AFTERWORD
by George Zebrowski
When he became editor of ASTOUNDING in 1937, John W. Campbell, Jr. already had behind him a career as one of the best writers of the large-scale, super-science adventure story. His new position at Street & Smith Publications curtailed the further publication of new stories, as these could not be permitted to appear in competing science fiction magazines. SF in hardcover was very rare in those days, and paperbacks as we know them did not exist. Later, in the 1940s and 50s, Campbell's work was gathered into hardcover editions by Fantasy Press, Shasta Publishers, and FPCI.
The Space Beyond was written for Amazing Stories (the title page of the manuscript proclaims this); Marooned was written under the pseudonym of Karl van Kampen, which Campbell had used in Astounding before he took over from F. Orlin Tremaine. The story might have been intended for Astounding or a competitor, but the ploy was never carried out. All was signed Don A. Stuart, who had been published to great acclaim in the November 1934 Astounding, and who continued to appear for a time after Campbell became editor, until the publishers put a stop to it. The background of All was later given to Robert A. Heinlein, who wrote a much longer novel based on it (Sixth Column, currently known as The Day After Tomorrow, Signet). These three short novels are the only original stories by Campbell to appear since his last story in the 1950s. They reveal a young, enthusiastic author in his mid to late twenties, in whom we can discern a serious stylist, as well as the unabashed story-
teller striving to go one better than his universe-spanning contemporary, Edward E. Smith.
There is much of the 1930s in these stories, as con-••cerns science, politics and social attitudes; they also reveal the unpretentious patterns of the pulp genre tradition. But these forms were fun and permitted the exercise of much originality, as Isaac Asimov's vast autobiographical anthology, Before the Golden Age, Doubleday, 1974 (the golden age being the first decade of CampbelTs editorship of Astounding), reveals so well.
The pattern to be noticed in Marooned and The Space Beyond is one in which the protagonists find themselves in a difficult situation and have to invent hardware, processes, theories, to get themselves out of danger and back home. The pattern is capable of surprising refinement, as Frederick Pohl's recent novella, "The Gold At the Star-bow's End", brilliantly demonstrates. The formula differs from SF written in the nineteenth and early twentieth century in that the characters do things in a systematic way to solve their problems. In Campbell's early story, "Piracy Preferred", a lone-wolf mad scientist type, Wade, is captured and "professionalized" by becoming a part of a scientific-engineering research team.* The earlier pattern was set by Goethe's Faust and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, where the problem is to escape or destroy the products of knowledge. The excitement of the later formula lay in the intellectual understanding of hypothetical inventions, their logic, plausibility and capacity for generating large action scenes; and the characters were not helpless victims, but agents of ingenuity and heroism.
In The Space Beyond, atomic energy is regarded as an imaginary but imminent source of power; the story shows us how the SF writers of the 30s were looking forward to it, in much the same way as we look forward to fusion power. In Marooned we are shown a continuous-thrust atomic rocket—a torchship—one which is quite modern even today. A spacecraft of this type could take astronauts across the solar system in weeks rather than the years required by rockets injected into unpowered trajectories today. The story also shows us a primitive mechanical arm for making repairs on the outside of a spaceship. The
* See Leon Stover's fine essay, "Science Fiction, The Research Revolution, and John Campbell", Extrapolation, Vol. 14, No. 2, May 1973, page 142-3.
arm is controlled by an astronaut from a pod much like the one in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY but the observant reader will recognize the prototype of Heinlein's "waldoes"—the name given to remote-control manipulators for use in atomic research—from the Astounding cover story of August 1942, titled "Waldo."
Another interesting detail in The Space Beyond is the use of computers, called "calculators" in the story. Campbell was one of the few SF writers, if not the only one, to describe the usefulness of computers in research at such an early date. The Space Beyond also shows us an arms race, in addition to considering the ethics of placing decisive weapons in the hands of a people at war. All reflects the use of atomic physics in medicine, which many forget was the earlier fruit of atomic science—radiation therapy through isotopes—predating the atomic bomb by at least a decade and a half.* The natural inventiveness of Campbell's scientists and engineers is a constant reminder of the group which gathered in New Mexico to produce the reality of atomic energy. In later years Campbell was often credited with instilling the enthusiasm and curiosity that led many young scientists into a career.
