Friday, December 25, 2020

Ray Bradbury's Christmas Gift

 Re-posting this blog post from 2013 has become a Christmas tradition here at Bradburymedia!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -



Seasons greetings, everyone!

I've noted previously that Ray Bradbury wrote very few Christmas-themed stories, but one of his best-known is "The Gift". It was first published in Esquire magazine in 1952. The artwork above (click to embiggen) is by Ren Wickes, and in the child's face beautifully captures the good old "sense of wonder" people used to talk about in science fiction stories.

To find out why the child is so astonished, read "The Gift" here.

Thursday, December 24, 2020

RIP James E. Gunn (1923-2020)

The great science fiction writer, historian, editor and educator James E. Gunn has passed away at the grand age of 97. Jim was still an active professional author, with his Transcendental trilogy being published in the 2010s, and his latest short fiction appearing in Asimov's magazine just this year.

Jim was one of the few surviving writers from the original heyday of science fiction: he had two short stories published in pulp magazines in the 1940s (one in Startling Stories and one in Thrilling Wonder Stories). He was just three years younger than Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov.

Back in the 1980s, when I was heavily into science fiction literature, Jim's novel The Listeners was one of my favourite books. Not only did it have a great science-fictional premise - scientists listening out for signals from other star systems - it was clearly informed by what was going on in the real field of SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. It was a lot less flashy than Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but a lot more convincing.

But where James E. Gunn had the greatest effect on me was with his historical study of origins and development of science fiction. His terrific anthology series The Road to Science Fiction not only told the story of SF, it set out to demonstrate it through judicious selections of text from early, proto-SF through to modern day works.

Seven years ago, I was delighted to meet James Gunn at a conference, and I blogged about it afterwards. I can think of no better tribute than to re-run that blog post. So here it is, from 26 August 2013.

 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

 

(Pictured at the James Gunn panel are (from left to right) Nathaniel Williams, Michael Page, James Gunn, Chris McKitterick.)   

 

One of the delights of this year's Eaton Conference in Riverside, California, was the opportunity to meet the incredible James Gunn.

What's so incredible about James Gunn? For starters, he's ninety years old this year, but could easily pass for twenty years younger. More importantly, though, he is what one conference speaker called "a triple threat": not only a successful author of science fiction, but a successful teacher of SF and creative writing, and a successful critic and historian of SF.

While other significant genre figures were associated with the Eaton Conference because they were to receive awards - Ray Harryhausen, Stan Lee and Ursula Le Guin all received Eaton Awards this year - Gunn was present because there was going to be a panel discussing the three strands of his career. The panel was part academic study, part reminiscence from those who have worked with Jim , and all celebration of his life and work. (The panel organisers told me they were inspired to do this by the Ray Bradbury tribute events I organised for last year's SFRA conference in Detroit.)

Apart from my ongoing interest in Bradbury and Harlan Ellison, who in any case I see as master fantasists rather than science fiction writers, I have been quite distant from the science fiction field for a number of years. But there was a time when I was fascinated by the genre, and particularly by its history as a literary genre that seemed to emerge alongside the industrial revolution. Around 1980, when I was a student (for the first time; I still am a student!) I discovered Gunn's book The Road to Science Fiction: From Gilgamesh to Wells. This was a remarkable book, which suddenly gave me that historical insight, where previously I just had a fractional and fractured knowledge of what SF was. Gunn wrote a clear history, in plain English and short chapters, and then gave the reader substantial excerpts from key texts to illustrate the points he was making about the emergence of the genre. It was, and remained, and excellent way of learning about how and why the genre came into existence. I would later learn that there are other interpretations of the emergence of the genre, but that doesn't matter.

Shortly after, I discovered there was a second volume to The Road to Science Fiction, subtitled From Wells to Heinlein; and a third, From Heinlein to Here. (And a fourth, and some time later there were yet more.) For anyone looking for a history of the genre, I still recommend this series, and they have remained in print.

One additional stroke of genius in the first volumes of the series was Gunn's inclusion of lists of recommended SF works and SF writers for further reading. I worked through these lists systematically over the next couple of years, a far more difficult task in those pre-internet days than it would be today.

I don't recall whether Gunn included any of his own works in the suggested reading category, but for some reason I was prompted to also sample his fiction. The Listeners appealed to me from its plot description as an account of scientists engaged in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, and when I read it I was blown away by both the ease and artistry of the book, particularly its first chapter. Later I would track down as many other Gunn books as I could, and have fond memories of The Joy Makers, The Immortal, Crisis, and This Fortess World (which I was fortunate to find in a hardcover first edition from 1955).

