Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

I grew up reading all the Old Timers from First Fandom praiseing Hugo Grensback as the "man who invented SF"....well, not quite, but he did have the first sucessful all-SF pulp. Recently, I've been reading alot of Fan-Histories and histories of SF in general, and it seems the winds, they are a-changein'......I have been hearing some grumbling along the lines of good old Uncle Hugo should have kept his magazine to himself. The theory goes we had Shelly, then Wells and Verne, Poe, all planting the seeds with 'respectable' authors (think Jack London's The Iron Heel as an example) dipping in from time to time. Had Uncle Hugo left good enough alone, SF would have grown and flowered anyway, and without the stigma of that 'Buck Rogers pulp stuff'....SF would have started, and remained, respectable....but then we would not have had all those great Frank Paul covers, i doubt ee 'doc' smith would have gotten 'Skylark' published, or the 'Lensmen' series, no Astounding 'Golden Age', no Asimov, no RAH, no SF fandom....we would have a high class lit.

So I ask you, is Hugo a hero or villain? Or is this theory all wet?

I don't know enough about it to have an opinion, but I do wonder if he didn't just happen to be the person to fill a void in an existing market.

The pulps were already around, weren't they? I believe they started even before 1900. These were magazines made of cheap paper that were printed in shops scattered about the country very near railroad tracks, so they could all get their copy, print them out, & quickly distribute them. As I recall, it was the demise of this series of printing houses in the 60's that pretty much ended them.

Edgar Rice Burroughs already had success with Barsoom & many others writers were looking for an outlet, too. So the pieces were there & it was inevitable that someone put them together. That's not to say that he wasn't influential. I just don't think he deserves all the credit or blame.

yes the pulps were already around. Gernsback didn't invent the pulp. he was the first to make the all-SF pulp turn a profit. the problem was people tended to think pulps were considered very low-brow stuff, SF being the bottom of the heap, what with all those BEMs and the like on the covers. what killed the pulps was the nation-wide distrubtors going bust, the publishers couldn't get product to market, and that killed sales along with profits. of course tv didn't help any either. back in the 1920s and 30s the major form of enterainment was reading, in the 40s radio and the movies made major inroads, then in the 50s tv took over.

anyway, for my money, i am glad Uncle Hugo did what he did, i just wish he had paid his contrutobers better (heck, just paid them, he often didn't even mail the check)...but as i said, ive been reading where some of my betters were takeing the other side...

Spooky1947 wrote: "The theory goes .... Had Uncle Hugo left good enough alone, SF would have grown and flowered anyway, and without the stigma of that 'Buck Rogers pulp stuff'....SF would have started, and remained, respectable..."

Like Jim, I'm not old enough or sufficiently versed in ancient publishing history to know much of Hugo Gernsback beyond the legend; but luckily for me, ignorance is no bar to pontificating officiously on the Internet.

It seems to me Mr. Gernsback is accused of making popular entertainment accessible to the unwashed masses.

I couldn't care less whether science fiction is "respectable". If someone doesn't care for my choice in books, that's probably why there are so many other shelves in the bookstore. Sci-fi is a genre, as our westerns, detective stories, romance, and so on.

Some of the older authors of the genre, Tolkien, Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke, Dick, or getting some revisionist "respect" from the literary crowd, mostly due to their continued popularity (and being deceased, which adds a patina of respectability to everyone.) So we occasionally hear from the mainstream about Asimov's laws of robotics, or Clarke predicting communication satellites, or Dick's strange visions of tomorrow, in favorable terms.

It wasn't for Mr. Gernsback, I might be reading westerns, or watching more television. Or maybe sci-fi fans would be stuck reading nothing but litcrap like The Road or handing out The John Awards, which would be just plain embarrassing.

G33, you make me LOL....litcrap...preach on, my brother!!! i'll take Asimov, RAH, and PKD over "respectable" lit any day....not to mention, no Hugo, no SF fandom, Gernsback gave birth to fandom in the pages of Amazing, setting in motion the lore about the "Gernsback delusion" (he felt reading all this SF would make science majors out of all of us...he even once said a SF fan should have a home lab)....im sure SF would have eventuly became become its own genre, but lots of pure gold would have been lost getting there...as would the legend of the Tower of Bheer Cans to the Moon....

Spooky1947,

Could you give any specific examples of the writers who have deplored pulp SF for having "ruined" the genre for respectability? I don't doubt that they exist, but I haven't come across any myself lately.

It's quite a common thought in the vales of "alterative comic books," though. One pundit said that the worst thing that ever happened to comic books was following the model of the pulps.

