The Mammoth Book of Golden Age SF

^INTRODUCTION “THE AGE OF CAMPBELL” Isaac Asimov

In the first book of the series, which dealt with classic science fiction (s.f.) novellas of the 1930s, I said that the 1930s was the decade in which science fiction found its voice. Toward the end of that decade, the voice began to resemble, more and more, that of John Wood Campbell, Jr., and in the 1940s, J.W.C. dominated the field to the point where to many he seemed all of science fiction.

It was a phenomenon that had never happened before and can never be repeated. Before the 1940s, science fiction was so small a field that, in a way, there was nothing to dominate. Hugo Gerns-back had been important in the 1920s, but he was alone. F. Orlin Tremaine had been important in the 1930s, but he did not drown out the other voices completely.

Campbell, however, towered. He had a charismatic personality that utterly dominated everyone he met. He overflowed with energy and he had his way with science fiction. He found it pulp and he turned into something that was his heart’s desire. He then made it the heart’s desire of the reader.

To put it another way, he found science fiction a side-issue written by eager fans with only the beginnings of ability, or by general pulp writers who substituted spaceships for horses, or disintegration rays for revolvers, and then wrote their usual stuff. Campbell put science fiction center stage and made it a field that could be written successfully only by science fiction writers who had learned their craft.

To put it still another way, he found science fiction a trifling thing that could only supply writers with occasional pin-money and he labored to make of it something at which science fiction writers could make a living. He could not, in the 1940s, drag the field upward to the point of making writers rich, but he laid the foundations for the coming of that time in later decades.

It is impossible for anyone ever to repeat the feat of John W. Campbell, Jr. For one thing you cannot lay the foundations for quality science fiction a second time. The foundation is there for all time and it was laid by Campbell. For another thing, the field has grown to such a pitch (thanks to Campbell) that it is too large ever to be dominated by one man. Even Campbell, larger than life though he was, if he were miraculously brought back into existence, could not dominate the field today.

So who was John Campbell? He was born in Newark, New Jersey on June 8, 1910. I have never found out much about his childhood, except that I received the impression that it was a very unhappy one. He attended M.I.T. between 1928 and 1931, but never finished his schooling there. The story I heard was that he couldn’t pass German. He transferred to Duke University.

This double experience at college was reflected in his later work. At M.I.T. he picked up his interest in science. At Duke, where R.B. Rhine was conducting his dubious experiments on extra-sensory perception, he picked up his interest in the scientific fringe. In the 1940s, science dominated Campbell’s mind, and in the 1950s the scientific fringe did. He went from M.I.T. to Duke in science fiction as well as in his college training. In this volume, however, we are concerned with his earlier phase.

He sold his first science fiction story while he was still a teenager (not unusual among the true devotees) but he was too inexperienced to keep a carbon and T. O’Conor Sloane of Amazing Stories lost the manuscript (which was unusual). It was Campbell’s second sale, then, that marked his first actual appearance. This was “When the Atoms Failed” in the January 1930, Amazing. He was still only nineteen at the time.

In those days, the greatest name among the science fiction writers was E.E. Smith, Ph.D., who had climbed to fame with his “The Skylark of Space”, a three-part serial that appeared in the August, September, and October 1928 issues of Amazing. “The Skylark of Space” featured interstellar travel and dealt with megaforces and megadistances. It was an example of what came to be called “super-science stories” and Smith made it his specialty. Naturally, others followed the trend, and Campbell did so from the start. He quickly became second only to Smith in the super-science field.

There was a difference, though Smith could not change. He remained super-science to the end. Campbell could change and did. He wanted to write science fiction less in scale and more in introspection, less with ravening forces and more with puzzling mind.

He even changed his name for the purpose, writing a series of stories as Don A. Stuart. (His first wife’s maiden name was Dona Stuart.) The first Stuart story was “Twilight” which appeared in the November 1934, Astounding Stories, a sad, haunting tale of the end of humanity. It proved an enormous hit, and instantly began the change of making science fiction smaller in scope and deeper in thought.

He wrote Stuart stories predominantly, thereafter, until he published his towering masterpiece “Who Goes There?” which appeared in the August 1938, Astounding, and which was reprinted in the first book of this series.

By October 1937, however, he had been appointed to an editorial position at Astounding and, within a few months, he was in full charge. His first significant action was to change the name of the magazine, a change which reflected his thinking. He wanted to get rid of words like “amazing”, “astounding”, and “wonder”, which stressed the shock-value and superficiality of science fiction. He wanted to call the magazine simply Science Fiction, thus merely defining its scope but allowing him to fiddle with the details at will.

Unfortunately, he was too late. Columbia Publications had already registered that name, and a magazine so-named (not at all successful) eventually appeared in the spring of 1939. Campbell was therefore forced to make only a partial change. With its March 1938 issue Astounding Stories became Astounding Science Fiction.

