The World Beyond the Hill: Science Fiction and the Quest for Transcendence (110 page)
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Authors: Alexei Panshin,Cory Panshin
This Book Would Not Have Been Possible Without
A
LL THE MEN AND WOMEN
who have written and read and loved SF: This story is yours, with thanks.
OUR PARENTS
—Alexis and Lucie Panshin, and Ralph and Delle Seidman: Thank you for your patience, your support and your love.
THE PIONEERS
of science fiction study, bibliography and criticism. In particular, Sam Moskowitz, Donald H. Tuck, Donald B. Day, and those associated with Advent:Publishers of Chicago: Thank you all. Without your work as a foundation, this book would have been inconceivable.
THE TEACHERS
from whom we learned context, method and perspective for our own approach to the study of science fiction; especially John W. Campbell, Joseph Campbell, ldries Shah and J.R.R. Tolkien: Our thanks can never be sufficient to the debt we owe them.
THE MANY, MANY PEOPLE,
beginning with Dean McLaughlin and culminating with Paul Crawford, who through the years recounted some anecdote, shared a letter or an unpublished manuscript, handed us a speech, sent us a crucial fan magazine article, or shared research: Thank you, everyone. As you can see, it has all contributed to the story.
THE LIBRARIES
we have consulted—The M.I.T. Science Fiction Society, Cornell University, and Syracuse University, with special gratitude to the Bucks County Free Library of Bucks County, Pennsylvania for all the books that it has located for us in libraries from Texas to Connecticut, and to the Rare Book Collection at Temple University, and its curator, Thomas Whitehead, for the access we have been afforded to research materials: Thank you.
THE WRITERS, EDITORS, AGENTS AND SCHOLARS
who read part or all of this book in manuscript and offered us encouragement, supplied information, caught mistakes and cast useful doubt: Thanks are due in particular to Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, L. Sprague de Camp, David Hartwell, Don Maass, Hank Stine, Leon Stover and Jack Williamson.
OUR FRIENDS
—in particular Frank Lunney, and Ted Wachtel and the Community Service Foundation—who at various times offered us work, money, food, typing paper, photocopying, moral support and other necessities: Thank you, and thank you again.
Thanks are due to
EACH OTHER,
since neither of us could have written this book alone. We are grateful that we were granted the opportunity:
thanks be.
References and Notes
CHAPTER 1: THE MYSTERY OF SCIENCE FICTION
1
“We really: Hugo Gernsback, “Editorially Speaking,” Amazing Stories, September 1926, p. 483.
2
These evocative words are related: Definitions and derivations used in this analysis from Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language, College Edition (Cleveland and New York: World, 1960).
3
“By ‘scientifiction’: Hugo Gernsback, “A New Sort of Magazine,” Amazing Stories, April 1926, p. 3.
4
“they had: Madame d’Aulnoy, “Princess Rosette,” in Andrew Lang, ed., The Red Fairy Book (New York: Dover, 1966), p. 89.
5
“I waked: Horace Walpole, quoted by W.S. Lewis, “Introduction,” in Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto (London: Oxford, 1964), p. ix.
6
“I gave: Ibid, p. x.
7
“an enormous: Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto, p. 17.
8
“A clap: Ibid, p. 108.
9
“which wants: Horace Walpole, quoted by Lewis, op. cit., p. x.
10
“The following: Horace Walpole, op. cit., p. 3.
11
“an artful: Ibid.
12
“The solution: Ibid, p. 4.
13
“It was: Ibid, p. 7.
14
The Castle of Otranto is given credit: entry under Walpole, The Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition (New York: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1911), Vol. 28, p. 289.
15
“within the: Clara Reeve, quoted in Lord Ernle, The Light Reading of Our Ancestors (London: Hutchinson, 1927), p. 290.
16
“Some volumes: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, “Introduction (to the 1831 edition),” in Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus (New York: Collier, n.d., but published 1961), p. 8.
17
“I busied: Ibid, p. 9.
18
“poor Polidori”: Ibid.
19
“Many and: Ibid, p. 10.
