Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site ames.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxj!ihnp4!zehntel!dual!ames!barry From: barry@ames.UUCP (Kenn Barry) Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers Subject: Re: Hugo Gernsback Message-ID: <666@ames.UUCP> Date: Fri, 30-Nov-84 18:40:55 EST Article-I.D.: ames.666 Posted: Fri Nov 30 18:40:55 1984 Date-Received: Sun, 2-Dec-84 03:56:09 EST References: <123@ahuta.UUCP> Organization: NASA-Ames Research Center, Mtn. View, CA Lines: 136 [] In reply to: > Hugo Gernsback > An editorial by Evelyn C. Leeper > Every year the World Science Fiction Convention members give out the > "Hugos," awards named after Hugo Gernsback. But what did Gernsback do to > deserve this honor, and the respect that he is given in the science fiction > community? > > He didn't invent science fiction. Whether you want to claim that > science fiction was invented by Jonathan Swift (or even earlier) or are one > of those who dates (modern) science fiction from Shelley, Verne, and Wells, > you have to admit that Gernsback did not invent it. He didn't even write > much of it--his one surviving work is RALPH 24C41+--and a pretty bad novel > it is. He didn't seek out and promote the best authors--Wells and Stapledon > were not regular contributors to AMAZING. What he did do was to give > science fiction its own name--and its own ghetto. Far from performing a > service for the genre, he acted in such a way that it has taken almost fifty > years to even attempt to recover from the damage he did. No, he didn't invent SF, but he did invent the name, and he created SF in the sense of its becoming a separate and distinct genre of fiction. Before Gernsback, no such distinction was made. We agree he was a terrible writer, but no one argues that his writing is the reason for his fame in the SF field. As to Wells and Stapledon: Wells was reprinted in almost every issue of Amazing in its early days. Gernsback would probably have been very happy to have had original contributions from either of these writers, but it's hardly his fault if they didn't send him anything. Wells was getting paid much more than Gernsback could have afforded for original material, and Stapledon may not have ever *heard* of AMAZING; like Wells, he was a British author, and more a philosopher than a SF writer. And his 1st "SF" book (LAST AND FIRST MEN) wasn't published (even in Britain) until 1930, by which time Gernsback no longer owned AMAZING. He ran another rag, yes, but that was the magazine whose author compensation was described as "payable upon lawsuit"; I doubt he could have afforded Stapledon, either. > Before AMAZING STORIES, science fiction was published in mainstream > magazines. After AMAZING STORIES, science fiction was published in science > fiction magazines. Before AMAZING STORIES, authors could expect a good > novel to be reviewed by the press, sell well, and be read be a lot of > people. After AMAZING STORIES, authors could expect a good novel to be > reviewed by the press, sell well, and be read be a lot of people--*unless* > it was science fiction, in which case it wouldn't be reviewed (except in > science fiction magazines), sell just about the same number of copies as any > other science fiction novel, and be read by just about the same number of > people as any other science fiction novel. The phenomenon of "it's not > science fiction because it's good" got started here; science fiction books > weren't reviewed by major reviewers. I disagree about the respect that fantastic literature was supposedly accorded before Gernsback. This could be the subject of a long essay all by itself but, briefly, fantasy seems to have fallen into disfavor during the Enlightenment, and only started to re-emerge (as the more rational SF) in the 19th century with a *few* authors. The bulk of fantastic literature in the late 19th and early 20th century was published in pulp magazines or dime novels, and was not "respectable". Only now is fantasy/ SF regaining its recognition as a very large, important and respectable branch of literature. You're mostly right in what you say about the negative effects of the ghettoization of SF on good writers. Many good SF books have not been taken seriously because of the "SF" label. But aren't there good effects from this ghettoization, as well? For one thing, SF needed to develop some common foundations before SF books could go beyond the basics. I don't think that a LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS, to cite just one example, would have been possible until many other books had beaten the subject of star travel and alien worlds to death. Early SF gave us a vocabulary of familiar concepts (aliens, FTL, robots, time travel, etc.) that could be made the foundation of better books that simply used such "plumbing" to create a situation where the results of such things could be extrapolated into humanly-interesting questions. The insularity of SF helped this process along by making it easier for all the SF fans and writers to see what everyone else was doing in the field, and so to borrow useful concepts and ideas from one another. Another point in favor of ghettoization: SF fans are, by and large, more fanatically dedicated to their literature than can be reasonably explained. The only other special-interest audiences I know of who can be as fanatic are (some) jazz and opera fans. For the trufan, special SF sections in bookstores are a plus, not a minus. It filters out the uninteresting, and makes the interesting easier to find. Sure, you can flame the hardcore fan for his/her narrowness, but it's their business. More on this below. > The result is that everyone loses. The authors whose books are > classified as science fiction sell less (which is why so many "science > fiction" authors have renounced the field). The readers who prefer science > fiction tend to do all their browsing in that section and miss the good > novels filed in the fiction (which may or may not be science fiction > anyway). Authors recently reviewed here that you might have missed by not > checking the fiction section include Russell Hoban (PILGERMANN), Virginia > Woolf (ORLANDO: A BIOGRAPHY), and Doris Lessing (SHIKASTA). Other authors > of the fantastic not to be found in the science fiction section include > Jorge Luis Borges and Robertson Davies. While it probably *used* to be true that the SF label cut down sales of good books (and, BTW, *helped* the sales of bad books), it doesn't seem to be true any more. How can you otherwise explain the bestseller treatment of some SF authors nowadays (Heinlein, Clarke, et al)? Or the fact that used-book stores pay *more* for SF than any other kind of fiction? As to fans missing other good books because they only browse the SF sections: you're putting the cart before the horse. If a SF fan is so into SF that they're uninterested in other literature, lumping the books together in the stores won't change them, it'll just make it harder for them to find the stuff they like. Besides, since there seem to be dozens (hundreds?) of new books published every day, all of us are forced to use some kind of filter in deciding what books we'll even consider reading. Being guided by the "SF" label is no better or worse than any other filter; you end up reading some bad books, and missing some good ones, but there's no avoiding that with so many books in print. And what makes you think authors like Lessing and Borges are unknown to SF zombies? I discovered Borges thru reprints in F&SF; Lessing, from reviews in the same magazine. And Woolf is almost a household name. I think I first heard of her from the movie with her name in the title. The others you mention are less familiar to me, but I suspect that's because I haven't been keeping up to date on *any* fiction, SF included, in the past few years (%$&!* computers taking up all my free time!! :-)). > Given all the trouble that's he's caused, why *do* people venerate > Hugo Gernsback? Because, as you yourself point out, he was mainly responsible for ghettoizing SF. Whether or not that was a good idea, it makes old Hugo important in the history of SF. One thing I suspect we'd both agree on, is that modern American SF would have been very different if SF hadn't gotten cut off from the mainstream of literature. Maybe better, maybe worse, but, either way, Gernsback was instrumental in making it what it *is*. - From the Crow's Nest - Kenn Barry NASA-Ames Research Center Moffett Field, CA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- USENET: {dual,hao,menlo70,hplabs}!ames!barry SOURCE: ST7891