Seekers of Tomorrow (4 page)

"Doc Smith is back."

The novel failed to have any special impact. It didn't matter. Smith was too busy working on his books to notice and remained so for the next ten years revising his novels for book publication. When Fantasy Press, virtually with its dying gasp, passed on
The Vortex Blaster
like a literary baton to be distributed under the Gnome imprint, all of Smith's magazine serials but one,
The Galaxy Primes,
had found their way between boards.

While Smith's books, the past ten years, had sold comfort-ingly well, they had been reviewed with a great deal of condescension as period pieces. This bothered Smith, who now was determined to prove that he could emulate the current vogue. Campbell at astounding science fiction was then partial to stories with a strong element of what he termed psi phenomena: stories of teleportation, telekinesis, telepathy, levitation, and extrasensory perception. Smith built
The Galaxy Primes
around those elements with a dash of naughtiness and considerable "way out" dialogue to prove he was no back number. It didn't set well with Campbell, who rejected it, but it was serialized in three installments begin-ning in the March, 1959, amazing stories. Smith settled back for the reaction. It proved considerably less than enthusias-tic. Popularity frequently carries obligations. A fan named E. Everett Evans had been among Smith's most ardent boosters. In his fifties, Evans determined to become a writer and succeeded. Among his published works were two very Smith-like novels aimed at teenagers,
Man of Many Minds
(1953) and
Alien Minds
(1955), both published by Fantasy Press. Evans died of a heart condition with the first draft of another novel,
Masters of Space,
on his desk. To help Evans' widow sell it, Smith did a complete revision and polishing job and the story ran as a collaboration in if (November, 1961-Janu-ary, 1962). Dealing with the pooling of minds telepathically as a means of invading and destroying a planet, the story failed to come off. Smith then experimented with a detective novel, but it interested no one.

A rapprochement with Campbell resulted in the plotting of a new novel, for which
Subspace Survivor,
a novelette ap-pearing in the July, 1960, astounding science fiction was a prelude. The major story and sequel,
Subspace Explorers,
was another attempt on the part of Smith to write what he felt was wanted in modern science-fiction. Campbell didn't agree with him in the result and the effort was eventually published as an original book by Canaveral Press, publishers of Edgar Rice Burroughs hard-cover editions (1965). It was time for Smith to review. Here he was 73, retired and living in a trailer in Florida. What was he trying to prove?

The Skylark of Space
in 1928 had given the science-fiction world the stars.
Galactic Patrol
in 1937 had unified those stars into a community. Each time he had dared to be himself and the result had altered the direction of a literature. What he had been doing the past few years was attempting to conform to a literary vogue instituted by someone else, in the process imitating writing methods popularized by some-one else, rewriting a story conceived by someone else, and patterning a plot to suit someone else.

At the 21st World Science Fiction Convention in Washing-ton, D.C. (birthplace of
The Skylark of
Space
nearly a half-century earlier), September 1, 1963, First Fandom presented its Hall-of-Fame Award to Edward E. Smith for his pivotal contributions to science fiction. From the floor, John W. Campbell honored him with the statement: "Smith made the last big breakthrough in science fiction; we're still waiting for someone else to make another." Almost too overcome with emotion to speak, Smith, whose eyes were almost blinded by cataracts, accepted the award.

Inevitably, someone asked the question: "What's your next story, Doc?" Smith's hand trembled slightly, but the answer was sharp and clear. "The title of my next story," he said,

"is
Skylark DuQuesne!"

On August 31, 1965, Edward E. Smith died of a heart attack.

Two weeks earlier, the October, 1965 if had appeared, completing serialization of
Skylark DuQuesne
begun in its July issue. In it, Blackie DuQuesne proposes marriage and finds a soul mate. It was as though
Skylark DuQuesne
was his last literary will and testament. E. E. Smith had finally done right by the noblest villain of them all.

"And now Campbell!" That was the title, set in thick 36-point type, of an editorial in the October, 1934, astounding stories.

