WAR not only encourages humankind to invent newer and more efficient ways to murder one another in ever increasing numbers but also has a strong effect on culture (for the survivors, anyway). Bundled in that umbrella term of "culture" is "literature," which not only reflects history but also reacts to it, potentially becoming a guide to what might happen in the future (including warfare). The Second World War was no different from most conflicts, extermin-ating millions while producing technologies that are still having effects, good and bad, on today's culture (e.g., the microwave oven and the atomic bomb). Literature's reaction was an enlargement of a subgenre which had served a niche reading market before the war but flourished just after it ended: science fiction (SF or sometimes Stf). Readers finally came to realize that those ridiculous fictional weapons of mass destruction which they'd read about in the '20s and '30s could, in reality, suddenly land right in their laps. Savvy magazine editors took the hint, and science fiction burgeoned. One of the beneficiaries of this publishing explosion was Robert Heinlein, by no means a hack writer, who encourages would-be SF authors to . . .
"Bet on the Future and Win."
(a.k.a. "The Historic Novel of the Future").
First appearance: Bookshop News, February 1950.
Reprinted in Writer's Digest, March 1950 (today's text).
Also in The Nonfiction of Robert Heinlein: Volume I (2011).
Article (1 page).
Online at SFFAudio (HERE).
"In fact, 'science fiction' is a poor term—non-descriptive. The older term of speculative fiction is closer to the truth . . ."
HEINLEIN tells us that whether or not it's called science fiction, nevertheless in every kind of literature "human problems remain basically the same—war and love and death and birth. The background scene is changed; the people are not."
Referenced in the article:
- Forever Amber (Wikipedia WARNING! SPOILERS! HERE and HERE), a wildly popular novel and movie from the late '40s.
.jpg)
.jpg)
Resource:
- Robert Heinlein's science fiction could often provoke controversy. Was his novel Starship Troopers controverted by Joe Haldeman's The Forever War (HERE)?
======================================================================
HERE'S Mack Reynolds, who's probably serious when he says . . .
"My Best Friends Are Martians."
First appearance: Writer's Digest, March 1950.
Article (10 pages).
Online at SFFAudio (HERE).
"If you don't like the stuff, if you don't read it yourself, if you aren't familiar with it—forget about it. You'll never crack science fiction."
Some random comments from the article:
- At the time Planet Stories was producing "space operas," which Reynolds defines as "wild west stories laid on Mars instead of in Nevada."
- "L. Ron Hubbard, who also writes under the pseudonym Rene Lafayette, has recently sold his Doc Methuselah series, which runs in Astounding, to the picture market for a five-figure sum."
- "The fans want the notion story, the gimmick story, the snap ending, preferably with some scientific principle worked into the snap."
- Furthermore, the fans have an influence on what sees print: "If your science is a bit weak, if your story isn't up to snuff, if your gimmick doesn't snap, you get a first-class working over. . . Writers and illustrators in the field are made and unmade by the fans' vitriolic comments."
- "But, I didn't particularly like detective stories. Oh, I read them occasionally; usually novel lengths rather than shorts. I actually had to drive myself to read the pulp detective mags to be up on the market requirements. In the evenings, after working all day writing whodunits, I'd relax by reading science fiction."
- "But what are the advantages of writing science fiction, that I should think so highly of it? There is one tremendous one: the comparative freedom from taboos."
- "The larger the circulation of the publication, the more numerous the taboos."
- ". . . editors are looking for new talent; but in a field expanding as rapidly as science fiction, the need is more desperate."
- "Fred [Brown] is a master of the narrative hook, the clever twist, the gimmick."
- "Readers who buy science fiction magazines want plenty of pseudo-science."
- "There are three shopworn themes: dictators, the menace to earth, and mutants." (And this is 1950!)
- "The stories should have enough adventure to keep things going, but the adventure shouldn't run away with the science."
Other references:
.jpg)
.jpg)
- Jack Woodford (Wikipedia HERE).
- Mr. Adam (Wikipedia WARNING! SPOILERS! HERE).
.jpg)
- Crosley (Wikipedia HERE).
Resources:
- Due to his prolificity, Mack Reynolds has appeared on ONTOS several times (often with a coauthor): (HERE), (HERE), (HERE), (HERE), and (HERE).
The bottom line:
"The dropping of the atom bomb in 1945 made science fiction respectable. Once the horror at Hiroshima took place, anyone could see that science fiction writers were not merely dreamers and crackpots after all, and that many of the motifs of that class of literature were now permanently part of the newspaper headlines."
Unless otherwise noted, all bibliographical data are derived from The FictionMags Index created by William G. Contento & edited by Phil Stephensen-Payne.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No comments:
Post a Comment