From: gharlane@nextnet.csus.edu (Gharlane of Eddore)
Subject: John Wood Campbell, Jr.  (let's get it right.)
Followup-To: alt.dev.null
Summary:  the man does not *need* a defense!
Keywords: arguments, wrangling, experiments.....
Organization: Evil Beings From Planet Eddore, Inc.
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 1 Jan 1993 05:51:57 GMT

 
If you people are going to rant about JWC, *please* at least get
his name right; the entirety of your argument is suspect when your
subject line can't even be bothered to spell his real name.
 
  The man is   JOHN WOOD CAMPBELL, JR. 
 
  He was born June 8, 1910, and died on June 11, 1971.

  His formal education began at M.I.T. (he bombed out on German, not
  on math or scence!) and formally ended when he finished his B.S. 
  in Physics at Duke University.  He continued to study EVERYTHING 
  that crossed his path for the next four decades.
 
  In his sixty-one years, he single-handedly made SF a respectable
  venue for both gedankenexperimenten and literary effort.
  He did it without losing sight of his antecedents, without losing his 
  sense of humor, and without losing his awareness of the fact that 
  a new idea, must prove its value before being accepted.
  He espoused nut cults, impossible inventions, conceptual fallacies,
  and just plain *WRONG* stuff, solely to get good arguments going;
  he maintained for years that only a mind flaring with impassioned
  rage could rise above the constraints trained in from birth, and 
  see something from a new angle, or create a new solution (or a 
  new QUESTION!).
  If you switched to his side during an argument, *HE*'d switch to
  what had previously been *your* side, just to keep things hopping.
  I saw him pull that one on several occasions.

  Campbell used his alter ego "Don A. Stuart" and,  encouraging 
  other young writers trying more literary and intellectual approaches,
  (folks like Stanley G. Weinbaum, for example) steered the field 
  *away* from thud-and-blunder "space opera."   He founded "UNKNOWN
  WORLDS" specifically to provide a home for stories that he didn't
  want in his SF magazine, and published stories there that were the  
  roots of our current boom in "rational" (and SEMI-rational!) fantasy. 
 
  Campbell spotted and encouraged unknown young writers like Heinlein,
  Van Vogt, Sturgeon, Asimov, Schmitz, Herbert, G.O.Smith, and H. Beam
  Piper.  The list is *VERY* long.   Several of these writers did their
  most important work for Campbell, writing stories he'd suggested, and 
  then RE-writing them until their structure was good enough to suit him.
  Selling a story to Campbell was a *learning* experience; he was running
  a mail-order writing school with no fee except willingness to sweat 
  blood.  He didn't care if you were red, black, white, or yellow; male,
  female, or something else, if you cared enough to bust your tail 
  writing the best story you possibly could.  (Look how many years he
  invested in Asimov while A. was learning the beginnings of his craft.)
 
  (In my own case, << please don't think I'm comparing myself to the folks
   mentioned above!! >> JWC sent me a 14-page letter discussing just what
   was wrong with an 8-page short story I'd sent him.  After I re-wrote 
   it two or three times, he pointed out that it was developing into a 
   pretty good story that wasn't right for ANALOG, and asked permission
   to show it to another editor.... he ended up selling it for EIGHT 
   cents a word to a glossy-paged Conde Nast magazine on a different 
   floor of his building, at a time when "ANALOG" only paid 4.5-5 cents
   a word for its top stories.   And *then*, when he sent me the check,
   he didn't deduct an agenting fee.   In fact, all he sent me was 
   the check, the first north-american serial rights agreement form,
   and a scap of paper on which he'd scrawled "Stop grinning and get
   back to work.  Your NEXT story should be BETTER.  I'm waiting."
   To my shame, it wasn't, and he rejected it roundly, along with another
   half-dozen pages of suggestions and ideas for improvment.  He was 
   entirely right, too.)

