Alec Nevala-Lee has done an impressive job of researching the influence of John W. Campbell, the longtime editor of Astounding Science Fiction (the magazine eventually renamed Analog) on the careers of three Golden Age science fiction icons: Isaac Asimov, L. Ron Hubbard, and Robert A. Heinlein. In the process, he casts a cold eye on their prejudices and their views on such matters as race, religion, and gender.
Early in his career, Campbell offered a clear, if limited, definition of science fiction and the sorts of heroes it should produce. The ideal science fiction protagonist, he said, should be a “competent man”: “a hero with the sensibilities of an engineer confronting challenges that only science could solve.” It was the sort of fiction epitomized by Heinlein and written today by such writers as Andy Weir. The lack of such an engineering focus was one factor that kept a younger writer like Ray Bradbury from ever appearing in the magazine.
For a man who prided himself on his rationality, Campbell proved himself to be a sucker for every crank idea that came along, most notably the Dianetics of L. Ron Hubbard that laid the groundwork for the cult of Scientology. He encouraged Asimov to burden his stories with characters with psionic abilities—qualities even his robots eventually acquired. Before he realized his long-held ambition to get rich by founding a religion, L. Ron Hubbard was the best-selling writer in Campbell’s stable. Campbell created a fantasy magazine as a more appropriate venue for him than Astounding. As he aged, Campbell became less and less tolerant of challenges to his beliefs, an intransigence that was a factor in the breakup of his first marriage.
None of these Golden-Agers had especially enlightened views on the status of women. Kay Tarrant spent her whole career unacknowledged at Campbell’s side doing all the practical, unglamorous work of magazine publishing. None of the writers had first marriages that went the distance, and Asimov was known by women in publishing as “the man with a thousand hands.”
To give Campbell his due, he had an eye for talent and an early vision of what science fiction could be. He had a major influence on Asimov’s Foundation series and helped him formulate his three laws of robotics. He provided a venue for Hubbard’s best work and encouraged Heinlein to stay in the game when he had doubts about writing as a career. And, best of all, his magazine helped shape the genre as it emerged from the pulp tradition. ( )

