The absolute, unquestionable, definitive and unalterable science fiction canon

Over the past few weeks, prompted by events at the recent Worldcon, the science fiction blogging

There are no politics
in this novel at all. 
(Image via Amazon)

community has been engaged in one of our regularly occurring debates about what is the literary canon of our genre.

There are, of course, interesting and compelling arguments being presented on both sides of this debate. While some people suggest that the genre is a vibrant, ever-evolving, smorgasbord of creativity in which it would be foolish to try and codify a list of great works, other (more reasonable) voices have been pledging their undying fealty to what are obviously the greatest works of science fiction that will ever be written.

Using a methodology that we will not explain — but which is nonetheless unquestionable and scientifically accurate — our panel of experts has meticulously compiled the definitive list of which works that every human being absolutely must read in order to be taken seriously in any discussion of science fiction.

It should be obvious to all that the fact that most of the great works were written by able-bodied straight white men who died decades ago is entirely a coincidence. The questionable political views of some of these authors is likewise immaterial, as all works are obviously separate from their author.

1. O-Zone by Paul Theroux

(Image via Goodreads)

Whitbread Prize-winner Paul Theroux delved into science fiction in 1986 with this apocalyptic tale of radiation and racism in a vast uninhabited area of the Midwest USA. Theroux uses his literary skills to find the redemptive nature of decay and abandonment. The New York Times praised it as a book that “tells us what we already know, but it does not tell us this well, or interestingly, or vividly.” 

2. Mission Earth Volume 2: Black Genesis by L. Ron Hubbard

One of the most famous science fiction authors of the Golden Age, L. Ron Hubbard’s final magnum opus is the 10-volume Mission Earth saga. This second novel is the most iconic of the series, as it sees anti-hero Soltan Gris allying himself with the mafia to undermine Jettero Heller, who is trying to save planet Earth from environmental destruction. Reading this novel really makes you understand why so many enthusiastic fans (apparently all living at the same address) bought Worldcon memberships for no other reason than to nominate L. Ron Hubbard for a Hugo award.

3. The Blindness by Philip Latham

Writing under the pen name Philip Latham, the American astronomer Robert S. Richardson published several iconic science fiction novels such as Five Against Venus and Missing Men of Saturn. But are any of them as well-remembered as The Blindness, his 1946 work in which he depicts the advent of Haley’s Comet’s return in 1987 as a parable for cultural collapse? 

There is no subtext
in this novel. 
(Image via Amazon)

4. Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

This empowerment fantasy about a messianic young person who is the most special person in the history of specialness has absolutely no subtext. Our unmitigated love for Orson Scott Card’s novel should not be questioned. It is a classic that has shaped generations of science fiction fans.

5. Earth Final Conflict: The First Protector by James White

Northern Ireland’s James White is known for empathy-driven big space science fiction tales. In his final novel, he delivered this character study of an alien who lives among humanity for generations. To fully appreciate the richness of this text, readers may find it helpful to re-watch all five seasons of the 1990 syndicated television series Earth Final Conflict. 

6. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Just when we thought that there were absolutely no new ideas to explore in science fiction, Ernest Cline wrote this entirely unique novel. In Ready Player One, readers are introduced to “the Oasis,” a virtual reality world in which people compete to see who can memorize The Goonies better. Better yet, Ready Player One encourages readers to completely ignore any political subtext in the pop culture spoon-fed to us by multimedia conglomerates. No wonder Stephen Spielberg adapted it into a blockbuster!

Astounding: an elegant use of four-part disharmony

Given the outsize impact that John W. Campbell had on the development of modern science fiction, it is surprising that we had to wait until 2018 for an examination of his life story.

No doubt that the tension between fandom’s love of Campbell’s oeuvre and a revulsion at his racist,

Nevala-Lee's work reassess Hubbard's
contributions to science fiction ... and
science fiction's contributions to
Dianetics and Scientology.
(Image via TonyOrtega.org)

sexist, and classist beliefs kept a few biographers away. Alec Nevala-Lee’s ability to grapple with these tensions is welcome.

His book Astounding, which we’ve previously discussed on this blog, is one that I’ve been mulling over for months. I can think of no other trade press book that offers a biography of an editor, possibly because most editors are known primarily through how they’ve contributed to the works of others. How do you highlight the work of a collaborator?