  Campbell may or may not have personally believed in Hieronymous Machines.
  It's certain that he *did* believe in the therapeutic value of certain
  of the techniques that came out of L.Ron Hubbard's group, but it's 
  also a matter of record that from about 1951 on, nothing pertaining 
  to LRH or his organization got published in "ASTOUNDING," and 
  Campbell and his personal friends distanced themselves from LRH and
  his crowd.  Campbell did *NOT* feel that mountebanks merited respect.

  Eric S. Raymond's assertion that Campbell supported the "Shaver Hoax"
  is entirely out to lunch. 
  The "Shaver Mystery" was a farrago of Lemuria, Mu, Elder Races, 
  Blavatskian Powers, and all kinds of mystical nonsense; it was 
  created by Shaver and Raymond Palmer, who was then the editor of
  "AMAZING."   In the four years or so that Palmer was frantically
  hyping the "Shaver Mystery" in "AMAZING," the circulation increased,
  but mostly among nut cultists.   The Ziff-Davis management finally
  put their collective foot down, around 1948, and Palmer stopped 
  running "Shaver" stories.   Please do *NOT* connect Campbell with
  this crud in the future; it's a dis-service to lay things for which
  he was *not* responsible on his doorstep.  (He *did*, however
  think it was hilarious, and loved to make jokes about it.)

  Two other comments: 
 
   (1)  Asimov and alien races in the "FOUNDATION" yarns.  Asimov 
        reported in the sixties (at a time when he was still 
        insisting that JWC had invented the "three laws of robotics" 
        and handed them to him) that he'd wanted to put aliens 
        into "FOUNDATION" and been *advised* by Campbell that he
        was having enough trouble dealing with the psychosocial 
        imperatives of mere humans, and that he should put off
        aliens for a decade or two, until his writing skills
        were a bit more developed.  At the time, Asimov said
        he felt it had been *good* advice.  (Since Asimov later 
        changed his mind about a lot of things he'd said in print
        earlier in his career, this may be one he changed his mind
        on; I dunno.)
 
  (2)   Magnus Olsson's comments about Campbell's straitjacketing 
        effect on American SF;  despite my respect for Magnus, his
        education, and his masterful cogency and clarity in English
        (I've taught college-level English composition; trust me, 
         Magnus, you beat most of our home-grown college students.)
        ...I can't hold still for that.   American SF is the world
        standard, and eagerly awaited, translated, and sold, in so
        many languages that no one's sure just how many.   
        Campbell's contribution is often denigrated, but from my 
        point of view, harping on his foibles and bonnet-bees is 
        equivalent to discounting Sir Isaac Newton's contribution,
        simply because Newton spent a lot of time on astrology.

  (3)   Crawford Kilian's comments about JWC's prejudice and 
        close-mindedness are a bit bothersome to me.  Campbell
        was publishing stories with black, white, green, purple, 
        feathered, naked, male, and female protagonists decades
        before it was fashionable in the field. 
 
        (Think about Zone Agent Zamman Tarradang-Pok, who was 
         such a GOOD zone agent that she accidentally conquered
         the Cushgar Empire without getting out of her sleep tank.) 
 
        You may have forgotten Dr. Nile Etland, the "TUVELA," but 
        *I* haven't; she first appeared in "TROUBLE TIDE."
 
        The first issue of "ASTOUNDING" I ever stumbled into was 
        July, '51.  The cover story, "End Of The Line," by James
        H. Schmitz, had several women in it who were competent 
        combat telepaths, and were focus characters in the 
        story.   Another story in that issue, "Feedback," by 
        Katherine MacLean, still gives me chills.  It's been a 
        lot of years, but I still remember putting down the 
        magazine and reflecting on the fact that I'd just read
        a scarier story, rooted directly in reality, than any 
        I could remember by Lovecraft or Rohmer.... it made me
        think, and one of the things I was thinking about was
        that a woman had written it, and that I hadn't expected
        it to be great because it was by a woman.  Highly 
        educational, to say the least.
 
        No, I don't think you could reasonably charge JWC with
        prejudice against anything but stupidity.   You *could*
        charge him with occasionally *displaying* prejudice, to
        get an argument going, however!

        I promised myself I wouldn't go over 100 lines, and here
        I am at 150.   Sorry.  Won't do it again for a while.