A Science Fiction Life

I have lived a science fictional life.

By this I don’t mean I’ve surrounded myself with futuristic gadgets or wear a tin foil hat to ward off space aliens (never works anyway).

What I mean is that my choice of reading material has been almost exclusively science fiction since I was about ten. The first science fiction novel I can remember clearly was Rocket Jockey by Lester Del Rey. I seem to recall choosing it as much because of the word ‘jockey’ in the title as ‘rocket.’ This was probably because I had just finished reading Walter Farley’s Black Stallion series. I devoured everything by Del Rey that I could get my hands on then moved on to the other science fiction writers I found next to him in the local library. From that day until now I have very seldom strayed from the genre.

My alphabet soon consisted of Asimov, Bova, Clarke and others up to and including Zelazny. I went through them all, renewing old friendships over the years and discovering new ones. I soon outgrew the public library and began my own. Then I found Analog. Here was a monthly publication dedicated to science and science fiction. I was in heaven. I bought my first issue in the summer of 1968 and have tried very hard not to miss any since. A few years back I started attending the local science fiction convention (ConVersion) and discovered the dealer’s room.

If you’ve never been to a con, the dealer’s room is where booksellers, artists and others put theirs wares on display: everything from books to jewelry and even chain mail for teddy bears. It is by far and away my favourite part of any con. Once a year I get to go crazy, spend a whack of money and buy all kinds of neat stuff. I started picking up old issues of Astounding, the predecessor to Analog.

Working my way back from where I had started buying them in 1968, I filled in the gaps on my list each year and the collection grew. I now have most of the 50’s and 60’s, a smattering of 1930’s and ‘40’s along with all of the seventies, most of the eighties and everything from 1990 until now. Every year I go armed with my list and find a few more. Problem is, the magazine began publication in 1930 so there are a lot to collect and of course the older they are the harder they are to find and the more they cost. They are in many ways a history of the genre for writers write what sells and for almost eighty years the goal of a lot of the very best science fiction writers out there has been to get published in Astounding/Analog magazine.

Thus the editorial staff of this magazine (along with others) have shaped the genre. For many years this was John W. Campbell Jr. He decided what was and what was not science fiction, a term he himsel coined, feeling the term 'scientifiction' put forward by Hugo Gernsback (then editor of Amazing Stories) was too cumbersome. So science fiction it became and John Campbell became the father of this new fictional genre. From the thirties right into the sixties he directed and shaped science fiction by deciding what did and what did not meet his publication needs. Writers may be free to write what they want but editors determine what gets published.