Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.PCS 1/10/84; site ahuta.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxj!mhuxh!mhuxi!mhuxm!mhuxn!houxm!ahuta!ecl 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 Date-Received: Thu, 6-Dec-84 04:49:08 EST References: <123@ahuta.UUCP> Organization: AT&T Information Systems Labs, Holmdel NJ Lines: 86 REFERENCES: <123@ahuta.UUCP> 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