Gene, i'll have some of those refrences for ya tommrow, im on mobile at McDs right now.

As for the comics, that pundint is full of it. One of the insprations for Batman was a hero pulp called The Bat. Dispite what Kirby says, i see the dna of Doc Savage and his crew in Fantastic Four. i could argue Dr. Doom having much in comon with the pulp's Doctor Death. Superman had his start in a SF fanzine (and hey, no pulps, no fanzines). Many of the folks who wrote for the pulps wrote for the comics...the Binders anHalmiton wrote for Superman for example. The Claw and the Manderian were both composits of any of any of half a dozen oriental villian pulps...for that matter tons of comic book villians were baised on the "weird minice (sp, sorry) pulps. I am a comic book collector from way back, use to have a collection of 150 long boxes (lost to fire, but im rebuilding). still make monthly trips to the comic shop, use to be part owner of a shop. for my money, they quit makeing GOOD hero comics after the bronze age. the writeing may be better, but damnit, comics these days got no HEART. i leave Batman and Wonder Woman out of that judement.

one last thought..
when it comes to my comics i AM very opinated...i grew up with Stan Lee's work...give me a stack of comics and im a kid all over again, and when i was a kid Stan was "the man" :)

referances from the top of my head:

the billion year spree (aldiss)

the gernsback years (ash and lownes)

the routlage concise history of science fiction

Ah, I did read the Aldiss book long ago, and that makes sense. Aldiss was definitely a literary snob, and I remember him consigning most of the pulpsters to a chapter entitled "ERB and the Weirdies." I can't speak to the other works, but you're 100% right on him.

Small correction to your earlier post: there was a hero pulp called the Black Bat, but from what I've read it came out contiguously with Batman. But there were various other "Batman" characters scattered throughout the pulps, one of whom fought the Spider.

yep, on The Bat thing i saw a video with Stan Lee and Bob Kane, i think that's where i got that bit of triva...might be wrong on that source tho. :p

Gene, Ive finaly found one of those quotes for you...sorry it took me so long:

"It is easy to argue that Hugo Gernsback (1884-1967) was one of the worst disasters ever to hit the science fiction field. not only did the segregation of Science Fiction into magazines designed especially for it, ghetto-fashion, guarantee that various orthodxies would be established inimical to a thriving literature, but Gernsback himself was utterly without any literary understanding. He created dangerous precedents which many later editors in the field followed."

The Billion Year Spree by Brian Aldiss, p. 209

now, if SF were "fine literature" i doubt i'd be reading it...my time in english lit tought me i do not give a tinker's damn for fine writeing, realism, or pokeing around for BS "meanings" hidden so well only a eng lit prof. can find. Thats all monkey beans!!! The FIRST thing fiction should deliver is a damn good story, in a pleaseing style. Want to know WHY 'ittle bobby can't read? I can answer that question in three words: eng lit teachers!!! BRING BACK THE OLD TIME PULPS!!!

that's not to say Gernsback was perfect. i own some of the magazines hw was editor of. It wasnt the best stuff, but a hop and a skip gets you from Gernsback to John W. Campbell Jr. and Astounding. No Gernsback, no Campbell, no Campbell, no Asimov, no Hineline, no van Vogt....i could go on and on. it all comes down to no Campbell, no nothin. SF pulps would have died out and the only SF would be all that fancy lit crap.

I always thought Aldiss was a pretentious writer. Never cared much for the few books & stories of his that I read.

Oh, definitely. SF would have been far poorer with nothing but the high-toned stuff, good as some of that is. Even CS Lewis, who could tell a pretty good tale, sometimes fell into over-serious pretension.

A fairer critique of Gernsback-- can't recall where I read it-- was that he could be very literal-minded about what he considered SF. He didn't like a lot of the stuff that wasn't strictly extrapolative. He wassort of a modern acolyte of Verne, at a time when a lot of the best SF was in the more freewheeling tradition of Wells.

Hmm, that critique of HWG might have come from "the Gernsback Years," sounds like something I read.

i have the gernsback years.....ive dipped my toe in it but havent started reading it yet...i do know the authors are Gernsback boosters...you are right seems to me, that Gernsback was in Verne's corner in the Vern vs. Wells thing. One of Gernsback's major failings earily on is known as "the Gernsback delusion"...Hugo had the idea earily on that all STF fans should have their own home lab (insted of, say, book collection) ...he felt SF should teach science, something Verne would have approved of. He droped that soon enough.