In their description of new energies, new technologies, new building materials of great strength, and the use of these to create a better world despite misuse by villains, Campbell's stories make tangible reference to many elements of the postwar world, as well as showing us something of the social and political climate in which they were written. For example, All expresses the pre-war fear of Asia, especially Japan, as well as presenting the idea of America as a "sleeping giant" of great scientific and industrial potential. In both Heinlein's novel and Campbell's original there is the sense of the coming struggle with Japan (Heinlein's story appeared in 1941). There is even a hint of the Nuremberg trials in the weighing of the fate of the Eastern conquerors after their defeat by the Western atomic scientists. This is probably a view of hindsight,
* The healing powers of the atom were a popular subject during the 30's. In THE INVISIBLE RAY, a film starring Boris Kar-loff, the hero restores his mother's sight using a radioactive substance. This reminds us of the highly private therapy performed on his ailing mother by the great American physicist, Ernest Lawrence and his brother, John, using a neutron beam from a cyclotron. (See Lawrence and Oppenheimer by Nuel Pharr Davis, pp. 76-77)
but the postwar world seems to cast its shadow back over these three stories. This is not surprising, since the SF Campbell accepted for Astounding during the 1940s shows an even more accurate aim in depicting the world of the 50s and 60s. Campbell's technological forecasting became a guiding method (in a fictional mode) for Heinlein, Asi-mov, Kuttner, Moore, Blish, Williamson, and others; at the same time the method bore a richer fruit through its application by more than one writer.*
Marooned is probably the best of the three stories in this collection. It is a good example of the modern hardcore SF story—almost. I say almost because the final invention which saves the day for the explorers owes much more to a space opera like The Space Beyond than to the fairly realistic narrative of the rest of the story. Although the characters in Marooned are the familiar, extraordinarily competent men, predominantly Northern Europeans, they are more filled out and believable than the characters in the two other stories, especially Corliss—a big tall fellow of the kind so admired by John Wayne movie fans; Campbell makes the point that his size makes him less well suited for space travel than the smaller men in his crew. Corliss even worries about dying in a fairly mature way. The story gives the appearance of shifting to Don A. Stuart for a few moments, then back to the style of a very realistic John Campbell (writing in the manner of the later The Moon Is Hell!), then back to the universe-spanner of The Mightiest Machine when Corliss invents the solution of the story's major problem.
The world of the story (not filled in, but seen in bits) is the familiar, neo-capitalistic one of free enterprise— individualistic scientific entrepreneurs and technological companies; yet it seems fairly real. It follows, of course, in such a world, that anyone attempting an expedition to Jupiter will do so in a competitive spirit. Science and hardware are well integrated with the story, becoming necessary parts of the drama as well as acquiring and exciting
* The wedding of religion and tl-chnology also appeared in another Heinlein story, "If This Goes On . . .", and in Fritz Letter's Gather Darkness! All may be the unpublished ancestor of these stories, including the religious satire in Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, in the sense that Campbell mined his own story in discussions with these writers, even if he did not show them his own effort.
interest in themselves, since the fate of the expedition rests on calculation and inventiveness. The narration (author-omniscient, relating past history) is more sophisticated than in the other two stories.
The point of still current interest in the story concerns the view Campbell developed of the major scene stealer— the planet Jupiter. At once the' interested reader will compare the story to others about the giant planet—-stories by Simak, Blish, Anderson, Clarke, and others (all can be found in a fine collection, Juniter, edited by Carol and Frederick Pohl, Ballantine 1973). The story dates from the same time that Campbell wrote a major science article on Jupiter (1937). The sheer visual-scientific interest of Marooned will be enough to interest readers. I refer the reader to Isaac Asimov's introduction to this volume for a discussion of Campbell's view of Jove.
The Space Beyond may have been intended as the first of a series, since we learn at the end that the villains are badly defeated, and no more. We know that Warren and his group can return home at will, but this is not shown. The story must be read as an early kind of SF adventure. The excitement, tension and emotional impact do not derive from the interplay of characters and ideas, as we expect from modern SF, but from (1) the description of new technologies and what can be done with them, (2) cosmic battles involving large fleets of extraordinary spaceships, and (3) the spectacle of alien worlds, large distances and astronomical vistas.
Both the hero and the villain of The Space Beyond are fascinated by each other's technological tricks. There is a fair amount of campy fun to be found in their posturings and dueling. Except for the fact that one is power mad and wantonly cruel, the two men could almost be taken for brothers. I suspect that if Campbell had written a series from The Space Beyond, the villain might have been "reformed", in the manner of Wade, who became a permanent character in the trilogy of novels, The Black Star Passes, Islands of Space, and Invaders from the Infinite. E. E. Smith developed this same problem with his super-villain, Blackie DuQuesne in his Skylark tetralogy,* as
* Smith finally wrote a last "Skylark" novel, Skylark DuQuesne, which finished serialization in IF just two weeks before his death in 1965. Blackie DuQuesne is reformed more than thirty years after his first appearance.
did Robert Louis Stevenson with Long John Silver. These kinds of villains tend to be more interesting than the heroes. The problem goes back at least as far as Milton's Paradise Lost. If approached for the kind of story this is, the reader will be rewarded with many fascinating action sequences that are of cinematic quality. Campbell was a heavyweight in this kind of storyteller's fun, and took it just about as far as it could go long before the invention of camp. The interested reader might wish to compare The Space Beyond to Campbell's other work in this sub-genre.
