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Grandson of the True and the Terrible

The most important science fiction writer of the forties was probably Theodore Sturgeon. He was not the best nor the most significant nor did he make the most fundamental impression; even as a stylist (the basis of his reputation) he might have fallen behind the Kuttners in top form, but what Sturgeon did was to keep open the possibility for a kind of science fiction that eventually many others came to do.

That possibility was style-oriented, science fiction built upon configuration and mood. No other writer was doing this. Heinlein was certainly the most important figure of the decade, Asimov probably the most imaginative, van Vogt the most characteristic and crazily inventive, the Kuttners the most polished and adroit . . . but all of these writers were replaceable. There were others who were doing what Heinlein was doing if not nearly so well, similarly Asimov. Their style, their approach to science fiction as an extrapolative medium impressing circumstance upon character, was expression of Campbell's vision. The Kuttners were better than good but their depth exceeded breadth and The New Yorker, for instance, was full of fine writers (some of whom, like John Collier and Robert Coates, had clearly influenced them). Van Vogt was more sui generis, but L. Ron Hubbard knew a few things about the paranoid plot.

If any of these writers had been lifted out of the science fiction of the forties, the forties would have been an inestimably poorer decade . . . but the history of modern science fiction, less their own contribution, would be essentially the same. Even Heinlein's work, hardly as skillfully, would have been done eventually.

But Sturgeon's contribution was unique. In his use of style, internalization, and quirky characterization he was keeping the door open for everything that happened after 1950 when the Gold, Boucher, and fifties perspective became the alternative that dominated the field. If Sturgeon had not been around through his decade to hold the flag for this kind of science fiction, had not established that the literature could be style-oriented, it is possible that the fifties perspective would not have developed; the editors and potential audience might have been there but no basis would have existed upon which writers within the field could build.

Science fiction without Sturgeon might have been a science fiction without Galaxy, Walter Miller, Jr., Brian Aldiss, Damon Knight, the original anthology market or Dying Inside. And other things. Without Heinlein, Asimov, van Vogt, Hubbard, or de Camp the medium would have been the poorer, but without Sturgeon it might by the middle of the fifties have played itself out in extrapolative gimmickry and arcana and not have existed at all.

At least it is something to think about, just as it is to think about what might have happened if Campbell had not been persuaded that Theodore Sturgeon wrote science fiction at all. Just as it is to think about what might have been if Sturgeon—who had serious literary ambitions and wanted to publish in the quarterlies and mass magazines—had not failed in his field of first intention and had had to settle for science fiction. Asimov, Heinlein, del Rey never wanted to write anything else. Sturgeon found his text after the fact. What he wrote reflected this. It made the field first attractive and then possible for many of us.

 

* * *

 

The fiction writer, locked up with the sound of his own voice, the science fiction writer locked up with the sound of his own voice propagating megalomaniacal or solipsistic visions imposed upon his persona, the full-time science fiction writer who professionally does little else . . . contrast these visions with the alienation, isolation, anonymity and impotence which constitute the condition of the American writer—

Taking it all on balance it can be well understood why alcoholism, divorce, depression, fragmentation, and a rich history of lunacy characterize science fiction writers and why it was Alfred Bester's considered opinion in the early fifties, after meeting the crowd for the first time, that all of them were brilliant and all of them had a screw loose someplace. (Bester, who wrote radio and television scripts at the time, considered himself at least nominally representative of the Outside World.)

But one does not want to prejudice the case. There is another side and another opinion. John W. Campbell, who must have thought about this too in his time, put it this way to one of his writers in the forties: "People who read science fiction are crazy. We all know about that. And science fiction writers are even crazier. But when you talk about science fiction editors, well—"

A long Campbellian sigh.

Silence.

 

—1980: New Jersey

 

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