Alec Nevala-Lee has written science fiction and biographies. Astounding, John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction, (2018)”, is a biography of John W. Campbell, the editor of Astounding (now Analog Science Fiction and Fact) from 1937 to 1971. Nevala-Lee had access to Campbell’s papers, which discuss his work and correspondence rejecting, editing or commenting on stories, as well as his marriage and other assorted issues and interests.The biography follows Campbell’s life, in 5 parts, with overlapping sections on the 3 named writers, drawing on biographies of and critical literature on each.
The 4 men were all born before 1921, and were middle class male Americans of European ancestry; 3 were non-religious WASPs. (Asimov was born in Russia and immigrated to New York as an infant; he was Jewish). None of them was religious. All four divorced and remarried. People who were young adults 1937-45 lived through the Great Depression, the Second World War, and most lived through the Cold War, and the 1960s. All four were arguably progressive at times, on some social and political issues. Campbell had explicit and implicit racist and sexist views, which Nevala-Lee exposes.
Campbell had published some stories in the pulps the early 1930s, and became the editor of Astounding Stories in 1937. Campbell changed the name of the magazine to Astounding Science Fiction. Robert Silverberg, in his essay “The Making of a Science-Fiction Writer” in the anthology World of Wonders described the magazine as “austere and dignified” unlike the several other professionally published magazines at that time which were “garish” and “trashy-looking”. Silverberg, who had some experience in the SF markets of the 1950s, faintly praised Campbell for improving the literary standards of SF publishing:
"Science fiction in 1944 ... still was deeply rooted in pulp-magazine narrative traditions. The typical ... story began fast. with the hero in deep trouble and zipped along in a series of quick scenes ... of physical action and a great deal of dialog until it reached its climax and resolution. ....
"Campbell's Astounding ... was an honourable exception. Campbell despised the idiocies of pulp fiction and urged his writers to produce the mature copy that such slick magazines as The Saturday Evening Post or The New Yorker might want to publish in the year 2150. ... Yet the stories Campbell published ... generally made use, in disguised and improved form, of the melodramatic conflicts and stock reactions of the pulp magazines and the writing, though clean and efficient, rarely rose far above the level of simple functional prose." Citation: World of Wonders, "Flowing from Ring to Ring" discussing "No Woman Born" by C.L. Moore.
Part 2 of Nevala-Lee’s Astounding, titled “The Golden Age”, covers Campbell’s relationships with Heinlein, Asimov and Hubbard before the U.S.A. built up its capacity to manufacture weapons and entered WW II. Part 3 covers the years the United States was a combatant in the World War, 1941-45.
Hubbard was a popular writer in the pulp periodicals in the 1930s; he sold a few stories to Campbell and Astounding in the 1940s. He is remembered as the founder of the “dianetics” (a pseudo scientific form of personal therapy), and the founder and leader of Scientology.
Part 4, “The Double Minds”, addresses some of Campbell’s interests: science, progress, mental health. Part 4 notes Campbell’s involvement in attempting become a therapist using the dianetics theories, and Campbell’s editorials in Astounding promoting dianetics. Nevala-Lee suggests that Campbell was curious about unproven science, and overconfident in his own scientific judgment.
The Campbell biography adds to the literature on speculative fiction in the 20th century.
Nevala-Lee is ambivalent about whether Campbell believed in Hubbards dianetics, and unclear about some of the other ideas that Campbell explored, endorsed or promoted. He begins Part 4 with a quotation from S.I. Hayakawa’s 1951 essay “From Science-Fiction to Fiction-Science” (in ETC., the journal of the Institute of General Semantics):
“The art [of science fiction] consists in concealing from the reader, for novelistic purposes, the distinctions between established scientific facts, almost established scientific hypotheses, scientific conjectures, and imaginative extrapolations ... The danger of this technique lies in the fact that the writer of science fiction ... may enventually succeed in concealing the distinction between the facts and his imaginings from himself.”
This applies to the Campbell’s views of general semantics and Hubbard’s dianetics; also his views on science, education, nuclear power, cybernetics, cognition, perception, and space travel.
Nevala-Lee mentions Campbell’s other explorations of scientific and parascientific concerns of the mid-20th century. He mentions the Canadian writer Alfred Vogt - A. E. Van Vogt, Van Vogt, who was an enthusiast of Korzybski’s General Semantics, now considered to be a self-help pseudo-science psychotherapy movement, and of Hubbard’s dianetics. General Semantics was considered more seriously in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, according to Wikipedia, by SF and general readers and writers, including Heinlein, Campbell and Van Vogt:
“During the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, general semantics entered the idiom of science fiction. Notable examples include the works of A. E. van Vogt, The World of Null-A and its sequels. General semantics appear also in Robert A. Heinlein's work, especially Gulf. Bernard Wolfe drew on general semantics in his 1952 science fiction novel Limbo. Frank Herbert's novels Dune and Whipping Star are also indebted to general semantics. The ideas of general semantics became a sufficiently important part of the shared intellectual toolkit of genre science fiction to merit parody by Damon Knight and others; they have since shown a tendency to reappear in the work of more recent writers such as Samuel R. Delany, Suzette Haden Elgin and Robert Anton Wilson.”
Nevala-Lee, perhaps being cautious about provoking Scientology, does not label Hubbard a grifter, or Campbell a grifter or a dupe. Dianetics, like general semantics, appeared to be a new science. Campbell experimented with both.
Nevala-Lee’s discussion of Campell’s influence on the SF genre has problems. He refers to the period 1937-41 as the Golden Age, while many refer to 1938-1946 as the “Golden” age in the USA.
In the 19th century and first decades of the 20th century people in Europe and North America were exposed, to some degree, to information about scientific theories and discoveries, technological change, progress in medicine, theories about the mind, and to movements to improve society by developing the abilities of individuals. Many works of fiction appeared as short stories or episodes in a serial, like detective, crime, police, military, nautical, railroad, adventure, horror, supernatural, or cowboy, fiction in penny dreadfuls, dime novels and the pulp magazines. Stories with a scientific premise became popular, to the point of becoming a new category of fantasy literature. Hugo Gernsback founded Amazing Stories in 1926 and the Science Fiction League in 1934. Amazing published the addresses of writers of letters to the editor, which allowed fans to find each other and form local fan groups. SF fans tended to view science as a method with value to create technological progress, which gave some countries advantages in war, commerce and living standards. Some fans were New Deal liberals or progressives. Some fans, even in the U.S.A., were pro-labour, socialist or communist. Some fans were American nationalists, social conservatives, laissez-faire liberals, proto-libertarians or interested in science and SF as sources of ideas for inventions.
The Golden Age was notable for an increased insistence that SF involve a scientic premise (as opposed to magical premise), the dominance of hard science fiction over other versions of fantasy and science fiction, an humanistic and techno-optimistic emphasis, and an increase in the social credibility of SF. Progress in science and techology was assumed to lead to improved conditions of life and progress in civilization.
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Galaxy and came on the market in 1949 & 1950. They offered higher rates than older magazines. Writers began sell long fiction to publishers for the paperback book market. Robert Silverberg wrote in his essay “The Making of a Science-Fiction Writer” in the anthology World of Wonders that many writers gave up on dealing with the “increasingly difficult and dogmatic John Campbell”.
Judith Merrill was a member of the late 1930s fan group, the Futurians, which was formed as a breakaway from the Brooklyn based New York chapter of the Science Fiction League. Nevala-Lee mentions her in an anecdote involving Asimov, but not recognize her as a fanzine editor, editor, or for her roles as one of the founders of the a href=“https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milford_Writer%27s_Workshop”>Milford Workshop, and in the campaign to raise the literary standards of SF.
Readers’ tastes changed. The Golden Age ended. It was Golden for some, but its lustre has tarnished.
Heinlein had left the US Navy in 1934 for medical reasons. He sold several stories to Campbell as the editor of Astounding. Campbell was impressed by Heinlein and tried to cultivate him. Many of Heinlein’s acclaimed works were published after 1947, and were not published in Astounding. The Green Hills of Earth was first serialized in the Saturday Evening Post in 1947. Starship Trooperswas serialized in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1959. Stranger in a Strange Land was published by a book publisher in 1961.
Heinlein had progressive views in the 1930s but was a Goldwater Republican and a libertarian by the 1950s. Campbell and Heinlein supported the U.S. military and government in the Cold War, the Space Race, the Vietnam War, and on other issues. They lost support among fans and writers. New Wave science fiction became popular: "The New Wave was partly a rejection of the Golden Age of Science Fiction. ...The New Wave was not defined as a development from the science fiction which came before it, but initially reacted against it. New Wave writers did not operate as an organized group, but some of them felt the tropes of the pulp magazine and Golden Age periods had become over-used, and should be abandoned .... Scientific and technological themes [had been] more important than literary trends to Campbell, and some major Astounding contributors Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, and L. Sprague de Camp had scientific or engineering educations" Wikipedia, February 2023, New Wave Science Fiction
Ironically, Stranger in a Strange Land and some derivative stories were popular reading material in the countercultural movements of the 1960s. Heinlein’s reputation has declined, as noted in the 2007 Los Angeles Times article The descent of a sci-fi guru.
Nevala_Lee cannot explain how ideas moved among Campbell’s contacts, and which of them influenced the others. He thinks that Campbell influenced SF, and that SF influenced culture and society. Some readers’ life choices to work in science, or for NASA were influenced by reading SF. SF stories influenced ethics and politics - the influence has not been and cannot be measured. Campbell’s role in promoting SF may, but cannot be proved to, have influenced education, industry, economics or individual decisions. ( )

