The Mammoth Book of Golden Age SF (2 page)

In those days, the greatest name among the science fiction writers was E.E. Smith, Ph.D., who had climbed to fame with his “The Skylark of Space”, a three-part serial that appeared in the August, September, and October 1928 issues of
Amazing
. “The Skylark of Space” featured interstellar travel and dealt with megaforces and megadistances. It was an example of what came to be called “super-science stories” and Smith made it his specialty. Naturally, others followed the trend, and Campbell did so from the start. He quickly became second only to Smith in the super-science field.

There was a difference, though Smith could not change. He remained super-science to the end. Campbell could change and did. He wanted to write science fiction less in scale and more in introspection, less with ravening forces and more with puzzling mind.

He even changed his name for the purpose, writing a series of stories as Don A. Stuart. (His first wife’s maiden name was Dona Stuart.) The first Stuart story was “Twilight” which appeared in the November 1934,
Astounding Stories
, a sad, haunting tale of the end of humanity. It proved an enormous hit, and instantly began the change of making science fiction smaller in scope and deeper in thought.

He wrote Stuart stories predominantly, thereafter, until he published his towering masterpiece “Who Goes There?” which appeared in the August 1938,
Astounding
, and which was reprinted in the first book of this series.

By October 1937, however, he had been appointed to an editorial position at
Astounding
and, within a few months, he was in full charge. His first significant action was to change the name of the magazine, a change which reflected his thinking. He wanted to get rid of words like “amazing”, “astounding”, and “wonder”, which stressed the shock-value and superficiality of science fiction. He wanted to call the magazine simply
Science Fiction
, thus merely defining its scope but allowing him to fiddle with the details at will.

Unfortunately, he was too late. Columbia Publications had already registered that name, and a magazine so-named (not at all successful) eventually appeared in the spring of 1939. Campbell was therefore forced to make only a partial change. With its March 1938 issue
Astounding Stories
became
Astounding Science Fiction
.

As editor, Campbell was a phenomenon even greater than he had been as a writer. He held open house and anyone who might conceivably help him achieve his aims was welcome. When, on June 21, 1938, a frightened eighteen-year-old, named Isaac Asimov, appeared with his first story at Street & Smith Publications, Inc. (which published
Astounding
), he was invited into Campbell’s office, and Campbell spoke to him for an hour and a half.

I say “spoke to him” not “spoke with him”, for Campbell’s idea of a conversation was to launch into a long monolog. Oddly enough, though, he was no bore. He was an inexhaustible fount of odd and exciting viewpoints, novel thoughts, and endless story ideas.

He had an unfailing eye for potential. He rejected my first story at once. He had said he would read it right off and had kept his word (very unusual in an editor) so that it was mailed back to me the very next day. However, he saw something in it, or in me, or both (Heaven only knows what it could have been at that stage) and encouraged me to continue writing. I could see him whenever I came in and he was unfailingly courteous and encouraging, even as he continued to reject my stories, until I had learned enough about writing (from actual experience at it and from listening to him) to begin selling.

I was not the only one. He talked to dozens of writers and slowly taught them that science fiction was not about adventure primarily, but about science. It was not about rescuing damsels in distress, but it was about solving problems. It was not about mad scientists, but about hard working thinkers. It was not by writers who had a facile hand with a cliché, but it was by writers who understood science and engineering and how those things worked and by whom they were conducted. In short, he found magazine science fiction childish, and he made it adult.

The wonder is that he was successful in doing so. It is hard not to view the world with cynical eyes and, to the cynic, improving the quality of an object and reducing its sensationalism, is the quickest road to bankruptcy one can imagine. Somehow, Campbell managed. As
Astounding
improved in quality, it also improved in general acceptance and in profitability.

The true test came in 1948. Pulp fiction had been fighting a losing battle during the 1940s. World War II had created a paper shortage and a combination of the draft and of war-work had reduced the number of writers. (Campbell’s other magazines, the wonderful
Unknown
, succumbed to this.) In addition, comic magazines had come into being, had proliferated unimaginably, and had begun to draw off younger readers delaying and, sometimes, totally aborting their eventual reading of pulp fiction.

In 1948, Street & Smith, which had been the most prominent and successful of all the pulp fiction publishers gave up and put an end to all their pulp magazines – all but one.
Astounding Science Fiction
, and only
Astounding Science Fiction
, continued. It was John Campbell who had made that possible. Had he not been there for ten years, improving
Astounding
and making it the phenomenon it was, the magazine might have ceased publication at that time and magazine science fiction might have been dead.

Who were the authors with whom Campbell worked? Some had already published stories in the pre-Campbell era, and Campbell could work with them, either because they were already thinking along Campbellesque lines or because they could do so once they were shown what it was that Campbell wanted. Outstanding among these were Jack Williamson, Clifford D. Simak and L. Sprague de Camp.

For the most part, though, Campbell found new writers. The July 1939, issue was the first issue that was truly marked by Campbell’s thinking and Campbell’s new authors, and it is usually considered as the first issue of “the Golden Age of science fiction”.

As its lead novelette, the issue had “Black Destroyer”, the first science fiction story written by A.E. van Vogt. It also contained “Trends” by Isaac Asimov, “Greater Than Gods” by C.L. Moore, and “The Moth” by Ross Rocklynne. All four of these authors have novellas in this collection. Van Vogt and Asimov are perfect examples of what are still referred to as “Campbell authors”. Moore and Rocklynne had published before, but Rocklynne became a Campbell author too.