In December we bring you a great book-length novel by an author you have asked us to get for
Astounding Stories.
John W. Campbell, Jr., comes to us with a story of vast conceptions,
The Mightiest
Machine
.... He has been called one of the two greatest science fiction authors. We have obtained stories from both (E.E.) Smith and Campbell.... Don't miss this story. It's Campbell at his best. Diametrically opposed to Smith's theories but a worthy opponent.

The editorial voice behind the "pitch" was that of F. Orlin Tremaine. Procuring Campbell for his magazine was almost like driving the last nail in the coffins of his competitors. One year earlier astounding stories had been revived by Street & Smith as the third science-fiction monthly in a field of three. Now it was the unquestioned leader in quality and circulation.

Campbell was a true giant in popularity among those au-thors who had grown out of the science-fiction magazines.
The Mightiest Machine,
which began in the December, 1934, astounding stories and ran for five issues, epitomized the type of story that had created his following. Mighty spaceships move at speeds faster than light from star system to star system, warping themselves through another dimen-sion at the whim of Aarn Munro, a mental and physical superman, descendant of earthmen raised on the surface of the planet Jupiter. He custom-contrives universe-shaking en-ergy weapons to combat alien fleets in universe-wide battles. Like Edward E. Smith, Campbell was undeniably a literary Houdini in the mind-staggering art, convincingly manipulat-ing stupendous forces on a cosmic scale. Time was running out on macrocosmic spectaculars like
The Mightiest Machine;
changes were occurring in plotting and writing science fiction that were to make the story a period piece before it was completed; yet its impact was so profound on a youthful Englishman, Arthur C. Clarke, that nearly twenty years later he would use a race similar to the devil-like villains, the Teff-hellani, in his greatest critical suc-cess,
Childhood's End,
At the other literary extreme, Richard S. Shaver (or Raymond A. Palmer, who actually wrote most of the stories carrying the Shaver name) would adapt Camp-bell's premise that this evil race once lived in vast caverns under Mu and was driven away in a prehistoric Ragnorok, as the basis of the Shaver "Mystery."

Notwithstanding, Campbell's major contribution in both storytelling and influence was yet to come. More than is true of most writers, his early life and background shaped the direction he would take in specific plot ideas as well as in method.

John Wood Campbell, Jr., was born in a two-family frame house at 16 Tracey Ave., Newark, New Jersey, on June 8, 1910. The street bordered the then fashionable Clinton Hill section. His father, John W. Campbell, Sr., an electrical engineer, had come to Newark one year earlier. Having secured a position with New Jersey Bell Telephone, whose headquarters were in Newark, the elder Campbell returned to Napoleon, Ohio, to marry Dorothy Strahern, whose family tree made her eligible for the Daughters of the American Revolution.

He took his wife back to Newark, a break in family tradition, since the Campbells were influential society in Napoleon. They had come to Napoleon from Rochester, Vermont, where members of the family had been in the state legislature. Campbell's father had been a Congressman for that district, a Master in Chancery, and a Judge of Equity.

After seven years in Newark, the family moved to Maplewood, a suburb of Newark, where John, Jr., attended public school. Precociously intellectual, interested in everything around him, young John had virtually no friends. At home, his relationship with his parents was emotionally difficult. His father carried impersonality and theoretical objectivity in family matters to the brink of fetish. He almost never used the pronoun "I." All statements were in the third person: "It is necessary," "One must," "It appears that," "One should." Not only was he an authoritarian in his own home but a self-righteous disciplinarian as well, who put obedience high on the list of filial duties. Affection was not in his makeup, and if he felt any for the boy he managed to repress it.

