From: troly@redwood.math.ucla.edu (Bret Jolly)
Subject: Re: John Woods Campbell
Organization: UCLA Mathematics Department
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 93 23:39:22 GMT

In article <1ien73INNcjd@transfer.stratus.com> jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com writes:
>In article <1993Jan6.030621.3615@math.ucla.edu>  
>troly@redwood.math.ucla.edu (Bret Jolly) writes:
>>     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.)
>
>Silverberg certainly is.  You left out Sturgeon, who wrote quite
>a bit for Campbell. Heinlein at his best was very good.

   I said this was a *sampling*.  I admire Heinlein
greatly, but I think he would have been much the same
with or without Campbell.

>>     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.)

>Verne, Wlls, Huxley, and Capek were NOT part of the field. 

   Obviously we are not speaking the same language if you
assert that _Mysterious Island_, _The War of the Worlds_,
_Brave New World_, and _War with the Newts_ are not part
of the saifai field.

>By the way, Weinbaum is overrated.  He wrote a couple of pretty
>good stories, but most of his works aren't that good. Have
>you read The Complete Short Stories of Stanley Weinbaum (or
>even The Best of Stanley Weinbaum)?

   I've read _The Best of Stanley G. Weinbaum_ several
times, and I do not think he is overrated.  If he had
lived, he would be generally acknowledged as being one
of the best saifai writers ever.  But he died near the
beginning of his career.

>>     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.

>But the influence of a good editor can be tremendous. Campbell
>is the prime example in SF, but hardly the only one. Look at
>the contributions of H.L. Gold, Anthony Boucher, Fred Pohl,
>Damon Knight, Terry Carr, and Michael Moorcock.

   American editors in saifai are given a great deal of
credit which is properly due to the authors.  They also
meddle to a degree which amounts to demanding that the
authors sacrifice their integrity, that they write
stories reflecting the editor's vision rather than
their own.  Stanislaw Lem has spoken to this situation
very eloquently.

   It is bizarre to see how, when an author screws up,
saifai fans will say "He needs a good editor!"
Wouldn't it be more rational to say "He should write
better" or "He should do his homework"?  Even one of
the editors on your list, Damon Knight, has written
bitterly of bozo editors who try to enforce their ideas
on competent writers.

   I am not saying that Campbell was not an excellent
editor.  I am not denying that he was influential.  I
do not think I am in any way belittling him by denying
certain claims for his influence that he himself would find
farfetched, to wit, that he completely reinvented the field
and turned it into something entirely different than it would
have been otherwise, and that all decent saifai is due to
his influence.  What would he think of people who shrug
off all saifai written before 1939 as juvenile crap?

   Campbell offered more money than had previously been
offered in his corner of the saifai world, and that in
itself is more artistically productive than anything
else an editor could do.  He tried to enforce high
standards as he knew them--but he did not invent the
standards.  He had amazing energy, and he loved his work.

   It happens that I think saifai would have been
better off if Campbell had remained a writer.  Becoming
an editor was a good decision for him personally, and
he was a good editor.  He seems to have enjoyed himself
more as an editor.  As a writer he had less chance to
exercise the brilliant, gregarious, cantankerous
personality that awed all who came in contact with him.
But in his "Don A. Stuart" stories he showed that he
was turning into an important writer, and I'd like to
see what he would have done if he had kept on that
track.
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