Fascinating overview of a fascinating time. Who knew these highly respected authors were such skirt-chasers and perverts! Asimov as a grab-asser? Priceless! I loved every page! ( )

Anyone with a passing knowledge of the Golden Age of science fiction knows of the four men named on the cover, but the amount of details available about each of them varies. Little has been published about John W. Campbell, but this book remedies that, using Campbell as a central figure and telling his story, both alone and through his interactions with the other three. The product is a great biography that is both readily readable and wonderfully satisfying.

In the case of the Asimov, Heinlein, and Hubbard, all of whom have the subject of previous biographies, Nevala-Lee expands their stories by showing their faults along with their virtues. One of my favorite aspects of Astounding is the amount of attention paid to the women. Many of these women wielded vast influence on the four men and on science fiction itself. With the exception of Virginia Heinlein, previous works have, at best, relegated these women to the sidelines, or worse, cast them into the role of villain and hung all of the man’s faults and missteps on them.

Astounding tells the story of these figures instead of just chronologically listing facts about them, resulting in a book that even a casual fan will appreciate.
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I was born during the tail end of the Golden Age of Science Fiction, a period between the late 1930s through the 1950s. It was doing this period that science fiction became respectable. Prior to this period, the majority of science fiction was distributed as "pulp fiction." As an young boy, I cut my teeth on science fiction from the Golden Age with such authors as Asimov, Heinlein, and Simak. The one man that did the most to foster in this age was John Campbell, the editor of such magazines as Astounding Science Fiction. He solicited novellas and short stories emphasizing the psychological development of the characters as well as technological advances.

The author provided biographies of four notables within his book: John Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, and L. Ron Hubbard. However, the characters of these science fiction luminaries had little to admire.

Campbell was interested in psychology and its potential to create a new man. Since Campbell was a racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic, I shudder at what he might have evolved if his philosophy had been accepted. This was why he was attracted to Hubbard, who shared a similar interest. Shortly after the two met, Hubbard began developing a new form of psychotherapy called Dianetics. Decades later his pseudoscience was repackaged as a new religion, Scientology. He firmly believed that if he had not given this religion to the world, there would have been "social and economic chaos." When Campbell broke with Hubbard, Asimov knew that this split was inevitable since "no movement can have two Messiahs." This statement fostered my opinion that Hubbard demonstrated paranoia and narcissism to the point of megalomania.

Although both Heinlein and Asimov were friend of the younger Hubbard, they distanced themselves from Dianetics and Scientology. However, each had their flaws. Asimov was a chronic philanderer, which resulted in divorce and estrangement from his son. Heinlein, referenced frequently as the "Dean of Science Fiction Writers," espoused militarism in many of his works.

As I said early, I read several authors from the Golden Age of Science Fiction, including Asimov (The Foundation Trilogy) and Heinlein (Stranger in a Strange Land). However, when one looks at the characters of the authors whose books I relished, there is little to be desired. Sometimes it is better to divorce the works from the men themselves.

Overall, I enjoyed peeking into the lives of the authors who made science fiction popular to the general public, which resulted in such classic literature as 2001: A Space Odyssey and the Star Wars film series. Many of the early astronauts chose their careers being inspired by the science fiction of their youth. ( )