As editor, Campbell was a phenomenon even greater than he had been as a writer. He held open house and anyone who might conceivably help him achieve his aims was welcome. When, on June 21, 1938, a frightened eighteen-year-old, named Isaac Asimov, appeared with his first story at Street & Smith Publications, Inc. (which published Astounding), he was invited into Campbell’s office, and Campbell spoke to him for an hour and a half.

I say “spoke to him” not “spoke with him”, for Campbell’s idea of a conversation was to launch into a long monolog. Oddly enough, though, he was no bore. He was an inexhaustible fount of odd and exciting viewpoints, novel thoughts, and endless story ideas.

He had an unfailing eye for potential. He rejected my first story at once. He had said he would read it right off and had kept his word (very unusual in an editor) so that it was mailed back to me the very next day. However, he saw something in it, or in me, or both (Heaven only knows what it could have been at that stage) and encouraged me to continue writing. I could see him whenever I came in and he was unfailingly courteous and encouraging, even as he continued to reject my stories, until I had learned enough about writing (from actual experience at it and from listening to him) to begin selling.

I was not the only one. He talked to dozens of writers and slowly taught them that science fiction was not about adventure primarily, but about science. It was not about rescuing damsels in distress, but it was about solving problems. It was not about mad scientists, but about hard working thinkers. It was not by writers who had a facile hand with a cliché, but it was by writers who understood science and engineering and how those things worked and by whom they were conducted. In short, he found magazine science fiction childish, and he made it adult.

The wonder is that he was successful in doing so. It is hard not to view the world with cynical eyes and, to the cynic, improving the quality of an object and reducing its sensationalism, is the quickest road to bankruptcy one can imagine. Somehow, Campbell managed. As Astounding improved in quality, it also improved in general acceptance and in profitability.

The true test came in 1948. Pulp fiction had been fighting a losing battle during the 1940s. World War II had created a paper shortage and a combination of the draft and of war-work had reduced the number of writers. (Campbell’s other magazines, the wonderful Unknown, succumbed to this.) In addition, comic magazines had come into being, had proliferated unimaginably, and had begun to draw off younger readers delaying and, sometimes, totally aborting their eventual reading of pulp fiction.

In 1948, Street & Smith, which had been the most prominent and successful of all the pulp fiction publishers gave up and put an end to all their pulp magazines — all but one. Astounding Science Fiction, and only Astounding Science Fiction, continued. It was John Campbell who had made that possible. Had he not been there for ten years, improving Astounding and making it the phenomenon it was, the magazine might have ceased publication at that time and magazine science fiction might have been dead.

Who were the authors with whom Campbell worked? Some had already published stories in the pre-Campbell era, and Campbell could work with them, either because they were already thinking along Campbellesque lines or because they could do so once they were shown what it was that Campbell wanted. Outstanding among these were Jack Williamson, Clifford D. Simak and L. Sprague de Camp.

For the most part, though, Campbell found new writers. The July 1939, issue was the first issue that was truly marked by Campbell’s thinking and Campbell’s new authors, and it is usually considered as the first issue of “the Golden Age of science fiction”.

As its lead novelette, the issue had “Black Destroyer”, the first science fiction story written by A.E. van Vogt. It also contained “Trends” by Isaac Asimov, “Greater Than Gods” by C.L. Moore, and “The Moth” by Ross Rocklynne. All four of these authors have novellas in this collection. Van Vogt and Asimov are perfect examples of what are still referred to as “Campbell authors”. Moore and Rocklynne had published before, but Rocklynne became a Campbell author too.

In the very next issue, August 1939, there was a first story, “Life-Line”, by a new Campbell author named Robert A. Heinlein. He and van Vogt were the mainstays of Astounding for several years and were the science fiction “superstars” of the time. Indeed, Heinlein remained a superstar and the pre-eminent science fiction writer until his death a half-century later in 1988. We would certainly have included any of several Heinlein novellas in this book were it not for difficulties over permissions.

Another particularly great Campbell author who does not appear in this collection is Arthur C. Clarke, whose first science fiction story was “Loophole” which appeared in the April 1946, Astounding. Unfortunately, his 1940s output was almost entirely in the short story length.

In the September 1939, issue came “Ether Breather”, the first science fiction story of a new Campbell author named Theodore Sturgeon.

Among the earliest of the Campbell authors was Lester del Rey, whose first story, “The Faithful” appeared in the April 1938 Astounding. T.L. Sherred and A. Bertram Chandler were Campbell authors who first appeared later in the 1940s.

It is a true measure of the dominance of Campbell in the 1940s, that, of the ten stories in this collection, eight are from Astounding. The other two, by van Vogt (who is certainly a Campbell author just the same) and Fredric Brown, are from Thrilling Wonder Stories.

It is only fair to remember that not all great science fiction writers could write for Campbell. Some simply did not have, or did not want, the Campbell touch, and went their own way. Fredric Brown was one of these. Another — and perhaps the greatest of all science fiction writers who couldn’t or wouldn’t be a Campbell author — was Ray Bradbury.

In this collections of stories you will find yourself once again in the Golden Age of science fiction and the great days of John W. Campbell, Jr.