Nevala-Lee resolves this conundrum by focusing on more than just the life of Campbell, and complementing Campbell’s narrative through the lives of three of his protegees. There were other authors equally close to Campbell’s orbit, but these are inescapably the three authors best-suited to reflect aspects of Campbell’s oeuvre. They are the technocratic Asimov whose positivist beliefs could occasionally lead to inflexibility; the political Heinlein whose self-certainty could lead him to didacticism; and the theologaster Hubbard who’s search for larger truths ended in madness.

Each of these authors is used to illuminate aspects of Campbell’s personality.

At times (particularly when Nevala-Lee is discussing the misdeeds and scandalous lives of these four primary figures), reading Astounding can be like sitting down with a rumour-monger friend and hearing all the dirt about the ‘very important people that they know.’

It is hard not to compare
Astounding to Heinlein
In Dialoge With His
Century. Certainly,
Astounding is more fun
to read.
(Image via Amazon.com)

Having recently slogged my way through William H. Patterson’s biography of Heinlein, I couldn’t
help but compare how Heinlein is treated by the two authors. While Patterson’s work is more extensive and detailed, Nevala-Lee may be slightly more willing to wrestle with some of the more questionable characteristics of Heinlein’s personality, and that makes the story feel more viscerally real.

In far fewer pages, Nevala-Lee paints a more complete and complex portrait of Heinlein as a person, rather than a collection of facts and figures. By paralleling the evolution of Heinlein’s navel-gazing with Hubbard’s descent into madness, Nevala-Lee skillfully puts into context the late-period ‘world as myth’ books such as Job: A Comedy Of Justice and The Cat Who Walked Through Walls.

Throughout the first two thirds of the book, there is a recurring themes of self-delusion and self-aggrandizement, particularly in the portions on Campbell, Heinlein and Hubbard. In the last third of the book, this theme metastasizes into Scientology and solipsism. I sometimes wondered if Nevala-Lee had more of a soft spot for Asimov, or if Asimov was genuinely less inclined to fabulism than the other three subjects of the book.

Nevertheless, Asimov does not escape entirely unscathed from Nevala-Lee’s unflinching accounting.

Susan Hereford gets into a
scuffle with Isaac Asimov at
Boskone 5 in 1968.
One suspects that Asimov
deserved it.
(Image via NESFA.org)

And it is the documented cases of Asimov’s mistreatment of women that were the most unsettling to me.

Of the four subjects, Hubbard’s life has received the most attention in the popular press. Documentaries such as Going Clear and My Scientology Movie, and in-depth investigatory tomes such as Bare-faced Messiah and Inside Scientology have examined his life in detail. There is little in Astounding that will surprise those who have read up on Hubbard. What is interesting is the argument Nevala-Lee weaves about Hubbard’s impact as a pulp author, and his ties to the overall science fiction community.

Campbell’s oversized influence on early science fiction is a weighty topic that deserves attention and analysis. Astounding is an excellent and important part of this conversation, but one hopes it is not the last. There are omissions and narratives that warrant further exploration - at least one additional book could be written about his racism and its effects on the development of science fiction as a genre.

When those further explorations of Campbell’s life are written, I expect to return to Nevala-Lee’s Astounding, both as reference, and as entertainment.

Best Related Work 2018

It strikes us that the shortlisted entries for the Best Related Work Hugo Award over the past decade could be roughly divided into two categories: works of community building essays and long-form works based on more academic interests.

It’s easy to find recent and meritorious examples of works from both of our categories: Kameron Hurley’s collection of essays, The Geek Feminist Revolution, is one of our favourites and Paul Kincaid’s Iain M. Banks biography is close to the platonic ideal of the second. 

High-profile exemplars from these two categories may go head-to-head on the 2019 Best Related

Robert Silverberg, Forrest J. Ackerman
and James White at the 1957 Hugo
Awards. Walton examines every
Hugo Award up to the year 2000.
(Image via Fanac.org) 

Work ballot, as we are likely to be faced with a choice between Alec Nevada-Lee’s biographical work Astounding, and Jo Walton’s Informal History of the Hugo Awards. 