The mother's changeability baffled and frustrated the youngster. Self-centered, flighty, moody, she was unpredicta-ble from moment to moment. While she was not deliberately cruel, her gestures of warmth appeared to him so transitory and contrived as to be quickly discounted. His mother had a twin sister who was literally identical. So close were they in appearance that no one, not even John, could tell them apart. The sisters were in psychological conflict because John's mother had married first, and he found himself used as an innocent pawn by his mother who fawned over him at great length as a subtle taunt to her twin. The result was that John's aunt treated him with such abruptness that he was convinced she thoroughly hated him. This created a bizarre situation. The boy would come running into the house to impart something breathlessly to a woman he thought was his mother. He would be jarred by a curt rebuff from her twin. Every time his aunt visited the home, this situation posed itself until it became a continuing and insoluble nightmare. Was the woman standing in front of him "friend" or "foe?" His only "friend" was a sister, Laura, born in 1917. The two got along well, but the seven-year gap in their ages made her always too young to be much of an ally. So loneliness directed his alert and curious mind into everything. He blew up the basement with his chemistry experiments. Manually dexterous, he repaired bicycles for other kids. For their parents he revitalized electrical appliances. He read omnivo-rously, particularly myths, legends, folklore, and anthropolo-gy. He discovered Edgar Rice Burroughs'
Tarzan of the Apes
and
John Carter of Mars
at the age of 71/2
.
At 8 he was perusing Jeans, Eddington, and astronomy texts.

At 14 he was packed off to Blair Academy, an exclusive boys' school in Blairstown, New Jersey. He succeeded in making only a few friends there, none of them instructors, whose "errors" he corrected in class. Sports did not attract him, though he developed a good game of tennis and a mild interest in intramural football.

Despite four years at Blair, he never obtained a diploma. He was strong in physics and Spanish, but his marks ran the gamut in other subjects.

One of the few times he and his father saw eye to eye was when the latter suggested that he be enrolled at the Massa-chusetts Institute of Technology in 1928. Perhaps his reasonableness in this was partly motivated by John's ingenuity. At 15, in order to circumvent directives, he had become so facile in the use of logic that the father found himself hard-pressed to justify himself, his ideas, or his behavior. In still another respect, a disciplinary peculiarity of his father had a direct bearing in sharpening his embryonic writing skills. The older Campbell frequently checked the boy's homework, and if he didn't approve of a phrase he would demand it be rewritten. To save revision time, John made a game of rewording the phrase in the same line. The result was increased dexterity and economy in the use of words. Though he did not mingle much socially with the other students at MIT, John became very close with his roommate Rosario Honore Trembley, who had a sense of fun and humor the teen-age Campbell found compatible. That, how-ever, was as far as he cared to go in conforming. In class, Campbell was up to his old trick of straightening out instruc-tors. In one instance, this penchant made him a friend. He challenged, before the students, a statement by Professor Blanchard, his chemistry instructor, regarding the

"impossi-bility" of amalgamating iron. Campbell brought in an experi-mental arrangement and performed the

"impossible" in the classroom. Instead of being angry, the professor was delight-ed and began to take a personal interest in Campbell, ex-pressing sincere disappointment when his "prodigy" did not go on to make chemistry his life's work.

John had instinctively gravitated toward science fiction. He bought argosy fairly regularly and weird tales whenever he was certain it contained science fiction. He spotted the first issue of amazing stories when it appeared in April, 1926, and became a regular customer. When science-fiction au-thors'

imaginations showed signs of breaking out of the confines of the solar system, Campbell was enthralled. Smith's
The Skylark of Space
established a lifelong admira-tion for that author and an immediate desire to emulate.

Stemming from his awareness that science-fiction authors frequently made obvious scientific errors, his first writing attempt, a short story called
Invaders from the Infinite,
was aimed at correcting one of the more widespread misconcep-tions: that there would be a problem in heating an interplan-etary ship in space. The story, sent to amazing stories, was accepted. Elated, Campbell pounded out a longer story,
When the
Atoms Failed,
and that, too, was accepted. His enthusiasm waned, however, as the months passed and nei-ther story appeared. Home on vacation in the summer of 1929, Campbell decided to visit T. O'Conor Sloane, the editor who had been in correspondence with him, and straighten out the matter. Now six-foot-one, with hawklike features, he presented a formidable appearance as he was ushered into Sloane's edito-rial offices at 381 Fourth Avenue, New York. Sloane had a flowing, long white beard. At the age of 80 he had finally been given the title of "Editor," following the passing of the magazine from the ownership of its founder, Hugo Gernsback, to that of The E. P. Co., Inc.