan.
I'm already and old fart now and still a huge fan of SF. My library has grown and grown. Science fiction which is clearly labeled fiction and is understood to be fiction is one thing. But Lafayette Ron Hubbard's Dianetics which grew into Scientology claims to be non-fiction. I always thought (and I still do) that Hubbard's theory that the unborn fetus develops engrams is pure horse-shit. One example. A woman developed an unexplainable rash on her rear end. While still a fetus, the fetus heard the mother say something about aspirin. Notice how aspirin sounds like ass burns…All credibility is gravely endangered when someone calls Hubbard a giant of the science fiction genre. Was he prolific? Yes, but that is no indication of prowess and his writing is mediocre at best. It could be argued that Dianetics is his best piece of science fiction, at least in terms of impact.
I read a lot of science fiction (way back) when I should have been studying physics. I consider the prime time of SF writing to be between the end of WWII and 1970. For me the last great writer was Larry Niven, who crafted stories set in the wonderful universe that he created. The most influential writer who was omitted is Arthur C, Clarke. Some of the story lines presented during the three year run of the original Star Trek are mesmerizing. Science fiction as a genre allows you to write in almost any other genre, as long as you are willing to change your setting. Hubbard is still widely considered as a trash author in the general SF community.
Nevada-Lee fails to note that Heinlein in his later years was no friend to Hubbard, whom Heinlein came to consider and out and out charlatan. Hubbard Was a charlatan! His SciFi books weren't very good either. And the "church" founded in his image and likeness is, too. Since Heinlein seemed to have a low BS meter, it's not surprising. Since Heinlein seemed to have a high BS meter, it's quite surprising Heinlein got into his bandwagon... The Church of all Worlds was started based on Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. He at least, had the good grace to be embarrassed about it. Hubbard. Ugh. His “Battlefield Earth” sucks major eggs. Always amusing to see Hubbard mentioned in the same breath as the great science fiction writers such as Heinlein, Asimov, etc. His best was not even up to the standard of their worst. Heinlein wrote about people. Clarke wrote about concepts more than the people. Asimov averaged the two. Hubbard’s stuff was horse-shit. Heinlein was a curious (and cantankerous) duck. And he mostly wrote early on as if social constructs would endure long after governments had changed. Towards the end of his life, he realized that society was changing faster than governments and political philosophies. He had a hard time wrapping his head around it. And he never forgave Clarke for Clarke's denouncement of Star Wars tech, despite a lifelong (until then) friendship (Lee mentions this in his book). Since "Star Wars" devolved into a boondoggle, Clarke turned out to have been right.
Not only does science fiction (and fantasy) pervade our culture, it has infiltrated every corner in one aspect or another. I believe that it is the forward thinking aspects required of writing in these genres that has allowed it to do so: SF writers (and fans) are responsible for creating the internet - and showing us how to use it. The argument is stronger if you confine yourself to fields of entertainment (though most of our advanced technologies were inspired by SF and brought into existence by readers of SF), and particularly in the realm of fan-based engagement with those entertainments. Getting the fans together with the creators on an equal footing first took place within SF Fandom and has branched out (spawned is a good word) to every other fandom, from comics to cosplay. (What other fandom can lay claim to renewing television shows and getting its name on a space shuttle?) I can think of no other literary field of endeavor where the fruits of its labor are enthusiastically embraced by the entire world and yet the creators - those responsible - are disregarded, belittled and looked down upon, if they are given any consideration at all. They're paid low word rates, most only get midlist level advances and are constantly subjected to unfounded criticism of their work. These authors have and are still creating the future we're going to inhabit. They deserve a much more elevated position in our society.