Both books are deserving and both authors are well-familiar to Hugo voters. As frequent and approachable Worldcon attendees, they have reputations for being knowledgeable and supportive of the genre. 

Five Decades Of Hugos

Jo Walton, who has a long relationship with the Tor.com website, previously adapted a loose collection of blog posts into her tome What Makes This Book So Great, which was released in 2014. Her Informal History of The Hugos follows in much the same mold, collecting a series of Tor.com blog posts on every Hugo award shortlist up until the year 2000. 

An active fan, and celebrated author,
Jo Walton's knowledge of the genre
makes her Informal History of the
Hugos a joy to read.
(Image via inverse.com)

These posts are tied together with additional essays and commentary from the blog’s comments section. Luminaries of the field — such as the Nielsen-Haydens and the late, great Gardner Dozois — are in conversation with Walton as she explores what the Hugos have meant over the years. 

Walton is an unslakable bibliovore who has read deeply and widely in the genre, and her knowledge of these works is obvious. She shares a personal perspective and doesn’t shy away from value judgements. Regardless of whether or not you agree with her, her positions are presented fairly and well-argued. 

While this personal approach helps build community, it leads to curious blibliometrics. For example, the absence or presence of a book in her local library may help explain her relationship to it but does little to educate the reader about its impact outsider Walton’s home town. 

Who Goes There? 

In contrast, Harvard-educated science fiction historian and author Alec Nevala-Lee’s research offers a more academic approach to his subject matter. His comprehensive and revelatory volume Astounding seems to include references to every significant work of scholarship ever produced on the Golden Age of pulp magazines. 

The book builds a narrative about the dawn of mass-market science fiction by braiding together the

John W. Campbell at the 1968
World Science Fiction Convention
in Berkley, California.
(Image via calisphere.org)

stories of editor John W. Campbell and three of the authors he worked with: Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein and L. Ron Hubbard. 

Following them through their collaborations, their periods of prolific output and their oversized legacies, Nevala-Lee grapples with their place in the science fiction canon. 

Did I say ‘grapples?’ I meant ‘mud wrestles.’ 

Because despite the weighty research, and the complicated four-piece narrative, Nevala-Lee does a pretty good Kitty Kelly impersonation. Surprisingly approachable and enjoyable, this is the ultimate work of retro celebrity gossip for the Worldcon crowd. 

Alec Nevala-Lee weaves a
symphony in four parts out
of the intertwined stories
of Campbell, Hubbard,
Asimov and Heinlein.
(Image nevalalee.wordpress.com)

Unsurprisingly, this tempo is difficult to maintain in a biography and, by the time that Hubbard begins founding Scientology, the narrative structure of the book breaks down. It becomes more difficult for the four stories to connect, since in the late '50s and '60s, Campbell’s relationships with these three protegees was on the wane. 

We anticipate that voting for Best Related Work will be difficult this year. Both Walton and Navala-Lee offer excellent choices — choices that are difficult to compare in both purpose and style. 

Walton may be better-known (and many fans are likely still smarting over her absence from the 2015 ballot in the same category), but we suspect that some voters will dismiss a collection that has already been published as a series of blog entries. 

Nevala-Lee’s work will have ardent supporters amongst fans who have waited a long time to see someone tackle Campbell as a subject, flaws and all. However the book may not connect with the younger generation of Hugo voters who may be less aware of his impact on the genre. 

Either one of these works would be a spectacularly deserving winner of the Hugo for Best Related Work. 

Pseudoscience, Belief and Science Fiction

Guest post by Michael Hoskin, Calgarian friend to the club

Authors are apt to develop certain peccadillos in their writing. You would not have to read many stories by Nelson S. Bond before realizing he loved telling tales of the ‘fourth dimension’; Isaac Asimov’s fondness for robots is well-documented; Ray Bradbury loved Mars so much he spoke often of his desire to be buried on the Red Planet.

Ray Bradbury loved Mars so much,
 he got the first martian drivers'
license. (Image Via File770.com)

For some authors, these recurring ideas are merely quirks. Unfortunately, for others their obsessions become quasi-religious themes for which they feel the need to evangelize. Particularly within science fiction and fantasy, this tendency has undermined the later works of many great authors. 