20
“When I: Ibid.
21
“Swift as: Ibid, p. 11.
22
“It was: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein, p. 48.
23
“I see: Ibid, p. 45.
24
“I had: Ibid, p. 40.
25
“ ‘The ancient: Ibid, pp. 40-41.
26
In a preface—written as Mary later recalled, by Percy: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, “Introduction (to the 1831 edition),” in Frankenstein, p. 11.
27
“The event: Percy Bysshe Shelley (?), “Preface,” in Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein, p. 5.
28
“the most: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein, p. 189.
29
“It was: Fitz-James O’Brien, “The Diamond Lens,” in H. Bruce Franklin, ed., Future Perfect: American Science Fiction of the Nineteenth Century, Rev. Ed. (New York: Oxford, 1978), p. 346.
30
“They say: Ibid, p. 351.
31
“density is: Edgar Allan Poe, “The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall,” in The Complete Edgar Allan Poe Tales (New York: Avenel Books, 1981), p. 26.
32
“In ‘Hans: Ibid, p. 55.
33
“ ‘a strange: Jules Verne, From the Earth to the Moon in Walter James Miller, ed., The Annotated Jules Verne: From the Earth to the Moon (New York: Crowell, 1978), p. 13.
34
“ ‘Hurray for: Ibid.
35
“the incomprehensible: Edgar Allan Poe, op. cit., p. 50.
36
“those dark: Ibid.
37
“manufactured entirely: Ibid, p. 22.
38
“tasteless, but: Ibid, p. 26.
39
“instantaneously fatal: Ibid.
40
“Many unusual: Edgar Allan Poe, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, in The Complete Edgar Allan Poe Tales, p. 700.
41
“And now: Ibid, p. 702.
42
“sudden and: Ibid, p. 703.
43
“From now: Jules Verne, quoted in Russell Freedman, Jules Verne: Portrait of a Prophet (New York?: Holiday House, 1965), p. 25.
44
“The only: Ibid, p. 52.
45
“Science-Fiction”: William Wilson, quoted from A Little Earnest Book Upon a Great Old Subject (1851), in Brian M. Stableford, “William Wilson’s Prospectus for Science Fiction: 1851,” in Foundation, No. 10, June 1976, p. 6.
46
“the revealed: Ibid, pp. 9-10.
47
“prophetic vision”: Hugo Gernsback, “A New Sort of Magazine,” Amazing Stories, April 1926, p. 3.
48
“the amazing: Hugo Gernsback, “Editorially Speaking,” Amazing Stories, September 1926, p. 483.
49
“lingering on: Jules Verne, quoted in Freedman, op. cit., p. 61.
50
“a pale: Ibid, p. 57.
51
“ ‘I have: Ibid.
52
“ ‘We shall: Ibid, p. 60.
53
“Formerly, to: Ibid, p. 100.
54
“discoveries are: Ibid, p. 104.
55
“I am: quoted in Peter Costello, Jules Verne: Inventor of Science Fiction (New York: Scribners, 1978), p. 72.
56
“The most: Jules Verne, “The Bizarre Genius of Edgar Poe,” in Peter Haining, ed., The Jules Verne Companion (New York: Baronet, 1979), p. 28.
57
“I try: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein (New York: Collier, n.d.), p. 13.
58
“whose dusky: Edgar Allan Poe, “The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall,” in The Complete Edgar Allan Poe Tales (New York: Avenel Books, 1981), p. 44.
59
“In recent: Jules Verne, quoted in Costello, op. cit., p. 82.
60
“Descend into: Jules Verne, Journey to the Centre of the Earth (New York: Penguin, 1965), p. 32.
61
“It was: Ibid, pp. 163-164.
62
“I gazed: Ibid, p. 165.
63
“prehistoric daydream”: Ibid, p. 179.
64
“The whole: Ibid.
65
“brief hallucination”: Ibid.
66
“That’s wonderful!”: Ibid, p. 170.
67
“No, it’s: Ibid.
68
“So that: Ibid, p. 218.
69
“who for: Ibid.
