To quote Michael Swanwick

[james_davis_nicoll]

He was racist, anti-Semetic, and a shill for every pseudoscientific fraud that came down the pike, but he was one of our own. And today's his birthday! Ladies and gentlemen, let's all raise a glass to... JOHN W. CAMPBELL!

Comments

[jsburbidge.livejournal.com]

Singing Happy Birthday is not advocacy?

[drcuriosity]

For a moment there I had him confused with that other notable anti-Semite, Joseph John Campbell.

[murasaki-1966.livejournal.com]

Did you know him personally?

[drcuriosity]

I don't know either Campbell personally, no.

[murasaki-1966.livejournal.com]

Then be careful what you say. Having just spent a good half an hour checking your assertion, I direct you to this article. It's the most balanced thing I could find
http://www.theinfidels.org/zunb-josephcampbell.htm

[drcuriosity]

I was indeed careless about what I said. For starters, I had meant to say "alleged" rather than "notable". My unreserved apologies.

[murasaki-1966.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the apology, and thank you for understanding my stance. In compensation, please feel free to slag off my Prime Minister(Australian). It's a matter of record he's an idiot.

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

It's nice how misspelling "anti-Semitic" adds a subtle hint that nobody really cares about it and it's not important anyway. It works on so many layers!

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

I think the idea is that it comes with an anti-emetic embedded to keep you from throwing up your birthday cake. Or something.

[(Anonymous)]

Or then again it might just be a simple, straightforward typo.

[bruce munro (from livejournal.com)]

I propose a slow, sad head-shake in place of a toast.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

Is it true that Campbell's personal belief in ESP is the main reason why "psi powers" are widely considered acceptable in hard-SF?

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

He ain't one of mine.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I was going to say. I have trouble thinking of an "us" that I would choose to be a part of that included Campbell.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Tetrapods?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Last I checked that's not a choice.

(If it has become a choice recently, AWESOME.)

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

a little selective amputation would disqualify Campbell.

[dionysus1999.livejournal.com]

Perhaps fertilizing your garden would be a better way to honor John. He sorted through crap and published some amazing turds, after all.

[bruce munro (from livejournal.com)]

Perhaps I'm ignorant here, but what did Campbell do that was _positive_ for SF that wouldn't have happened anyway with other magazines and editors? I mean, they say he discovered a lot of great talent, but it's not like he found Heinlein hidden under a cabbage leaf in the Amazon.

[(Anonymous)]

Heinlein was going to be published whether Campbell was there or not, agreed. But a number of authors, Asimov in particular, say that Campbell helped them considerably. When he rejected their stories, his rejection letters were sometimes half the length of the story as he explained just what was wrong.

Others had a different experience. Damon Knight got simple rejections. I suppose that JWC could see that Knight would never be his kind of writer, whereas he said that he knew Asimov would eventually write the kind of story he wanted, even though that first submission was terrible.

The founding of "Unknown" gave SF writers a market for work that didn't fit the Astounding mold. Perhaps these stories could have been published in "Weird Tales", but for half (or less) the money.

Campbell did a lot for SF in his early years as an editor, but would probably be much more highly thought of if he'd quit editing about 1955. Or earlier.

William Hyde

[bruce munro (from livejournal.com)]

Well, yeah, but if he were kidnapped by the Deros in 1937, would the field of SF be that much poorer? Would not other magazines and editors take advantage of the growing field of new talent? That he was important I don't disagree with, but that he was irreplaceable is another claim altogether.

[(Anonymous)]

The impression I get is that he did vastly more for his writers than other editors in the field. Not only in cultivating new writers like Asimov, but in getting older writers who had stopped writing SF to try again. Paying a little more, and promptly, helped in this.

Of course, Orlin Tremaine had already improved Astounding quite a bit before Campbell arrived, publishing, among other things, Campbell's "Don A Stuart" stories. But he was promoted out of that job.

No, Campbell wasn't irreplaceable. But the writers who sold to him at that time think that the field would have been very different without him. The ugly aspects of the man shouldn't cause us to neglect his importance in SF history. Even as we wince at reading his words.

William Hyde

[nathan helfinstine (from livejournal.com)]

As I understand it, he was more of a "sucker" than a "shill". Shills knowingly cheat people, but I think Campbell was a true believer.

[auriaephiala.livejournal.com]

A *balanced* view of a person doesn't mean all-negative, either.

If I were going to blame Campbell for anything, it would be for enabling Scientology, which has done a great deal of harm to many people.

On the other hand, I've read his anthologies and the stories, and he was a good editor and a decent SF writer of the time, and from what authors who worked with him said, he helped many of them considerably.