From: troly@redwood.math.ucla.edu (Bret Jolly)
Subject: Re: John Woods Campbell
Organization: UCLA Mathematics Department
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 93 03:06:21 GMT

In article <1k1xBw#9ZnLNX47mK9d9VRl0YB5Fjg2=esr@snark.thyrsus.com> 
esr@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond) writes:

>In <1993Jan2.135330.12000@math.ucla.edu> David Stein wrote:
>>    Well, will you again refer to "good scholarship" or will you 
>>    bother to support your statements with your own arguments?
>
>In this one case, no.  [...]
>This dismissal is not out of any lack of respect for your intelligence or
>critical perception --- it's just that you seem to lack the minimum of
>specialized knowledge of the field needed to make such a debate interesting
>for *me*.

>When you've read the standard sources and can demonstrate that you command at
>least the relevant *facts* of SF's history and development, I will be happy to
>debate interpretations with you.

   Eric, you pompous windbag, Dave knows quite as much
about saifai as you do, and considerably more about
certain aspects.  You have made a bald claim, that
Campbell "reinvented" saifai and that he "defined" what
it is today.  The only support you give is along the
lines of everybody-knows-this and if-you-don't-believe-
this-you're-not-worth-talking-to.

   Neither of us deny that Campbell influenced the field.
Dave questions the notion that Campbell changed the field
in an essential way so that saifai today is a wholly different
beast from what it would have been if Campbell had taken
up another profession.  He wants the real evidence laid
out so it can be examined.

    Neither I nor Dave can lay out the evidence for you,
because you have declined to state your position precisely
enough.  We don't know exactly what you believe Campbell's
influence consisted of, so we don't know what would serve
as examples or counterexamples.  This is not because we
are ignorant of saifai, it's because we are ignorant of
your precise position.

    If you are serious in claiming that Campbell forced
a higher level of scientific rigor on the genre, you should
be able to back it up with evidence.  My opinion is that
Campbell increased the production of pseudoscientific hackwork,
and that he could not tell the difference between science
and crackpot babbling.

    If you are serious in claiming that Campbell forced
much higher literary standards on the genre, let's look
at the evidence.  How many Campbell regulars were really
good writers.  I cheerfully admit to some, but even there
how much credit is due to Campbell?  Campbell did not create
Heinlein, he just bought Heinlein's stories.   He has more
influence in some other cases, but how many of these are
really good writers?

    The Campbell Revolution, we are told, heralded a
new age of artistic excellence.  Where is this
excellence?  Off the top of my head, in no particular
order here is a fair sampling of prominent Campbell
writers: Van Vogt, L. Ron Hubbard, Poul Anderson, the
young Randall Garrett, the younger Robert Silverberg,
Arthur Zirul, Isaac Asimov.  They all have their merits,
or nearly all do, but are any of them first-rate from
a purely literary standpoint?  (Note the qualification:
some of Asimov's and Anderson's stories are excellent,
but for other reasons.)

    Let's compare them to a sampling of pre-Campbell
saifai writers: Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Karel Capek,
Aldous Huxley, John Collier, Olaf Stapledon, Stanley G.
Weinbaum.  These poor fossils had to get by without the
benefit of Campbell's literary wisdom.  How do they
compare in literary merit to the Campbell crowd?  (I
repress a snicker.)

    Let me state again, that this is *not* a criticism
of Campbell.  He was only an editor, though an
energetic and devoted one, and he can't be held
responsible for the subsequent course of saifai
literary history.  He was as influential as an editor
can be, but no more.  His influence, good and bad, was
limited.

    I can't address your arguments, since you have
declined to state them, but in reading books and
articles by Campbell-worshipers it is usually apparent
that they are ignorant of most earlier saifai.  For
"hard" saifai, look to Verne, Wells, and Weinbaum.  For
sweeping vision to Stapledon.  For satire to Capek.
For fantastic saifai and related fantasy, look to Lord
Dunsany, to James Branch Cabell, to John Collier, and
the brilliant Weird Tales writers of the '30s: H.P.
Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, C.L. Moore, usw.

   The situation reminds me of Somerset Maugham's
introduction to his anthology _Tellers of Tales_.  He
had set out to show the gradual development of the modern
short story, from the early 19th century up to about
1945.  But he found that Nathaniel Hawthorne's stories
were entirely "modern" while some recent stories seemed
archaic.  He concluded that his preconceptions of the
development of the form had been hogwash, that it had
in essence been there entire from the beginning.

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