At the Eaton Conference, Gunn explained that his career wasn't planned, but he just took opportunities as they arose. His response to each offer that came his way was, "Why not?" Thus it was that he came to be working at Kansas University by the mid-1960s, and later set up the first academic courses in SF, and the first research centre for SF (take a look at About SF for the present incarnation of what he developed at KU).

I took the opportunity of asking Jim Gunn how he came to collaborate with the legendary Jack Williamson, on the 1954 novel Starbridge. Jim explained that he attended a convention and, somewhat starstruck, recognised Williamson from a photograph on the back of a book. He pointed at Williamson and blurted, "You're Jack Williamson!" Later, he learned that Williamson was suffering a bout of writer's block, and Williamson turned over a partially complete version of Starbridge, which Gunn then completed. It was published by Gnome Press, and became Gunn's first published novel.

I couldn't resist mentioning to Jim that I had recognised him in the lift (elevator!) the day before - and that part of me had wanted to blurt, "You're James Gunn!", but I was too starstruck to say anything.

As it turns out, Jim Gunn is a charming, modest fellow, and it was exciting to meet him. It prompted me to take a look again at his books - and I still find The Listeners to be a remarkable work. Although it is fantastical, it has one of the best portrayals of scientists and scientific discovery I've ever seen in a work of fiction. Speakers on the Gunn panel also commended this as one of his best works - and both they and the audience members echoed my experience regarding The Road to Science Fiction. It seems James Gunn has been the gateway to SF not just to me, but to a couple of generations of SF fans and scholars. Jim talks about his own involvement with the genre in this recent interview in the Kansas City Star.

And now, in his 90th year, James Gunn has produced a new novel, Transcendental, and he's a Guest of Honour at the World Science Fiction Convention in San Antonio, Texas. Is this what they call a third act?


 

Monday, December 14, 2020

SF Does Christmas, Lacks Character

Ray Bradbury is associated more with autumn and Halloween than he is with Christmas, but he did write a couple of stories with a Christmas theme. Well, sort of...

 


 

"The Man", first published in Thrilling Wonder Stories in February 1949 (and later collected in The Illustrated Man, S is for Space and Bradbury Stories) tells of a space crew which arrives on an alien planet expecting to be celebrated or greeted. But the local inhabitants have no interest in them. They've arrived with very poor timing, as the aliens are in awe of some much more interesting guy who arrived yesterday. Not just any guy, but "a remarkable man, [...] good, intelligent, compassionate, and infinitely wise!"

A man for whom they had waited a very long time...

Once convinced of the special capabilities of "The Man" (healing is involved...), the captain vows to follow him from planet to planet, hoping to one day catch up with him. The story never actually says who "The Man" is, but you're clearly supposed to see him as Jesus (or some deity of your choosing).

Curiously, a couple of years later in another pulp magazine, a lesser writer tackled the same idea. But in a most literal and obvious way. Charles E. Fritch wrote "Night Talk", published in Startling Stories in September 1952. In this story, a rocket ship makes a bumpy landing on Mars, and the pilot makes his way to the nearest hotel - like you do - and tries to get a room for the night. The hotelier tells of how he once made a mistake in turning away a couple from Earth, telling them there was no room at this particular inn.

 


 

Fritch's story is quite forgettable, but thankfully brief. If you're interested it, you can find it at the Internet Archive, here. Amusingly, SF writer and critic James Blish at first believed this to be a Bradbury story published under a pseudonym. Mars? Check. Primitive but metaphorical description of a rocketship? Check. Earth destroyed so everyone's trying to get to Mars? Check. Re-use of the idea of a messiah travelling from planet to planet? Check. All the clues were there. But Blish was wrong.

Blish can be forgiven. Fritch had begun publishing only in 1951, and his Bradbury-influenced Mars story could easily have been a lesser Bradbury; and Bradbury had published under pseudonyms. However, Fritch turned out to have a long, if not particularly illustrious career, publishing his last works in the 1990s. Blish's error - and correction of the error - can be found in his collection of SF reviews, The Issue at Hand (1964, under Blish's critic pseudonym William Atheling Jr.)

Blish's reason for discussing the two stories - the Bradbury and the Fritch - is to make a point about the importance of characters in good fiction. Fritch's central character, just called "the traveller", has no distinguishing characteristics. Bradbury's central character, Captain Hart, is just your average 1940s pulp magazine space hero. Blish suggests that both Fritch and Bradbury could have learned a thing or two from Anatole France's story "The Procurator of Judea", which brings to life one Aelius Lamia and a certain Pontius Pilate. France's story has no plot connection to "The Man" or "Night Talk", but like both of those stories it places the Christian Jesus into the background of a story for the purposes of irony or awe, depending on your religious persuasions.

You can read "The Procurator of Judea" here.