introducing readers to writers since 1995
July 12, 2004
Science Fiction: An Unreliable Barometer?
by Ron HoganGothamist features an interview with Brian Bienowski, associate editor of Asimov's Science Fiction:
I think SF functions like a muse for would-be scientists. Isaac Asimov wrote about robots, some brainy kid loved the stories and went into robotics. It really seems to be just that simple, sometimes. The science and the fiction influence each other in turn; its a two-way street. SF gets credit for presaging scientific advancements, and it certainly has, but I think its more from the shotgun approach to futurism. Look at classic SF that featured robots, Scientology, cold-fusion powered cities, and hyper-drives. Three of those four concepts are currently bullshit (though the last two are, at the time of writing, unlikely possibilities). If that SF-gypsy fortune-teller told me I was going to get hit by a milk truck tomorrow, Id take my chances on the street.
Now, maybe I'm not just as well read on the Golden Age stuff as I once thought I was, but what "classic SF" actually featured Scientology? Hubbard's fanciful Dianetics ideas did appear in Astounding as nonfiction, and apparently A.E. van Vogt once ran a Dianetics center, but did any writers take Hubbard seriously enough to incorporate his ideas, or his later religion, into their sci-fi universes? To the best of my admittedly incomplete knowledge, no.
I passed this note on to Dave Langford, multiple Hugo Award winner and major contributor to the Science Fiction Encyclopedia, who replied with:
"I have a vague notion that in the 1950s John W. Campbell encouraged his authors to refer to dianetic auditing sessions rather than visits to the psychiatrist (since according to JWC the latter would become, or were already, quaintly obsolete). And I think I remember one story with such a passing mention, perhaps by van Vogt. It seems probable that others in the Campbell stable -- Randall Garrett? Raymond F. Jones? -- might have taken the hint to placate their editor. But, like you, I doubt that it found its way into anything we now call classic.
"Unless the interviewee is young enough to consider Heinlein's late bad novels as classics; there's a semi-approving reference to well-organized and disciplined Scientologists in (I think) =Friday=. That's about it. The early Heinlein story of a religiously dominated USA, "If This Goes On --", used a barely disguised Christian fundamentalism."
I'd mentioned the Heinlein story in my note to Dave, remembering the religious aspect but not the "denomination".
Wow -- thanks for finding that out for me! (And the editor is old enough to consider Heinlein's late bad novels as the very opposite of classics, though Friday isn't as bad as the stuff that came after it...)
Posted by: editor at July 14, 2004 10:14 PMyour PayPal donation
can contribute towards its ongoing publication.
