I owe a commercial review for this book so i will proceed to gather my thoughts here
Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlen, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction, by Alec Nevala-Lee
As the editor of the magazine Astounding Science Fiction for nearly four decades-from 1937 until his death in 1971-John W. Campbell, Jr. discovered such legendary writers as Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein and collaborated with L. Ron Hubbard on the development of dianetics, the philosophical foundation of the controversial Church of Scientology. In this extraordinary cultural biography, Alec Nevala-Lee tells the story of these four men, their relationships, and their collective vision of the future, revealing in unprecedented scope, drama, and detail how the literary genre of science fiction emerged to shape the imaginations of millions.
I was not excited when i opened the package, although i have done a ton of similar books so i did not question the assignment.
I described it to my officemates as a sausage-fest, i recall.
HOWEVER, i had to check
the author's gender because i guess this is one of the first "cultural biographies" to come out in the eight months since the #metoo hashtag went viral and it
really shows.
We all know Hubbard was a sociopath, but i did not know Asimov was a groper, and Heinlein reminds me of Charles Lindbergh a little bit, if Charles Lindbergh had been a literary genius. I had never heard of John Campbell (big racist apparently) or given any thought to early pulp sci-fi magazines, despite the fact that sci-fi is at least half of my pleasure reading, because early sci-fi looked to me like a sausage-fest.
It WAS. But the author is extremely frank about these "gentlemen's" terrible behavior and meticulous about crediting the contributions of the women in their lives and letting them be fully fleshed characters, empathizing with them where they are victimized and recognizing female pioneers in the magazine-- and that made the book readable for me.
Where i had resisted looking too much at the genre's development, i now understand the process that led us from John Carter to
Star Wars, which is where my own history starts.
I feel like that understanding is worth having.
I guess that's what i will say in my review. I just have to completely depersonalize it somehow!