As we look over the ranks of authors in speculative fiction, we not only see those who had recurring themes but also a desire to see their fiction become reality. There is precedent for such transmogrification: Jules Verne lived long enough to see submarines such as his Nautilus from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1870) become practical inventions; H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds (1898) became an infamous hoax and panic in the hands of radio maestro Orson Welles in 1938. Further, Wells wrote of tank-like vehicles in The Land Ironclads (1903) and then saw tanks appear in real life. Although Wells confessed he knew the idea of the tank was not original to him, he still said of the first tanks: “They were my grandchildren - I felt a little like King Lear when first I read about them.”

To some extent, fans of speculative fiction are prepared for epistemological musings from their authors,

Battlestar Galactica is basically just
the Book Of Mormon in space.
(Image via Space.ca)  

perhaps the more so when there is a shade of doubt as to whether the author’s belief or evidence is genuine. For instance, some of the bile directed to authors Orson Scott Card and Stephanie Meyer derives from their status as believing Mormons. Non-believers take offence when they perceive elements in those authors’ fiction that they view as an exhortation of the authors’ faith or exist to convert the audience.

As fans of speculative fiction, how far can you and I take the Death of the Author Theory? Based on the sales of Call of Cthulhu, H. P. Lovecraft remains fandom’s favourite virulently racist uncle. Is it icky to know Theodore Sturgeon and his wife were swingers? If you learned Fritz Leiber was a practicing pagan how would it affect your reading of his sword & sorcery tales?

I can speak plainly of one speculative fiction author whose beliefs interfered with my ability to enjoy his work. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle remains best known for his Sherlock Holmes tales but for our purposes, we remember him for his five Professor Challenger stories (beginning with The Lost World, 1912). Although Doyle’s protagonists tended to be sound, rational men (Holmes, Challenger) Doyle

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,
pictured here with a fake
ghost, hoped he would
be remembered for his
writings on spiritualism
more than his Sherlock
Holmes stories.
(Image via prairieghosts.com)

himself drifted into the less-than-rational realm of spiritualism. Doyle believed not only in the power of séances but (notoriously) fell for the Cottingley Fairies hoax. This influenced Doyle’s Challenger novel The Land of Mist (1926), told as work of spiritualism advocacy wherein Challenger and his friends were exposed to spiritualism and all went from skeptics to firm believers. As I do not believe in séances, I found this novel extremely difficult to appreciate. I enjoy ghost stories that send a chill down my spine, unnerve me enough to think ‘what if it’s true?’ I do not at all enjoy stories where the author repeatedly tries to convince me, ‘oh no, these ghosts truly exist – just wait, I will convince you.’ One of those whom Doyle did convince was J. B. Rhine, the man who coined the term ‘extrasensory perception’ (ESP).

Ayn Rand is one science fiction author whose personal philosophies have a large life outside of their fiction. Rand’s philosophy of objectivism was born in her fiction and developed a large following that remains closely aligned to libertarian-leaning politics of today. Further, her fiction influenced many in the science fiction fields. Her fans have included: Famous Monsters of Filmland editor Forrest J. Ackerman, author Ray Bradbury (who said of The Fountainhead (1943) “It gave me courage to just stand and say to people, 'Go away and leave me alone.'”), comic book artists Steve Ditko & Trevor Von Eeden, author Terry Goodkind, and performer Penn Jillette (renowned for his towering performance on TV’s Babylon 5). Although objectivism seemingly reached its peak in the 1970s and the recent film adaptations of Atlas Shrugged (2011-14) were subject to ridicule, Rand’s philosophy remains effervescent.

