From: troly@redwood.math.ucla.edu (Bret Jolly)
Subject: Re: John Woods Campbell
Organization: UCLA Mathematics Department
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 93 22:03:57 GMT

In article <1k0F84#9BqXYW3mj7KL3551CY2bSH6G=esr@snark.thyrsus.com>
esr@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond) writes:
>In <1992Dec31.130240.1991@math.ucla.edu> David Stein wrote:
ESR> Among other things, Campbell was the first editor in SF
ESR> to insist on plausible science and *good writing*.  He
ESR> did not merely `influence' SF, he *defined* SF as we
ESR> know it today --- as a literature of plausible
ESR> extrapolation centered on human reactions to technological
ESR> change and challenge.

DS>    Sounds just like J. Verne's idea of science fiction.

>Plausible but wrong.  Read Panshin's discussion of Verne in _The_World_Beyond_
>The_Hill_ for an effective refutation.

   Can you sketch the argument?  I find it hard to
believe that Panshin could provide an effective
refutation to anything.  And if Campbell insisted on
plausible science and good writing, why was so much of
what he published semiliterate and scientifically
inane?  When Campbell himself believed the stupidest
pseudoscientific crap?

ESR> Even Campbell's most vociferous critics are operating, 
ESR> more than they realize, within the conceptual framework 
ESR> Campbell created.  His reinvention of SF was so 
ESR> sweeping, so complete, that it became invisible.

DS>    A completely sweeping assertion, but the argument is invisible.
DS>    Can you show some evidence?

>Do your own homework [...]

   Why not tell us what your argument is?  Or are you
determined to make us accept your opinion on the basis
of your personal prestige?

DS>    You do not explain how Campbell redirected the thinking of SF writers so
DS>    as to "reinvent" SF.

>I don't have to.  They've done it themselves, at length, in print.  Campbell's
>influence is well documented.  If you want to argue this further, repair your
>ignorance first.

   Campbell's influence is widely asserted.  This is
not the same as saying that it is well documented.
Your assumption, that anyone who disagrees with you on
the importance of Campbell's influence must be
ignorant, is arrogant and wrong.

   You assert that Campbell changed the course of saifai
forever, that he "reinvented" saifai, that he "defined"
saifai as we know it today.  It would be nice if you
told us just what changes he introduced, so we could
check the historical record.  But you are too coy and
evasive to be tricked into making specific, testable
statements.  You fend off requests for such statements
with an imperious "repair your ignorance!"

   Campbell was the energetic and peculiar editor of a
major saifai magazine.  He was the author of one
excellent short story, "Who Goes There?", and many bad
ones.  During the forties he paid more than his
competitors, one could actually pay for rent and
groceries by selling to him.  (In contrast, no current
saifai magazine pays more than a token.  No one could
live by writing for saifai magazines today.)

  Campbell's magazine was the most important market for
saifai stories in the forties and it continued to be
important in the fifties and sixties.  Certainly he had
some influence on the saifai field.  But did he
redefine it as you claim?

   If so, there should be something in the stories of
the forties and later that is missing from earlier
saifai.  What?  I don't see it and I don't care if you
brandish Panshin at me and demand that I repair my
ignorance.  What did the stories Campbell published
have that you can't find in Stanley G. Weinbaum?

   I don't believe an editor can have as much long-term
influence as a major writer, though the editor-worship
in the inbred saifai genre is part of Campbell's legacy.
If we give Campbell credit for the influence of every
writer he published, his shadow is long, but this is
giving credit where credit is not due.  He did not create
Heinlein, and Heinlein could have gotten along without him.

   Whence the Campbell legend that you think only an
ignoramus could disbelieve?  Campbell worked hard to
bring writers he thought promising but weak up to a
publishable standard.  Writers of the day have tales of
rejection letters longer than the original story.  Thus
he was able to build up a stable of writers.  (Several
stables actually, occasionally the horses would bolt
for new pastures, and he would have to start anew.)

   Campbell's tutelage was appreciated by starry-eyed
would-be writers but it was wasted on those who already
could write, like Heinlein and Simak.  Indeed Simak
quite properly told Campbell off when he asked Simak to
rewrite a story--Simak was a better writer, after
all--and Simak refused to deal with Campbell from then
on.

  By working vigorously with selected substandard
authors, Campbell was able to to insure that the worst
of what he published was not as bad as the worst of
what his competitors published.  But his constant
meddling degraded the work of writers who were better
than him, and the ones whom he helped who had talent
would have learned to write by themselves in time.
Thus his hard work tended to promote mediocrity.  This
may be his most lasting contribution to a genre which
is still growing more and more mediocre today.