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The death last fall at the age of ninety-two of the great science-fiction
writer L. Sprague de Camp removes from the scene the last of the
key figures around whom John W. Campbell, Jr., editor of Astounding Science Fiction, created a phenomenal renaissance in the science-fiction world–a
renaissance that has been known for the past fifty years as the
era of the Golden Age.
Strictly speaking, several of the contributors to the Golden Age
Astounding are still with us–Nelson S. Bond (ninety-two last November),
Jack Williamson (ninety-three this April), and "Hal Clement" (Harry
C. Stubbs), a mere lad of seventy-nine, come immediately to mind.
But neither Bond nor Stubbs was really a major player in that
astonishing 1938?1943 period when one editor and one magazine
and one small group of newly arrived writers established the foundations
of modern science fiction, and Williamson does not count as a
Golden Age discovery, since he was already one of science-fiction’s
most famous writers long before John Campbell took over the editorial
chair at Astounding. De Camp, though, was a central figure in the group of talented
newcomers out of whom Campbell forged his Golden Age.
The December 1937 issue of the magazine then called Astounding Stories, and now known as Analog Science Fiction and Fact, was Campbell’s first. Campbell, who had been a great science
fiction writer himself (his most famous story is "Who Goes There?")
needed some time to work off the inventory of the previous editor,
F. Orlin Tremaine, under whose auspices the magazine had specialized
in bold and often wildly fantastic tales of the far future, usually
crudely written. Campbell’s taste was a more sober one: what he
wanted were smoothly told stories of the relatively near future,
with realistically drawn characters and careful attention to scientific
plausibility, and he let it be known he would welcome submissions
from any writer, known or unknown, who could meet the standard
he hoped to set. By way of signaling the change in administration,
with his fourth issue he changed the name of the magazine to Astounding Science Fiction. And a month later he offered stories by two of his new young
writers: Lester del Rey and L. Sprague de Camp.
For Del Rey, who would go on to a long and distinguished career
as writer and editor, "The Faithful" was his first published story,
and an instant reader favorite. De Camp had made his debut under
editor Tre-maine, in the September, 1937 issue, but had no further
luck with his fiction until Campbell bought "Hyperpilosity" for
the April, 1938 issue, the first of a multitude of de Camp stories
that Astounding would publish. Though that one made little impact, he was back
in October with "The Command," the story of a bear with a high
IQ and a liking for chemistry, that touched off popular demand
for a string of sequels, and his career as a science-fiction writer
was launched.
Meanwhile Campbell was putting together the team of writers that
would be the stars of his Golden Age. Jack Williamson, an Astounding favorite for many years, returned with the May 1938 issue and
the novel The Legion of Time. Clifford D. Simak, who had written a few minor stories in the
early 1930s, now began to hit his stride with stories in July,
October, and November. L. Ron Hubbard arrived with a short story
in August and a three-part serial in September, October, and November.
Another future star, Henry Kuttner, made his debut in August.
But the real fireworks were still to come. July 1939 brought two
literary debuts: that of A.E. van Vogt, whose "Black Destroyer"
instantly attained classic status, and of Isaac Asimov, who caused
less of a stir with "Trends." A month later, the new name was
that of Robert A. Heinlein, with "Life-Line." Nelson S. Bond had
a story in the same issue. The September issue added Theodore
Sturgeon to Campbell’s roster with "Ether Breather." Leigh Brackett,
Ross Rocklynne, Malcolm Jameson, Eric Frank Russell, Alfred Bester,
Fritz Leiber, and a host of others brought their talents to the
magazine as well. By 1944 the war had drained off many of Campbell’s
top writers, and Astounding would never quite regain the supremacy it had had in the previous
five years, but in those five years it had published most of the
science fiction that would dominate the attention of readers when
it reappeared in anthologies and books for the next two decades.
The Science Fiction Writers of America, which has recognized the
contributions of many great SF writers with its Grand Master award,
has given the overwhelming preponderance of those awards to Campbell’s
Golden Age writers, beginning with Robert A. Heinlein in 1976
and going on to Jack William-son, Clifford D. Simak, Fritz Leiber,
Isaac Asimov, Alfred Bester, Lester del Rey, "Hal Clement," and
A.E. van Vogt. Sprague de Camp was the fourth winner of the trophy,
in 1978.
