From: "Strong, Lee" <StrongL at MTMC.ARMY.MIL>
To: "'WSFA members'" <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Talking SF, oh my;  was:  time travel
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2002 14:16:45 -0500
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

	The Shaver Mystery was an allegory for nuclear warfare and the
dangers of radiation.  It might also be one of the sources of the 1960 movie
_The Time Machine_... which neatly closes the loop on this thread.

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Walsh [mailto:MJW at mail.press.jhu.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, March 20, 2002 1:58 PM
To: WSFAlist at keithlynch.net
Subject: [WSFA] Talking SF, oh my; was: time travel

Steve Smith cast forth into cyberspace:
>Ted White wrote:
>
>> If you've really read all of Heinlein, *and* you've read his contemporar=
ies,
>> you know that *all* SF from the '40s and most of it from the '50s can =
be
>> described as "coming] under the category of 'puzzle stories', little
>> intellectual pieces like mystery short-stories, with a prize for the =
winner and
>> not a whole lot of characterization."
>
>All?  Even in "Astounding", that citadel of the "puzzle story", there
>were quite a lot that didn't come under this heading.  A lot of
>Heinlein, for example.  Get out of JW Campbell's orbit, and you find all
>sorts of stuff, like "The Martian Chronicles".

Martian Chronicles was post-WWII, the beginning of the end of the JWC =
hegemony with the arrival of  the Boucher/McComas The Magazine of Fantasy =
(second issue added  "science fiction") and H. L. Gold's Galaxy.  From =
1939 through the late 1940s the only orbit of note was JWC.  There were =
some exceptional authors outside that orbit, but when it came to being =
assured of reading  - for the era - quality SF, one went to ASF.

As an aside, the pre-JWC, the Gernsback era it could be called, was =
essentially a vast wasteland; with some exceptions and some notable =
writers at the begining of their careers (Jack Williamson comes to mind).  =
Bleiler is particularly tough on one of the era's fave writers, David H. =
Keller, M.D., calling one of Keller's stories one of the worse racist =
stories pulished in the genre.

>
>The 1940s bad stuff was mostly shoot-em-ups and monsters.  No real
>"puzzles" unless you count "tomato surprise" endings, which Kit may
>actually be talking about.

The pre-Campbell era material can be described in one word: dreadful.  =
Though Stanley Weinbaum is a sad case of a potential great talent felled =
by cancer.

>The stuff I think of as "puzzles" was mostly
>1950s and 1960s, with Christopher Anvil, Hal Clement, and Poul Anderson
>doing real "need to solve this" stories, with definite science and math.

One of JWCs pet ideas was the idea of the Homo Sapien being superior to =
all, many of Eric Frank Russell's stories deal with the lone earthman =
defeating an entire galactic empire, or some such.

But a lot of genre stuff does rely upon the "surprise ending".  And it =
ain't neccessarily bad -  Kornbluth's Little Black Bag is an example.

>
>I could make a case that "all SF from the 1940s and 1950s was actually
>allegories about totalitarianism or nuclear war".

I think it would be a difficult case to make considering the volume of =
crap published.  Shaver Mystery anyone?

mjw
mjw at mail.press.jhu.edu

>Not a good case, but
>a case. ("Everything is related to the numbers 5, 17, or 23, if you
>think about it hard enough.")
>
>--
>Steve Smith                                           sgs at aginc.net
>Agincourt Computing                            http://www.aginc.net
>"Truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense."
>