All is an entertainingly written fairy tale about an oppressed group winning freedom with the aid of mighty powers (atomic energy of a mystical variety). The story seems curiously nationalistic, but this can be excused on the grounds that the situation involves an invaded country fighting for its freedom. The story suggests the work of A. Merritt, in its color and pageantry, and reverence for the vast forces of nature. In Heinlein's version, the characters treat their invented religion pragmatically, as a cover for the resistance movement; but Campbell's scientists seem almost to believe their own Platonic myths. Heinlein was perhaps commenting on this aspect of his editor's version when he showed us a character who goes insane thinking he has become a diety.
Each of these three stories has at least one brilliant scene. The Space Beyond has the awesomely beautiful spectacle of the giant blue suns. The sequence of descriptions becomes almost hypnotic. Campbell was very fond of the color blue, and used it often as part of his settings and as details (see, for example, Who Goes There?). Marooned has a wonderful scene showing us a storm of giant sno'wflakes as the exploratory ship drifts in Jupiter's atmosphere. All gives us the sight of a thousand-foot giant, dressed in priestly robes, striding across America. Heinlein retained this figure in his version. These are all potent images, both entertaining and satisfying dramatically.
A few words about the state of the text. The Space Beyond seems to have been in a first draft, and needed smoothing and cutting to bring it to the version in this book. Marooned and All were virtually finished texts and only minor corrections were necessary. As I went over
these stories, it occurred to me suddenly that I was editing a John Campbell who had been about my age, in his late twenties, when he finished these stories. I thought back, remembering how I had come to meet him, and how my views of him had changed and developed, and what I had concluded, about the man and his effect on science fiction. These conclusions, I thought, rqight help make a fitting context in which to place the stories in this book.
As a teenager I called John Campbell on the phone once or twice in the early 60's. I heard a big man, speaking loudly, yet ready to talk as much as I wished. I rang off after a polite minute or two, probably out of shyness, not really believing what my feelings told me—that he would have talked gladly as long as possible. I met him at the World Science Fiction Convention in Washington, D.C. in 1963, where he signed his introduction to George O. Smith's Venus Equilateral for me, in his usual large fluidly curved handwriting. I still own that book.*
When next I met him in 1970, I was already a published writer. We sat in the Analog office on Lexington Avenue as he picked up a copy of one of the best known continuing collections of SF and said, "The trouble with these writers is they can write, but they can't think much!" We both agreed that was why Analog had so many lesser stories in it with interesting ideas. He preferred to publish them because they would provoke dis-discussion, disagreement—thought—while the well-written ones usually had little else in them.
But that was the extent to which Campbell and I could agree. He asked me what I thought thinking was, and refused all answers, including his own. Generally he did not like to agree, probably because he felt it led to laziness. He told me that his editorials were meant to provoke discussion, and that a week after publication he might disagree with himself. I glimpsed the sight of a man who had lost the environment of productivity; his old writers
* I met Isaac Asimov at this same convention. I was so overwhelmed by my recent reading of The Foundation Trilogy that I stumbled over my words as I shook his hand. "Er, would . . . you ask me a question?" I asked. "Of course!' he shouted, "What would you like me to ask you?" I went red and my knees shook. To this day he thinks I'm someone else when he sees me.
had left, and he had to be his own adversary. It brought home to me the importance of content in science fiction, criticism, and the environment of colleagues. This may be one of the reasons why Astounding/ Analog declined in the late 50s and 60s.
A year later John Wood Campbell, Jr. was dead, and as editor of the SFWA Bulletin, the official publication of the Science Fiction Writers of America, I put together a memorial issue for the man I had always suspected had provided at least one of the major ingredients for a good theory of science fiction, and more. As Don A. Stuart, he had been a "new wave" all by himself; and that writer, who was lost to us in the new editor of Astounding, might have been able to do it all—style, content, everything we would like to say belongs to a high, enduring science fiction. The writers he trained, however, started on this path for him. The work of these writers, together with his own best work, makes a fitting monument.
We have to say today, to adapt a comment made by John Brunner, that so-called "hard core" SF, to truly be itself, must be well thought out and well written, in terms of the standards one must apply to the best fiction. It must be novelistic in the best literary terms, as well as science fiction in content. When he became editor of Astounding, Campbell instituted a higher standard for the fiction that he would accept, as well as demanding a development of science fiction's unique potential. But no editor can maintain any kind of demanding standard indefinitely. Campbell held to it for less than a decade, just long enough to create modern science fiction and see his writers go on to better markets and publishers. Some came back occasionally, but there never seemed to be more of them—no new names comparable in stature. The lesson to be learned is that the supply of first-class talent is always limited, and can only very rarely be increased by conscious effort on the part of editors. The true heirs of Campbell (and this may seem heretical) are writers like Ursula K. Le Guin, Gene Wolfe, Stanislaw Lem, Gregory Benford, D. G. Compton, and others who have a sense of unified values, literary and science fictional. They have not forgotten the special beauties which can be found in these three stories, the oft spoken about
"sense of wonder." In their own way the newer writers are trying to serve it better, perhaps more intensely and with more depth of feeling and intellect. This is the further vision we can see standing on John CampbelPs shoulders.