70
“Now that: Ibid, p. 219.
71
“Instead of: Jules Verne, Around the Moon in The Omnibus Jules Verne (Philadelphia and New York: Lippincott, n.d.), p. 768.
72
“Take the: Hugo Gernsback, “A New Sort of Magazine,” Amazing Stories, April 1926, p. 3.
73
“The Italians: Jules Verne, quoted in “Jules Verne Re-Visited” by Robert H. Sherard, in Haining, op. cit., p. 60.
74
“Take for: Jules Verne, quoted in Costello, op. cit., pp. 186-187.
75
“Before going: Jules Verne, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (New York: Bantam, 1962), p. 82.
76
“There was: Ibid, p. 86.
77
“ ‘Captain,’ I: Ibid, p. 84.
78
“It seemed: Ibid, p. 365.
79
“Navel of: Ibid, p. 369.
80
“Thus ended: Ibid, p. 370.
CHAPTER 5: THE HIGHER POWERS OF SCIENCE
81
“looking like: Edward S. Ellis, The Huge Hunter, or The Steam Man of the Prairies, in E.F. Bleiler, ed., Eight Dime Novels (New York: Dover, 1974), p. 108.
82
“ ‘the ould: Ibid.
83
“No wonder: Ibid.
84
“. . . their previous: Ibid, p. 115.
85
“It required: Ibid, p. 109.
86
“a mere: Jules Verne, quoted in Peter Costello, Jules Verne: Inventor of Science Fiction (New York: Scribners, 1978), p. 187.
87
It has been estimated that 75% were the work of one man: our information about Luis Philip Senarens is derived from Sam Moskowitz, “Ghost of Prophecies Past, or, Frank Reade, Jr., and ‘Forgotten Chapters in American History,’ ” in Moskowitz, Explorers of the Infinite (Cleveland and New York: World, 1963).
88
“The Case of Summerfield”: our information about this story and its author is derived from Sam Moskowitz, Science Fiction in Old San Francisco, Vol. I: History of the Movement (West Kingston, R.I.: Grant, 1980), pp. 43-45.
89
“held at: entry under Charles Cornwallis Chesney, The Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition (New York: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1911), Vol. 6, p. 93.
90
“Science fiction: Hugo Gernsback, “The Prophets of Doom” (unpublished address dated October 25, 1963), p. 1.
91
“But what: Sir Thomas More, The “Utopia” and the History of Edward V (London: Walter Scott, n.d.), pp. 81-82. Scyllas, Celenos, and Loestrygonians are all references to monsters found in The Odyssey and The Aeniad.
92
Memoirs of the Year 2440: our information about this story and contemporary reactions to it is derived from I.F. Clarke, The Pattern of Expectation (London: Cape, 1979), pp. 26-28.
93
“What Happened After the Battle of Dorking”: our information about this story is derived from an unpublished book-length manuscript by Brian M. Stableford on the literature of the scientific imagination.
94
“to exhibit: entry under Edward George Earle Lytton, Bulwer-Lytton, 1
st
Baron Lytton, The Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition (New York: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1911), Vol. 17, p. 186.
95
“So important: The Right Hon. Lord Lytton, The Coming Race (Quakertown, Pa.: Beverly Hall, 1973), p. 40.
96
“I should: Ibid, pp. 31-32.
97
“In another: Ibid, p. 84.
98
“on the Darwinian: Bulwer-Lytton, quoted in I.F. Clarke, op. cit., p. 143.
99
“And now: Lytton, op. cit., pp. 10-11
100
“God’s Will,” etc.: Emerson M. Clymer, “Foreword,” in Lytton, op. cit., p. v.
101
like the Sacred Locomotive: the work referred to is William R. Bradshaw, The Goddess of Atvatabar (1892).
CHAPTER 6: A UNIVERSE GROWN ALIEN
102
“No one: H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, in H.G. Wells, Seven Famous Novels (New York: Knopf, 1934), p. 265.
103
“beyond all: H.G. Wells, Experiment in Autobiography (New York: Macmillan, 1934), p. 161.