Though a host of great work was done during the amazing Golden
Age period, the main players were Heinlein, Asimov, van Vogt,
and de Camp. Heinlein stood out above everybody with his dazzling
"Future History" stories. Van Vogt astonished and bewildered readers
with stories like "The Weapon Shops" and "Recruiting Station."
Asimov established himself as a major writer with "Nightfall"
and followed it with the first "Foundation" stories. And through
it all, Sprague de Camp won a large and enthusiastic readership
with a multitude of stories marked by high erudition and a wry
comic sense, stories so characteristically de Campian that one
could identify his hand after reading only a paragraph or two.
One could easily identify Sprague himself, too, across a crowded
room. He was a formidable figure, strikingly handsome, with flashing
eyes, imposing eyebrows, a distinguished close-clipped goatee.
He stood a little over six feet tall but seemed much bigger because
of his erect military bearing and his stentorian voice. I met
him somewhere around 1957 and, though I can’t say we were really
close friends–I had difficulties surmounting Sprague’s highly
formal manner and the difference of nearly a generation in our
ages–we had many interests in common (archaeology and history,
world travel, science fiction), and over four decades of correspondence
and encounters at conventions we maintained an amiable relationship,
as colleagues, that verged now and then on actual friendship.
I particularly remember his kindly show of interest in me, a twenty-two-year-old
newcomer, when we were both attending a small midwestern convention,
and the genuinely warm weekend my wife Karen and I spent with
him and his lovely wife Catherine at a convention held in Calgary
more than thirty years later. (Theirs was a marriage that would
last six decades, from 1939 until her death in April 2000, only
seven months before his. Both lived on into their nineties.)
I would not want you to think, because I have identified him as
a member of a group of writers who did their great work in a long-ago
Golden Age, that L. Sprague de Camp is a figure of purely historical
interest. He wrote more than a hundred books, both science fiction
and fantasy, and many of them have as much to offer modern readers
as the best work of Asimov, Heinlein, and Bester. Much of his
best work is out of print today–much of everybody’s best work is out of print today, alas–but some choice titles
are still available, and reissues of others are in the pipeline.
De Camp’s specialty, as I said, was whimsical erudition. He was
a considerable scholar–among his significant non-fiction books
were titles like The Ancient Engineers, Ancient Ruins and Archaeology, and Lost Continents: The Atlantis Theme in History, Science, and Literature–and he made splendid use of that scholarship in his fiction.
I think my favorite among his books is Lest Darkness Fall, which Campbell first published in 1939 in Unknown, the short-lived fantasy companion to Astounding. It’s the story, lighthearted and gripping at the same time, of
a twentieth-century archaeologist transported by a bolt of lightning
to the sixth century, where he strives to stave off the Dark Ages
by introducing modern technology, somewhat in the manner of Mark
Twain’s Connecticut Yankee. Another notable de Camp story is "The
Wheels of If" (Astounding, 1940), a rollicking alternate-universe story that transports
another twentieth-century man into a mysteriously transmogrified
twentieth century in which, he eventually discovers, the New World
is controlled by the descendants of the Viking explorers of a
thousand years earlier.
Then, too, there are the famous Harold Shea fantasies that de
Camp wrote in collaboration with Fletcher Pratt: The Incomplete Enchanter and its various sequels. Here again de Camp sends a modern man
off into worlds of fantasy, this time worlds of epic poetry (the
Norse sagas, Spenser’s "Faerie Queen," etc.) And his fine historical
novels–The Dragon of the Ishtar Gate, An Elephant for Aristotle, and three others–and his biographies of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert
E. Howard, and his editions of Howard’s "Conan" books, which introduced
Conan to the postwar generation of readers, and ever so much more–
He lived a long and astonishingly full life, went everywhere and
saw everything, and set it all down on paper over half a century
for several generations of delighted readers. He was an extraordinary
writer, a pillar of our field, and a remarkable man as well. You
can find out more about him at the web site maintained in his
honor–www.lspraguedecamp. com–or you could hunt up his enormous Hugo-winning autobiographical
volume Time and Chance, published by Donald M. Grant in 1996, which sets forth his colorful
life and far-flung travels in four hundred huge pages.
As for John W. Campbell and his impact on the science fiction
world, more about that next month. |
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