In the very next issue, August 1939, there was a first story, “Life-Line”, by a new Campbell author named Robert A. Heinlein. He and van Vogt were the mainstays of
Astounding
for several years and were the science fiction “superstars” of the time. Indeed, Heinlein remained a superstar and the pre-eminent science fiction writer until his death a half-century later in 1988. We would certainly have included any of several Heinlein novellas in this book were it not for difficulties over permissions.

Another particularly great Campbell author who does not appear in this collection is Arthur C. Clarke, whose first science fiction story was “Loophole” which appeared in the April 1946,
Astounding
. Unfortunately, his 1940s output was almost entirely in the short story length.

In the September 1939, issue came “Ether Breather”, the first science fiction story of a new Campbell author named Theodore Sturgeon.

Among the earliest of the Campbell authors was Lester del Rey, whose first story, “The Faithful” appeared in the April 1938
Astounding
. T.L. Sherred and A. Bertram Chandler were Campbell authors who first appeared later in the 1940s.

It is a true measure of the dominance of Campbell in the 1940s, that, of the ten stories in this collection, eight are from
Astounding
. The other two, by van Vogt (who is certainly a Campbell author just the same) and Fredric Brown, are from
Thrilling Wonder Stories
.

It is only fair to remember that not all great science fiction writers could write for Campbell. Some simply did not have, or did not want, the Campbell touch, and went their own way. Fredric Brown was one of these. Another – and perhaps the greatest of all science fiction writers who couldn’t or wouldn’t be a Campbell author – was Ray Bradbury.

In this collections of stories you will find yourself once again in the Golden Age of science fiction and the great days of John W. Campbell, Jr.

A
steroid No. 1007 came spinning relentlessly up.

Lieutenant Tony Crow’s eyes bulged. He released the choked U-bar frantically, and pounded on the auxiliary underjet controls. Up went the nose of the ship, and stars, weirdly splashed across the heavens, showed briefly.

Then the ship fell, hurling itself against the base of the mountain. Tony was thrown from the control chair. He smacked against the wall, grinning twistedly. He pushed against it with a heavily shod foot as the ship teetered over, rolled a bit, and then was still – still, save for the hiss of escaping air.

He dived for a locker, broke out a pressure suit, perspiration pearling his forehead. He was into the suit, buckling the helmet down, before the last of the air escaped. He stood there, pained dismay in his eyes. His roving glance rested on the wall calendar.

“Happy December!” he snarled.

Then he remembered. Johnny Braker was out there, with his two fellow outlaws. By now, they’d be running this way. All the more reason why Tony should capture them now. He’d need their ship.

He acted quickly, buckling on his helmet, working over the air lock. He expelled his breath in relief as it opened. Nerves humming, he went through, came to his feet, enclosed by the bleak soundlessness of a twenty-mile planetoid more than a hundred million miles removed from Earth.

To his left the mountain rose sharply. Good. Tony had wanted to put the ship down there anyway. He took one reluctant look at the ship. His face fell mournfully. The stern section was caved in and twisted so much it looked ridiculous. Well, that was
that
.

He quickly drew his Hampton and moved soundlessly around the mountain’s shoulder. He fell into a crouch as he saw the gleam of the outlaw ship, three hundred yards distant across a plain, hovering in the shadow thrown by an over-hanging ledge.

Then he saw the three figures leaping towards him across the plain. His Hampton came viciously up. There was a puff of rock to the front left of the little group. They froze.

Tony left his place of concealment, snapping his headset on.

“Stay where you are!” he bawled.

The reaction was unexpected. Braker’s voice came blasting back.

“The hell you say!”

A tiny crater came miraculously into being to Tony’s left. He swore, jumped behind his protection, came out a second later to send another projectile winging its way. One of the figures pitched forward, to move no more, the balloon rotundity of its suit suddenly lost. The other two turned tail, only to halt and hole up behind a boulder gracing the middle of the plain. They proceeded to pepper Tony’s retreat.

Tony shrank back against the mountainside, exasperated beyond measure. His glance, roving around, came to rest on a cave, a fault in the mountain that tapered out a hundred feet up.

He stared at the floor of the cave unbelievingly.

“I’ll be double-damned,” he muttered.

What he saw was a human skeleton.

He paled. His stomach suddenly heaved. Outrageous, haunting thoughts flicked through his consciousness. The skeleton was – horror!

And it had existed in the dim, unutterably distant past, before the asteroids, before the human race had come into existence!

The thoughts were gone, abruptly. Consciousness shuddered back. For a while, his face pasty white, his fingers trembling, he thought he was going to be sick. But he wasn’t. He stood there, staring. Memories! If he knew where they came from—His very mind revolted suddenly from probing deeper into a mystery that tore at the very roots of his sanity!

“It existed before the human race,” he whispered. “Then where did the skeleton come from?”

His lips curled. Illusion! Conquering his maddening revulsion, he approached the skeleton, knelt near it. It lay inside the cave. Colorless starlight did not allow him to see it as well as he might. Yet, he saw the gleam of gold on the long, tapering finger. Old yellow gold, untarnished by atmosphere; and inset with an emerald, with a flaw, a distinctive, ovular air bubble, showing through its murky transparency.

He moved backward, away from it, face set stubbornly. “Illusion,” he repeated

Chips of rock, flaked off the mountainside by the exploding bullets of a Hampton, completed the transformation. He risked stepping out, fired.

The shot struck the boulder, split it down the middle. The two halves parted. The outlaws ran, firing back to cover their hasty retreat. Tony waited until the fire lessened, then stepped out and sent a shot over their heads.

Sudden dismay showed in his eyes. The ledge overhanging the outlaw ship cracked – where the bullet had struck it.

“What the hell—” came Braker’s gasp. The two outlaws stopped stock-still.