All we know about Sam Sackett is that he teaches English at UCLA. (and we're not positive about that) and has written articles and letters for other fan publications when he has something cogent to say: if he wants to add to this biographical note, we'll be glad to hear from him.
There is, of course, bad science fiction. There is bad poker playing and bad movie-writing and bad cooking. Everything to which the hand of man is put admits of being criticized for its imperfections. Not only is there bad science-fiction, but fans seem agreed on which science fiction is bad.
I need not describe what most fans refer to when they talk about bad science fiction beyond mentioning the name of Captain Future, who is appearing in three or four science fiction magazines every month under various names, and his adventures are being recorded by various authors. Bad science fiction is built around a hero whose traits are an interesting indication of the mind of the reader who holds him in esteem.
First, and most noticeably, the hero is physically perfect and mentally brilliant. It is obvious that selection of this type of hero is motivated by science fiction authors' knowledge of the sort of person their fans would like to be. The inference is, of course, that most fans of this bad science fiction are neither physically nor mentally impressive but are harboring a deep, subconscious, Adlerian wish that they were.
Devotees of the Philip Marlowe type of detective story are obviously the kind of people who wish that beautiful nymphomaniacs would leap into their beds or the back seats of their automobiles as often as Mr. Marlowe is beset with such annoyances. The wish to identify one's self with a hero, and the type of hero one chooses, is a revelation of personality which is unexcelled by the reminiscences of a pre-clear.
There is, of course, one distinction between the Marlowe fan and the future fan. The Marlowe fan is obsessed by thoughts of sex, and the future fan refuses to admit it. Captain Future is virtually sexless; no operation known to medical science could have more thoroughly emasculated him than have the typewriters of Edmond Hamilton and the many other authors who have hidden behind the name of "Brett Sterling."
Captain Future reminds us, somehow, of the ideal man which was the goal of Plato's Republic, equally balanced in physical and mental perfection. But there is a difference between Hamilton's and Plato's ideal, in that Captain Future's mental development is not one which concerns itself with philosophy or the humanities. The disciplines of ethics, aesthetics, metaphysics, which were to be the concerns of the Platonic philosopher-kings, are unknown to Captain Future. His knowledge is limited to science, and his intelligence is only such that it enables him to think more quickly than a normal man of splicing the degravitators and the lignotite rods together so that he can rescue the fair maiden from the Altairians.
From this we can conclude that the Future fan is not worried about matters of morality or anything else but the advance of physical science. Physical science has brought us electric lawn-mowers, form-fitting relax-o-chairs, greater ease in making long journeys, and other benefits which will make the daily life of man more comfortable and less strenuous; these gifts are to be accepted gratefully-primitivism in the Twentieth Century is just short of insanity-but on the other hand the Greeks who bear them should be bewared of. It is a dangerous sign to look to science for the solution of problems that only morality and the humanities in general can solve; it is flabbiness to worship the comforts of the body and the science which has made them possible to the complete exclusion of the mental disciplines without which a scientific mind could not be developed.
The fan of bad science fiction is physically weak, mentally underdeveloped, prurient in his mores (a sign of infantilism; Roy Rogers, another sexless hero, is the idol of children) and wedded to materialism and physical comforts. There are many of him, but there have always been a thousand fools to every wise man, and I do not think we need to worry much about the future fan; the wide men have always managed to pull the fools along after them, simply because the fools are too foolish to resist.
But, Gott sei dank, if that is the correct German, there is such a thing as good science fiction. And it is that that you and I, Reader, are interested in. If you are not, you have not read this far. What is its distinguishing characteristic?
Bad science fiction appeals to immature minds; with certain limitations, the character we have given to the science fiction fan will apply also to the childish person who reads pulp Western, detective, or love writing. Generally speaking, pulp writing is immature and is most widely read by juveniles of all ages in the population. There is some good writing in all these fields, of course; although I do not care for A. B. Guthrie I must admit that he has improved the Western story in his novels so as to make it unrecognizable; there is a large body of detective writing which is superior to anything in the pulps; and love is a motive in literary writing of the very highest quality. But in none of these fields, considered now only as pulp fields, is there any large body of writing comparable to the best stories that appear every month in science fiction magazines.
What sets off good science fiction from the bad is that it concerns itself with matters of morality and ethics-with problems of man's relationship with man and God-which are precisely those matters that bad science fiction, and the bulk of all other pulp writing, refuses to deal with. Being imaginative in the highest degree, science fiction has attracted to itself imaginative readers and writers; readers and writers who are not afraid of dealing with ideas, no matter how new or unconventional they may be.
