John Campbell - Father of 'Astounding'

By Chris Aylott -- November 30, 1999

The 1940s saw a great wave of science fiction writers, the first to grow up reading the pulps and then writing stories of their own. Astounding, now entering its 70th year of publishing under the name Analog, was at the heart of this explosion of writers, and John W. Campbell, Jr. was the heart of Astounding.

Campbell started out as a writer, making his debut in 1930 with the short story, "When the Atoms Failed". He was only 20 at the time, but before long he was second only to E. E. "Doc" Smith as a smasher of galaxies.

However, while Campbell was a solid science fiction writer, he was born to be an editor. He took over Astounding at the end of 1937, and within three months it was unquestionably his magazine.

He had strong ideas about what made good science fiction and he wasn't afraid to make writers do it his way. According to Theodore Sturgeon, "Writers who always sold their stories to editors were suddenly faced with an editor who sold stories to them instead ... and could he sell!"

In particular, Campbell stressed scientific plausibility, telling writers, "If you can't make 'em possible, make 'em logical. If you can't research it, extrapolate it!"

Those who could adapt did -- Jack Williamson is one who made the leap easily, and his classic 1938 serial The Legion of Space was only one highlight in a rich relationship with the magazine that is still going on.

Meanwhile, Campbell was always hunting for new writers who would do the stories he wanted. The summer of 1939 was the watershed moment. The July issue featured "Black Destroyer" by A.E. van Vogt as well as "Trends", the first Astounding story by a skinny Brooklyn kid named Isaac Asimov. The August issue included "Life-Line", Robert Heinlein's first story, and September served up "The Ether Breathers" from new writer Theodore Sturgeon.

It was the summer science fiction came of age.

Other magazines began to emulate what was happening in Astounding while Campbell preached his approach to science fiction through the editorial columns. Over the next decade, he would shape the careers of every major SF writer except Ray Bradbury.

B.C.

Before Campbell, magazine science fiction was brash, exciting, violent, and so lurid that most of it is unreadable today.

The genre was bug-eyed monsters, exploding galaxies, stories written like engineering diagrams, and the occasional Wellsian or Stapledonian meditation. Campbell didn't change all of this, but by 1949, the excesses were toned down, the science made more sense, and sometimes even style would grace the printed page.

Everyone who was in SF in the 1940s credits that change to Campbell. But how did one man change an entire genre?

It didn't hurt that he paid better than everyone else. Street and Smith was one of the more successful magazine publishers, and so Astounding could pay its writers the almost princely sum of a penny a word, about double the rate of most other magazines. Especially good stories even got a quarter-cent per word bonus.

A contest in Thrilling Wonder Stories enticed Heinlein to write his first story, but Campbell lured him away with $20 than he would have gotten even if he would have won the first prize. Astounding immediately became Heinlein's primary writing market, getting not only his best but his second-best stories. The other magazines got leftovers.

Teach by example

Campbell also understood the craft of writing and could teach it to others. His versatility helped here -- Campbell was most famous for his "Wade, Arcot and Morey" super-science adventures, but his best stories explored totally different styles.

Campbell the writer is best remembered today for "Who Goes There?", a taut mix of Antarctic isolation and a shapechanging monster. It's a terrifying story -- I had nightmares the first three times I read it, and I'm not the only one. Over the years, it's been recognized as a classic, frequently anthologized and made (as "The Thing) into two successful movies in 1951 and 1982.

The pulp origins of "Who Goes There?" are obvious. The men are tough, the women don't exist and the ever-ready hero is aptly but improbably named "McReady."

Still, the science is plausible for its time, and the isolation and tight focus of the setting make this story more suspense and horror than adventure.

Campbell's second most famous story, "Twilight", is a direct descendant of H.G. Wells' The Time Machine . It's narrated by a despairing time traveler, lost on his way home from seven million years in the future. Wells portrayed a decadent humanity in the Eloi and the Morlocks, but Campbell takes the premise further to a time when humanity is quietly dying out.

"Twilight" is a little florid, but it is deeply sad, the words of a young man who has looked ahead and seen futility. It's significant that, while many critics date the story to its 1934 publication, it was actually written in early 1932, when Campbell was still a new kid on the block.

Campbell must have known he couldn't sell "Twilight" then -- it wasn't what any of the magazines wanted in a science fiction story, and he wasn't yet popular enough to get an editor to take a chance on it. Even when he finally sold it, he had to make up the pseudonym of "Don A. Stuart" to avoid disappointing "Wade, Arcot and Morey" fans looking for more of the same.

Expanding the future

Campbell knew stories like "Twilight" were good science fiction. Super-science, horror, and meditation all have their place in the genre, often in the same story. By the time Campbell took the reins of Astounding, he had the will and the writing experience to widen the field and make all these elements a part of SF.

The example of "Twilight" opens up a final question: why expand the genre? Stories like "Twilight" are in themselves a good reason to expand the definition of SF, but what made Campbell want to see them? The answer may come down to simple curiosity.

Campbell was a firecracker string of ideas. He was always wondering about things, always asking questions and then proposing answers for them. As his nonfiction explorations demonstrated -- Astounding became Analog Science Fact (analogous to) Science Fiction in 1960 -- SF was more than entertainment to him; it was a primary tool for exploring the universe.

"Twilight" underscores the importance of curiosity to Campbell. In that story, humanity is becoming extinct because it has lost its curiosity and won't even bother to learn how to use the machines that maintain their civilization. For Campbell, this lack of curiosity was a fatal flaw.

Of course, his determination to find answers for everything was also a flaw. Campbell's pseudoscientific obsessions -- Dianetics being the most notorious -- alienated writers and friends and did serious damage to Astounding .

But when he was in control of his need to know, he could send his writers intriguing questions and answers and get back classic stories like Isaac Asimov's "Nightfall" month after month. His curiosity brought science fiction's Golden Age to life.

Originally published on Space.com

 

 

 

 

 


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