Science Fiction has become a kind of portmanteau term covering a lot of very different writers with very different intentions just like "folk" covers an awful lot of different styles of music and musicians. In the UK, for example, Christopher Priest has spoken often of using something speculative as the core metaphor and then pushing that hard, as well as the importance of deep characterisation. His excellent, “The Adjacent”, is certainly Science Fiction in those terms but is a long way from what, for example, Peter Hamilton or Alastair Reynolds are doing. Simon Ings, Ian MacDonald, Ken MacLeod, Ian R. MacLeod and others are also pursuing things from a decidedly "non-space opera" angle (my favourite single novel from the Golden Age - Simak's "Way Station" is also largely character driven and as for the remarkable tales of Cordwainer Smith).
Isn't the problem that the narratives in SF are characterised as a function of technology rather than character? And because of this, the literary elite have, as a whole, dismissed the genre. The writers of the golden age did not help themselves in this regard, and it is their legacy which has coloured subsequent Lit. Attitudes. Those authors who have lit. Credentials (Atwood, Lessing, Ballard, Orwell et al.) rise above the rest through (a) their treatment of narrative/character (b) intent (c) style. Orwell, as we all know, wrote beautifully. Dick did not. Though Dick was a wonderful SF author. Having said all that, I am presently reading Peter F Hamilton's Great North Road. Literary it is not. Entertaining it most certainly is. Pohl was more of an in-betweener than just a Golden Age writer. He was very much a different kind of writer than Asimov, Heinlein or Van Vogt. His work deserves more to be placed with Dick's, Silverberg's or Sheckley's. Not new wave but a generation on from the writers who established the genre in the pulp periodicals.
Are we still use the word "fascist" as a slur? Left-wingers have been doing that for decades, it's a fine tradition! Anyone who disagrees with you, or anyone to your right, no matter how marginal their deviation, is to be labelled a "fascist". I'm willing to be bet you have never in your life encountered a single person who describes themselves as a "fascist". Doesn't that trouble you? That the only means to uncover these "fascists", who are apparently everywhere, is by left wing deduction and declamation? (No, of course not because we're so virtuous and smart!). "Fascist" now no longer refers to an inter-war movement founded by Italian national syndicalists but instead, the demonic force which motivates all Evil in the universe. Think Social Welfare spending is out of control? FASCIST. It doesn't bother you that women still tend to look after kids, at home or professionally? FASCIST. Really, using the word "fascist" is a means of signalling to your in-group. The word itself is utterly decontextualised. When your tails are up that epithet means "anything which isn't to my left". Heinlein must have been a fascist too! - because he was a nudist? Or wrote that anarchist book set on the moon? Or built that bomb shelter during the Cold War? Or because he believed in free love and distrusted organized religion? Wait, I got it! Starship Troopers! Yeah, that fascist pamphlet. It has bombs and guns in it and stuff. FASCIST.
The 1950/60 science fiction was fuelled by discoveries of the time into mainstream thinking take black holes first put forward in 1783 it was in the 1960s that it became a science that was talked about in newspapers. SF writers help to explain it in better terms than scientists by putting it in a story. Neutron stars, event horizons, singularity, pulsars are another examples. There was also nuclear power a double edge sword, medicine was promising to cure more people talking about DNA genetics. A SF writer would have to read the scientific journals of the time to get an idea. Scientist themselves were becoming writers to explain their thoughts about gravity, populations and general science. Much more difficult now as soon as you have written a book there is always someone to say, O such and such wrote about that in the 60s or that has been done before.
One hell of a book ride that made me recall some of my SF youth by reading about these guys.
Astounding by Alec Nevala-Lee is a new book about John W. Campbell the editor of "Astounding Science Fiction" and the early days of "pulp" science fiction
This book focuses on Campbell and three of his superstar writers : Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein and (how did he get in here?) L. Ron Hubbard.
The time after the war was a time of scientific excitement and the dawn of real space travel. Science Fiction was getting past the "Matt Basterson, Space Marshall" stage and trying on long pants and Campbell was a big big part of that. Asimov's Foundation series, Heinlein's early Future History stories, the wonderful A. E. Van Vogt and others are recalled. So that's good.
