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From: ecl@ahuta.UUCP (e.leeper)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Hugo Gernsback
Message-ID: <140@ahuta.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 4-Dec-84 22:11:07 EST
Article-I.D.: ahuta.140
Posted: Tue Dec  4 22:11:07 1984
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                               Hugo Gernsback
                   A counter-editorial by Mark R. Leeper

     Last week Evelyn published an editorial suggesting that Hugo Gernsback
has had a negative effect on the field of science fiction.  In the guise of
the "loyal opposition" I would like to disagree.  Her argument is two-fold.
First, it is that he was an incompetent writer and second, that by creating
separate science fiction magazines, he pulled science fiction out of the
mainstream and made it a separate genre that the critics could ignore.

     On the first charge I have to admit that Evelyn is right, but Gernsback
is guilty with mitigating circumstances.  People like Wells and Verne were
writing for a fiction-reading audience and were putting new twists on
fiction writing when they wrote what we call science fiction.  Gernsback was
a science writer.  He started with science articles about the present, went
on to scientific speculation about the future, and then as a twists on that
he started putting characters in, and writing his articles as stories.  He
was writing the literary equivalent of a World's Fair exhibit showing the
world of the future.  These exhibits, incidentally, often create a fictional
character, usually called Jimmy, and take Jimmy through a typical day.  One
gets to the end of such an exhibit with some dubious idea of what the future
may be like, but rarely does he or she get any earth-shaking insights into
Jimmy's psyche.

     What Gernsback discovered was that just like there are long lines
outside World's Fair future exhibits, there was a demand for his future
fiction.  Now at this time, there were maybe two or three novels written in
a year about the future.  Maybe one in six was any good, so every couple of
years there would be a competently written book that we would consider a
science fiction novel.  Critics noticed this one book every couple of years
and called it to the attention of their readers, many of whom had some
interest in the fantastic.

     Gernsback recognized this interest and started devoting separate
magazines to it.  Readers brought writers; writers brought more readers.
Suddenly readers no longer needed the critics to point out where fantastic
literature was--it was right there on the magazine shelf.  Critics continued
to point out literature their readers might miss, but it was not science
fiction because that was not hard to find.  Also, the percentage of hack
writers had increased with a proven demand for science fiction.  They tended
to give the field a bad name.  Soon every science fiction magazine had its
own critics reviewing science fiction books and telling which were the good.
There was no need for mainstream critics to discuss science fiction at all.

     Now what gave science fiction a bad name were the hack writers and the
demand for even hack science fiction.  There was a real market for bug-eyed
monster stories in magazines with bug-eyed monsters on the cover.  Through
all this the critics disdained the bad stuff and enjoyed the good, but there
was little need to review the good because people who liked the fantastic
had very apparent ways of finding the better writing.  In the Fifties,
celebrities, including prominent critics, would show up on the back cover of
F&SF extolling the virtues of science fiction.

     Most high school English teachers were not well-read in science fiction
and, having seen newsstands, were painfully aware that much of science
fiction was bad, backed away from letting students read it for school.  Now
the readership of science fiction is expanding as never before.  Baby-boom
children who grew up on Captain Video or Captain Kirk make up a large
proportion of the reading public.  That means that science fiction is now
creeping onto the bestseller lists.  Further, there are people who do not
read the science-fiction-only critics who are getting interested in the
field, so mainstream critics are reviewing science fiction for them.

     All this might or might not have happened without Gernsback's help.  He
was just someone who saw a demand and made some money filling it.  But by
creating a dependable source of his "scientific fiction"--a magazine that
showed up down at the corner drugstore once a month--he brought together the
people who wanted to read science fiction and the people who wanted to write
it.  Once that happened, both the success of the genre and the ghetto were
inevitable.  The former is what Gernsback is gratefully remembered for.  The
latter was a temporary minor inconvenience resulting from the formation of
the genre.  The formation of the ghetto could have been avoided only if the
supply of science fiction had remained very small.  And that is too high a
price to pay for a few pats on the back from mainstream critics.

     To blame Gernsback for the formation of the science fiction ghetto is
like blaming Henry Ford for our country's dependence on petroleum.  All this
convinces the writing critics that there is enough interest in science
fiction that their readers will want to read about the field.

					(Evelyn C. Leeper for)
					Mark R. Leeper
					...ihnp4!lznv!mrl