Spooky1947 wrote: "he felt SF should teach science..."

I learned a lot of science from SF. Gravity, orbital mechanics, black holes, quantum physics, space elevators, exogeology, xenoliguistics, hyperspace and time travel.

There's a write up here about Gernsbeck & his view on SF that might be of interest.
http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/...

The works of Poe, Verne, and Wells were in Gernsback's eyes the most important progenitors of SF; indeed, the statement that qualifies as Gernsback's very first definition of SF is simply a list of their names: "By 'scientifiction' I mean the Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, and Edgar Allan Poe type of story—a charming romance intermingled with scientific fact and prophetic vision''

G33, i know i don't have to mention all the tech we take for granted today that begain as SF....not to mention all the people now working in high-tech that were inspired by SF...so in one way "the Gernsback delusion" seems to have worked out....and yet....

I am a grandson of Hugo Gernsback and am presently trying to define his legacy and promote it through the creation of a website and hopefully a society. I think it fair to say that he was indeed the "Father of Science Fiction" in so far that he published magazines dedicated to the genre.

Yes, scientifiction was the first term he used prior to what we now know as Science Fiction. In 1926 he defined the genre in this way:"a charming romance interwoven with scientific fact and prophetic vision."

Furthermore, one should understand his intent: "Not only is science fiction an idea of tremendous import, but it is to be an important factor in making the world a better place to live in, through educating the public to the possibilities of science and the influence of science on life which, even today, are not appreciated by the man on the street. ... If every man, woman, boy and girl, could be induced to read science fiction right along, there would certainly be a great resulting benefit to the community, in that the educational standards of its people would be raised tremendously. Science fiction would make people happier, give them a broader understanding of the world, make them more tolerant."
Editorial, Science Fiction Week (1930). In Gary Westfahl, Hugo Gernsback and the Century of Science Fiction (2007), 166.

In my opinion,it is about entertainment, art, science, and the endless possibilities that only the future can hold. It reflects a projection of human consciousness to the furthest reaches of unlimited imagination, contemplating what is not yet know in the present. Science Fiction should captivate the imagination and inspire those who come under its spell and are so predisposed, to dedicate their lives to science.

If one looks at this as I have described, one can see that directly or indirectly, Hugo Gernsback inspired those who contributed to landing space craft on objects at the edge of the solar system, combated disease through the alchemy of organic chemistry, and reduced the size of a computer from that which filled up an entire room to one that can fit on a postage stamp.

I don't think Science Fiction should be diluted in such a manner to be defined in broader terms simply to get more people interested in it. I would do this no more than suggest that everyone should like a particular sport, movie, or type of food. I don't think one can make everyone interested in science. People are individuals with their own interests.

He was not only known as the Father of Science Fiction. He was a sear, inventor, publisher, promoter of amateur radio, and corresponded with Edison, Tesla, Goddard, DeForest, Marconi, Sarnoff, and others. Indeed, it is my understanding that his language became the underpinning for the legislation that created the FCC regulations with respect to amateur operations. My grandfather published Tesla's My Inventions in serialized form in his publication, the Electrical Experimenter in 1919. It is the only way we know anything about Tesla's personal history. Tesla had refused similar offers before. I have read the correspondence between them. My grandfather had a tremendous reverence for Tesla. As an inventor and a visionary, a man who thought out of the box I believe he understood Tesla and could appreciate his brilliance.

However, Hugo Gernsback, like many other, was a complex man. Where there is smoke there is fire. However, Hugo Gernsback, like many other, was a complex man. Where there is smoke there is fire. I have no doubt that he probably was borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, and failed to meet his obligations to his writers, perhaps in failing to pay them on time or less than he should have. Of course this remains the subject of speculation by Westphal, Blieler, and Ashely and will continue to be debated. The famous bankruptcy which was brought about by minor creditors made it all the way to the Supreme Court. I doubt the truth with respect to what was behind it will ever be known.

In summary, he like many others had his good and bad points. Revisionist history morphs our perspective of historical figures. Eventually, it will work itself out and history will define his legacy. It is my hope with the creation of a website to put all the information out there to aid in that realization.

Along the way, remember what Antony says in Shakespeare's Julius Ceasar, "The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interrèd with their bones." I hope it is not that way with my grandfather.

When hugogernsback.org is up and running, look for his Forecasts, little magazines full of predictions that he gave to employees and friends as a Christmas/New Years card. He also made little "spoof" magazines, like Newsspeak which contained his whimsy as well as predictions. It is my hope that everyone can find out who he was.