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Fantasite, v. 2, issue 2, May-June 1942

Page 22

22 THE FANTASITE

the hottest thing in the mag, replacing "Hell Fire" in that capacity, though with an opposite, constructive intention. My first reaction was somewhat antagonistic; I thought, "The fans would never stand for this, and it would be too restrictive of the authors' imaginations." But on second thought I don't know but what Carl may have something there. There is already in existence a tendency toward standardization in the form of "future histories" or connected story patterns used by individual authors such as E. E. Smith, Robert Heinlein, Don A. Stuart, Manly Wade Wellman, Hugh Raymond, Cliff Simak, and others. Such a system has many advantages for a serious writer, as H. P. Lovecraft demonstrated in the field of the weird tale, and, as in his case, it can even exert a pull on other writers, so that they want to borrow it and base their stories on it. There is no reason why a well-constructed guide book such as Carl proposes could not find similar favor. But I dissent from his scheme on two points: I don't think there should be any element of compulsion involved, requiring every author to write only in accordance with the guide book's outline, and I think there should be more than one guide book, in order to give expression to the many different kinds of future that lie open before the world at the present time. The two major possibilities, of course, are (1) that civilization will fall, under the impact of war, and be succeeded by a new Dark Ages for at least a few centuries, and (2) that a scientific national civilization will arise out of today's turmoil, with space travel and other scientific wonders coming fairly soon. But there are any number of variations on, and combinations of, these two opposite trends, and it would be unfair to readers and writers alike to restrict them to just one. So why not have certain leading, intelligent, widely read fans (providentially the NFFF is already at hand) draw up tentative outlines of several different future histories, let fandom in general fill in the "facts" in as much detail as is deemed advisable (and it should not be too much), and then publish the guide books for authors to use or not, as they see fit, with nothing but fan opinion and propaganda impelling them to use the things. My guess is that the idea would catch on a become fairly popular; the author would find a convenient background for each story and could pick the one that best fitted the plot situation he had in mind, and the reader would experience the enjoyable feeling of being somewhat at home in the story. Perhaps some of the authors who already have future histories of their own in operation would consent to let them serve as foundations for, or at least be fitted into, these guide books -- provided such future histories are not already too elaborate, as is the case with Heinlein's; nothing more can be added in such a case. Perhaps fandom will turn thumbs down on this business, but it seems to me it would be an interesting project to try. One can imagine all sorts of exciting controversies among the adherents of the various futures, like that between the two worlds of probability in "The Legion of Time"! I suggest that the Long Range Planning Committee get to work on this idea and investigate its possibilities. The Jacobi biography is well timed and placed,, and I'm glad it is long enough to give a pretty full-bodied picture of our Carl. Cliff Simak's plea for more literary criticism from fandom will probably be largely ignored, but there is plenty of justice in his complaint. It is a matter of continued surprise to me that fans take so little interest in the literary aspects of science-fiction. Whenever you find a fan who takes a more serious interest in S-F than as just nice stuff to read, his interest almost invariably is concentrated on the scientific or "idea" side of the field, despite the obvious fact that S-F is a branch of literature, not of science. Even the fans who aspire to be authors write their stories primarily to sell (usually using some tried-and-true hack formula) and only incidentally with a vague hope that the story may accidentally turn out to be well-written. Lowndes and Wollheim are the only exceptions that immediately come to my mind. Why don't the fans reinforce their desire to

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22 THE FANTASITE the hottest thing in the mag, replacing "Hell Fire" in that capacity, though with an opposite, constructive intention. My first reaction was somewhat antagonistic; I thought, "The fans would never stand for this, and it would be too restrictive of the authors' imaginations." But on second thought I don't know but what Carl may have something there. There is already in existence a tendency toward standardization in the form of "future histories" or connected story patterns used by individual authors such as E. E. Smith, Robert Heinlein, Don A. Stuart, Manly Wade Wellman, Hugh Raymond, Cliff Simak, and others. Such a system has many advantages for a serious writer, as H. P. Lovecraft demonstrated in the field of the weird tale, and, as in his case, it can even exert a pull on other writers, so that they want to borrow it and base their stories on it. There is no reason why a well-constructed guide book such as Carl proposes could not find similar favor. But I dissent from his scheme on two points: I don't think there should be any element of compulsion involved, requiring every author to write only in accordance with the guide book's outline, and I think there should be more than one guide book, in order to give expression to the many different kinds of future that lie open before the world at the present time. The two major possibilities, of course, are (1) that civilization will fall, under the impact of war, and be succeeded by a new Dark Ages for at least a few centuries, and (2) that a scientific national civilization will arise out of today's turmoil, with space travel and other scientific wonders coming fairly soon. But there are any number of variations on, and combinations of, these two opposite trends, and it would be unfair to readers and writers alike to restrict them to just one. So why not have certain leading, intelligent, widely read fans (providentially the NFFF is already at hand) draw up tentative outlines of several different future histories, let fandom in general fill in the "facts" in as much detail as is deemed advisable (and it should not be too much), and then publish the guide books for authors to use or not, as they see fit, with nothing but fan opinion and propaganda impelling them to use the things. My guess is that the idea would catch on a become fairly popular; the author would find a convenient background for each story and could pick the one that best fitted the plot situation he had in mind, and the reader would experience the enjoyable feeling of being somewhat at home in the story. Perhaps some of the authors who already have future histories of their own in operation would consent to let them serve as foundations for, or at least be fitted into, these guide books -- provided such future histories are not already too elaborate, as is the case with Heinlein's; nothing more can be added in such a case. Perhaps fandom will turn thumbs down on this business, but it seems to me it would be an interesting project to try. One can imagine all sorts of exciting controversies among the adherents of the various futures, like that between the two worlds of probability in "The Legion of Time"! I suggest that the Long Range Planning Committee get to work on this idea and investigate its possibilities. The Jacobi biography is well timed and placed,, and I'm glad it is long enough to give a pretty full-bodied picture of our Carl. Cliff Simak's plea for more literary criticism from fandom will probably be largely ignored, but there is plenty of justice in his complaint. It is a matter of continued surprise to me that fans take so little interest in the literary aspects of science-fiction. Whenever you find a fan who takes a more serious interest in S-F than as just nice stuff to read, his interest almost invariably is concentrated on the scientific or "idea" side of the field, despite the obvious fact that S-F is a branch of literature, not of science. Even the fans who aspire to be authors write their stories primarily to sell (usually using some tried-and-true hack formula) and only incidentally with a vague hope that the story may accidentally turn out to be well-written. Lowndes and Wollheim are the only exceptions that immediately come to my mind. Why don't the fans reinforce their desire to