BUT:
You also have to hear about Campbell the racist and the mystic, who used the "Hard Science" pages of Astounding to push Hubbard's loony "Dianetics" nonsense. And you have to wince hearing about Kay Tarrant Campbells "Secretary" who really co-edited the magazine but never got one tenth of the credit due to her.
And you have to hear that Heinlein started out as libertarian and visionary and ended up
a paranoid (and cruel) curmudgeon. (and lazy writer, endlessly recycling old plots)
And L. Ron Hubbard who was never better than a "C" level writer anyway (and was a creep besides) and whose creation of "Scientology" and the deep deep madness that followed might have been (has been) better covered in a different book.
And Isaac Asimov who was funny and chatty and a good hard working writer but who was so insecure about women and so immature about it that he tended to pinch bottoms and brush "accidentally" against breasts to the point where women who knew the score learned to avoid the part of the office or the part of the Sci-Fi convention where Isaac Asimov happened to be. "The Sensuous Dirty Old Man" he called himself. Women might have challenged the "Sensuous" part.
Confession to make: I was one of the geeky kids who liked to hang around Dr Asimov and I certainly was witness to some of the above. Did i call him out on it? I sure didn't. Did I know better? Yeah, I did.
A good book and well researched. If you're interested in the history of science-fiction this is not a bad place to start. And yet. And Yet.
What is news is that Nevala-Lee, by taking these men as a unit, gives one some sense of how the Astounding "machine" functioned as a community, though maybe not quite as the "think tank" type organization that Campbell hoped it would become, and what were the lines of influence within the group. Regarding lines of influence outside the group the most important player might be Jack Parsons; joint founder of the famed Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a notorious occultist. Parsons was the conduit, due to his relationship with Hubbard, by which Dianetics ultimately became Scientology. The rest, as they say, is history.
Frankly, there are many sad aspects to this book in which men with genuine talent display an inability to rise above their worst tendencies, though Campbell might be the saddest in that he cultivated a distinct mentality of victimhood and frustrated ambition that could never be assuaged by his real achievements; one is reminded of some of our contemporary "edgelords" running rampant until their public acting out brings about their downfall. One also wonders why Campbell & Heinlein gave Hubbard so much benefit of the doubt for so long after it became clear that he was mad, bad and dangerous to know.
Be that as it may, if you're interested in the history of science fiction as a genre and don't want to read a whole stack of books you could do much worse than by reading this one.
2 
Shrike58 | 12 andere besprekingen | Jan 3, 2019 |
Shrike58 | 12 andere besprekingen | Jan 3, 2019 | At times it did seem to drag. I was particularly struck by parallels between the fears of nuclear holocoust in the late forties and early fifties, and our current anxiety about artificial intelligence.
Perhaps we have learned to live with nuclear weapons - yet the doomsday clock periodically is moved a bit closer to the zero hour for a nuclear war.
Disappearing and reappearing artwork, Russian mafiyeh, a dead ballerina, art hedge fund, international crime investigator and secret societies are all involved in and around the sale of Etant Donné, a very controversial painting by Marcel DuChamp, a twentieth century painter who was himself a bit of a mystery. For a debut novel the author sure managed to keep all these balls in the air while providing one heck of an intriguing and exciting story.
Any reader could safely assume that members of the Russian Mafiyeh would be brutal thugs but you'd think people in the art world would be sociable, kind types. No so here as some of these characters are anything but. Ruthless is one description that comes to mind. Their passion for art and the art world knows no boundaries; theft, murder, betrayal and backstabbing are the order of the day. No one is what they seem on the surface. Be prepared for a monumental twist at the end. For thriller or conspiracy fans, this should be high on your list..
Onze site gebruikt cookies om diensten te leveren, prestaties te verbeteren, voor analyse en (indien je niet ingelogd bent) voor advertenties. Door LibraryThing te gebruiken erken je dat je onze Servicevoorwaarden en Privacybeleid gelezen en begrepen hebt. Je gebruik van de site en diensten is onderhevig aan dit beleid en deze voorwaarden.