104
“an artificial: Edward Page Mitchell, “The Ablest Man in the World,” in Edward Page Mitchell, The Crystal Man: Landmark Science Fiction, ed. by Sam Moskowitz (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1973), pp. 37-38.
105
“Social progress: Thomas Huxley, “Evolution and Ethics,” abridged, in Eugen Weber, ed., The Western Tradition: From the Enlightenment to the Atomic Age (Boston: Heath, 1959), p. 646.
106
“Let us: Ibid, p. 647.
107
“luminiferous ether”: The concept of the ether was the product of Newton’s contemporary, Christiaan Huygens (1629-95).
108
“The movement: Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward (New York: Magnum/Lancer, 1968), p. 60.
109
“ ‘. . . To speak: Ibid, p. 68.
110
“a Cockney: William Morris, quoted in I.F. Clarke, The Pattern of Expectation (London: Cape, 1979), p. 166.
111
“Somehow, every: Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (New York: Bantam, 1981), p. 240.
112
“I started: H. Rider Haggard, She, in Works of H. Rider Haggard (New York: Black, 1928), p. 256.
113
“Science is: H.G. Wells, “The Rediscovery of the Unique,” quoted in Norman and Jeanne MacKenzie, H.G. Wells (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973), p. 56.
114
“The Education: H.G. Wells, Experiment in Autobiography, p. 426.
115
“New books: Ibid, p. 427.
116
“I was: Ibid, p. 428.
117
“There grows: H.G. Wells, “The Man of the Year Million,” in Peter Haining, ed., The H.G. Wells Scrapbook (New York: Potter, 1978), p. 30.
118
“We think: H.G. Wells, “The Extinction of Man,” quoted in James Gunn, Alternate Worlds: The Illustrated History of Science Fiction (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1975), p. 92.
119
“I touched: Lewis Hind, Authors and I, quoted in MacKenzie, op. cit., p. 105.
120
“The Time: H.G. Wells, The Time Machine, in Wells, Seven Famous Novels, p. 3.
121
“ ‘There are: Ibid, p. 4.
122
“a glittering: Ibid, p. 6.
123
“Parts were: Ibid, p. 9.
124
“I do: Jules Verne, quoted in “Jules Verne Re-Visited” by Robert H. Sherard, in Peter Haining, ed., The Jules Verne Companion (New York: Baronet, 1979), pp. 59-60.
125
“There is: Jules Verne, quoted in Peter Costello, Jules Verne: Inventor of Science Fiction (New York: Scribners, 1978), p. 186.
126
“I have: Ibid, pp. 186-187.
127
“great and: H.G. Wells, The Time Machine, p. 15.
128
“a profoundly: Ibid, p. 19.
129
“What might: Ibid, p. 16.
130
“The air: Ibid, p. 23.
131
“Face this: Ibid, p. 29.
132
“Gradually, the: Ibid, p. 34.
133
“So, in: Ibid, p. 36.
134
“frail creatures: Ibid, p. 45.
135
“the white: Ibid.
136
“Did he: Ibid, p. 66.
137
“a beautiful: Edward Page Mitchell, “The Balloon Tree,” in Mitchell, The Crystal Man, p. 21.
138
“Migratory Tree”: Ibid, p. 18.
139
“that men: J.-H. Rosny aîné, “The Shapes” (“Les Xipéhuz”), in Damon Knight, ed., One Hundred Years of Science Fiction (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968), p. 103.
140
“Those who: H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, in Wells, Seven Famous Novels, p. 276.
141
“octopuses”: Ibid, p. 288.
142
“huge, round: Ibid, p. 348.
143
“hands”: Ibid.
144
“eliminated them: Ibid, p. 351.
145
“slain by: Ibid, p. 380.
146
“Dim and: Ibid, p. 387.
CHAPTER 7: THE RELATIVITY OF MAN
147
“opaque to: H.G. Wells, The First Men in the Moon, in H.G. Wells, Seven Famous Novels (New York: Knopf, 1934), p. 399.
148
“It’s this: Ibid, p. 447.