Everyone who has agreed with me thus far will also agree that Ray Bradbury, while far from being the only writer of this type, is the author who has been most successful in introducing ideas into his stories: challenging, controversial ideas, the ideas of a bold and vigorous thinker. His success has made it possible for many other original thinkers to achieve an outlet in science fiction. But, while he is not alone, it should be remembered that if he was not the first, as I believe he was, he was certainly one of the first to achieve success by dealing with ideas which were not strictly scientific in nature; he has given his name to the type of story for which he is noted, so that the phrase "Bradbury-type of story" conveys a definite meaning. And Bradbury, who was first, was a success; what I am getting at is that a man was able to achieve what seemed almost unachievable. Where did he achieve it? Galaxy, which is currently the high-brow among magazines, was not then in existence; Astounding, which was then considered the intellectual's magazine (where as it was the scientist's), printed no Bradbury stories that I know of. Most of the early Bradbury stories, including some stories that were most ideological-I am thinking not of his best stories from the aesthetic standpoint, but those that are most heavily weighted with thought, like "The Concrete Mixer," The Man," and "The Square Pegs"-appeared first in Startling Stories, whose editor, Mr. Merwin, has always bourne at least half of the brunt of the castigations against bad science fiction; and Mr. Palmer, who has bourne the other half, printed "Way in the Middle of the Air" in Other Worlds, Super Science Stories, and Planet Stories, other recipients of opprobrium as purveyors of bad science fiction, have printed a surprisingly large number of Bradbury's stories.
Even in the haunts of bad science fiction, then, a Bradbury can find an audience. The lesson is obvious. Science fiction readers-not Future fans, but people like you and me-are interested in ideas and are receptive to ideas. This peculiar circumstance makes the field attractive to writers who have ideas that they want to express. Can you imagine the Bradbury phenomenon taking place in Thrilling Detective or Range Romances?
The principle of mass communication, from the standpoint of those who would make money from the circulation of printed material, is conformity with the views of the greatest number. It used to be that a magazine could support itself with a coterie circulation; but costs are high now, and must be met by advertising, which goes only to magazines with wide circulations. That, roughly, is what happened to Century magazine and other publications of the last era. Science fiction is the only mass publication field in which a writer dare attack conventional viewpoints-even mass communication itself, as Bradbury does.
It is this quality of science fiction which in the past has made those concepts which cannot quite be called "isms" but might be called "icses"-semantics, dianetics, etc.-so widely disseminated among the fans. These rather abstract concepts, which would have no place in any other field, naturally gravitated to science fiction, where receptive minds awaited them. Bradbury, and the writers who are his followers if not his imitators, came to science fiction because there was no other place to go.
But this very receptiveness to new ideas is a weakness even of good science fiction. Fans-even those who are not Future fans-are inclined to accept new ideas simply because they are new; novelty becomes a virtue. Then, of course, when the ideas are old, their age becomes a vice. Fifteen years ago Technocracy and Esperanto were big movements in science fiction. They have gone with the snows of yesteryear. Semantics has given place to Nexialism and still more exotic disciplines. Since Dr. Winter declared that there are no clears, dianetics has suffered embarrassment. I, for one, am glad enough to see it go; it is another symptom of the Future fans who want to be mentally powerful-prima facie evidence, of course, that they are not-and who want to develop their minds not by the application to tedious mental labor in the vineyards of knowledge but by the royal road to Clarity on an auditor's couch. And that metaphor, implying that they want to lie down while they travel, is not so mixed as you might think.
Is there, then, no permanence in science fiction? Are there only fads, in-season for a brief time before they disappear into the limbo of cracked-which is a literal interpretation of scizoid-ideas? It has always been the opinion of the most enlightened and optimistic minds-and opinion justified entirely by the whole course of human history to this moment-that it is impossible for the truth so to be destroyed, and if an idea does wither and die it is because it is not true. If this is the case, and the very persistence of this idea from the earliest times is in earnest that it is, then it is necessary to have some mental market-place, where free trade can take place and the worth of ideas tested and approved. At the present time science fiction is capable of supplying this idea-trading post more than any other type of mass communication. New ideas will continue, I hope, to flood into science fiction magazines. Those that have not the true ring of current coin will be adjudged counterfeit. Those that have will be lost to science fiction; they will become accepted and passed on to the world, leaving the narrow field of fannish activities for the larger arena of humanity, while the science fiction fans themselves turn their attention from them, as from things too old for serious consideration, and look for the next new idea.
Data entry and page scans provided by Judy Bemis
Data entry by Judy Bemis
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