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Astounding Quotes

Dianetics

The science fiction of John W Campbell's Astounding is very much a literature of IDEAS, and to give a flavor of this here are some quotations from Campbell and a few of his key writers. To start with I've limited myself to one quotation each from ten different authors, and to reflect my own interests (and those of many of the authors in question) I've concentrated on ideas with a Fortean bent - conspiracies, anomalies, belief systems and the paranormal.

The illustration on the left is from Hubbard's article on Dianetics, and is copyright © 1950 Street & Smith Publications Inc.


 

(For a similar list of quotations by Philip K. Dick, click here)

  John W Campbell  
Isaac Asimov Mark Clifton Randall Garrett
Robert A Heinlein L Ron Hubbard Raymond F Jones
H Beam Piper Eric Frank Russell A E Van Vogt

 

John W Campbell

Through his editorship, Campbell shaped Astounding into a unique phenomenon in two ways - the selection and grooming of the authors he published, and his characteristically strong editorials. The majority of these dealt with science rather than science fiction, and Campbell was passionately open-minded about the potential for breakthroughs in areas such as ESP and anti-gravity. The following excerpt comes from "Report on the Dean Drive" in the September 1960 issue.

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Isaac Asimov

Asimov is one of the small minority of Astounding regulars whose name is still widely known today (others are L Ron Hubbard and Robert A Heinlein). All of Asimov's best work from the 1940s and early 50s saw its first publication in Astounding, including the ambitious Foundation series with its ideas of psychohistory and the development of psionic powers. The following excerpt comes from a lesser known story entitled "Belief" (October 1953), which is one of the most Fortean of Asimov's stories. It deals with the closed-minded arrogance of establishment scientists in the face of new ideas, which as you will see from subsequent quotes in this section is a subject which came up again and again in the pages of Astounding.

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Mark Clifton

Like Asimov's "Belief", Mark Clifton's classic short story "Sense from Thought Divide" (March 1955) deals with a clash between belief systems and new discoveries. But here, it's not only the scientists whose beliefs are being pushed to their limits...

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Randall Garrett

Randall Garrett was a prolific contributor to Astounding in the 1950s (and to Analog in the 60s), often under a variety of pseudonyms. The following excerpt comes from "Psichopath", published in the October 1960 issue under the anagrammatic alias of Darrell T Langart. Strictly speaking this falls outside the Astounding era (it's the first issue to bear only the Analog logo without Astounding in the background), but it's so "on topic" that I can't resist including it!

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Robert A Heinlein

Heinlein was a regular contributor to Astounding in the early Campbell years, with many of his best stories written under the pseudonym of Anson MacDonald. Of these, "Goldfish Bowl" from March 1942 is the archetypal Fortean story, with various strange phenomena linked to an aerial race of beings who may or may not consider us "property".

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L Ron Hubbard

Today, Hubbard's name is probably the best known on this page, despite the fact that the numerous science fiction stories of his that Campbell published in Astounding are largely forgotten. His non-fiction article "Dianetics" (May 1950) is a different matter entirely - besides spawning a whole industry, it remains unique reading both for its ideas and the style in which they are presented.

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Raymond F Jones

Like Asimov's "Belief", Garrett's "Psicopath" and Campbell's editorial on the Dean Drive, Raymond F Jones' short story "Noise Level" (December 1952) deals with the problem of making a genuine scientific breakthrough against the opposition of establishment scientists with an entrenched paradigm. Jones' solution is to destroy the paradigm before the breakthrough is made, opening the way to a new system of thought...

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H Beam Piper

The notion of traveling between parallel realities is relatively common in science fiction, but one of the most sophisticated treatments of the idea can be found in H Beam Piper's stories of the Paratime Police. The first of these, "Police Operation", appeared in the July 1948 issue of Astounding, and has a strongly Fortean flavor (the story even begins with a quotation from Charles Fort's Lo!).

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Eric Frank Russell

Eric Frank Russell was the foremost British author to appear in the pages of Campbell's Astounding. He was also one of Astounding's pre-eminent ideas men, with a distinct Fortean slant to much of his work (Russell was an active member of the Fortean Society). His novel Dreadful Sanctuary, which appeared in Astounding in three parts in June, July and August 1948, is the ultimate conspiracy story.

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A E Van Vogt

During the 1940s, Van Vogt was one of the most popular of Astounding's regular authors, with an inimitable combination of fast-paced SF action and deeply thought-provoking ideas. His novel The World of Null-A, serialized in three parts between August and October 1945, presents us with a future society based on Korzybski's General Semantics (a kind of early version of Neuro-Linguistic Programming). It's almost impossible to find a short excerpt that does justice to the novel.

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Compiled by Andrew May Visit www.andrew-may.com

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