From a certain perspective, the most successful science fiction author of all time is L. Ron Hubbard. Although Hubbard never won a Hugo or a Nebula for his fiction, how many other authors in his field can claim to have developed a powerful international organization/religion? Perhaps it is hard (or painful) for science fiction fandom to recall it now, but when Hubbard introduced Dianetics in 1950

From a certain perspective, Hubbard
is one of the most successful authors
of all time.
(Image via Bridgepublications.com) 

he was met with glowing reviews from seemingly all corners. Boosters included such as authors James Blish (who is a Hugo winner and resides in the Science Fiction Hall of Fame) and Hubbard’s early ally A. E. Van Vogt (Science Fiction Hall of Fame). Excepting Lester Del Rey and Theodore Sturgeon (Hugo winner, Nebula winner and Science Fiction Hall of Fame; he recalled Hubbard saying to him: “If a man really wanted to make a million dollars, the best way to do it would be to start his own religion.”), virtually all of science fiction passively let Hubbard tell them how ‘clear’ they were. Hubbard’s Church of Scientology remains a powerful and influential body in spite of the motion picture flop Battlefield Earth (2000) and despite Hubbard’s nearest brush with prestige in the sci-fi community being his controversial 1987 Hugo nomination for Black Genesis.

Another proponent of Dianetics was one of science fiction’s most lauded names: John W. Campbell (Hugo winner, Science Fiction Hall of Fame). Campbell wrote only one well-remembered story (Who Goes There?, 1938) but his tenure as editor of Astounding Science Fiction (later Analog; 1937-71) produced some of the most consistently great sci-fi literature in the medium’s history. Yet despite his accolades, he was a racist, a homophobe and a believer in pseudoscience. His pseudoscience beliefs frequently interrupted the pages of Astounding to champion the hokum of not only Dianetics but also ESP, the Dean Drive, the Bridey Murphy hoax and the Hieronymus Machine.

As it turns out, there is no
secret lost civilization living
beneath the Earth's surface.
(image Via Wikipedia.org)

Editor Raymond Palmer of Amazing Stories (1938-49) fell along similar lines to those of Campbell, but courted controversy in the 1940s when he presented various stories by Richard Sharpe Shaver as though his fanciful tales of an underground civilization were factual accounts. The ‘ShaverMystery’ ended in 1948 (due in part to complaints from Amazing Stories readers) but Palmer, embittered by the series’ end, leaned hard into similar ideas. His magazines (such as Fate) ventured outside the bounds of science fiction in order to serve as proponents for all the related pseudoscience, parapsychology, cryptozoology, UFOlogy and suchlike.

In the instance of television’s Star Trek (1966-69), the rabid fandom that sprang up around that program seemed to spur its creator Gene Roddenberry into fashioning a philosophy to support it. When the series returned with the feature film Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) Roddenberry opted to jettison much of the interpersonal sparring and

Star Trek sometimes seems
like a Utopian Cult.
It's adherents are caught
up in a holy war over
which captain is better.
(Image via Pintrest.com)

emotionalism of the television version, believing it antithetical to the ‘utopianism’ he retroactively believed Star Trek embodied. Regarding Roddenberry’s novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Darren Mooney felt it “almost reads like the sacred text of a utopian cult.” This sense of utopianism would permeate the remainder of Roddenberry’s contributions to the franchise (Star Trek: The Next Generation, 1987) but would be noticeably absent elsewhere in that franchise (i.e., Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, 1982).

There are also those science fiction creators who have unintentionally caused a belief system to spring up without intending to. Robert A. Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) helped inspire the creation of the Church of All Worlds, a religion that persists to this very day.

We of fandom have often encouraged the idea that our favourite creators are more than mere tellers of tales; they are ‘visionaries’ or perhaps ‘futurists.’ Doyle, Rand, Hubbard, Campbell, Palmer and Roddenberry each reached points in their careers where the applause of their fans was not enough; they felt the need to use their stage as a means to impart some philosophy or impart ‘secret knowledge.’ 

Many fans no longer worship the science fiction author as ardently as before – but perhaps only because the pantheon of science fiction gods is constantly wheeling out new deities to affirm.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Thomas M. Disch, The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made of (Free Press, 1998).

John R. Eller, Becoming Ray Bradbury (University of Illinois Press, 2011).

Martin Gardner, Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science (Dover, 1957).

L. Ron Hubbard, Theodore Sturgeon and Lester Del Rey, The Dianetics Question (Marvel Science Stories, May 1951).

Darren Mooney, Star Trek: The Motion Picture by Gene Roddenberry (Review) https://them0vieblog.com/2014/06/04/star-trek-the-motion-picture-by-gene-roddenberry-review/

Jonathan Rosen, Doubles: Wilkie Collins’s Shadow Selves (The New Yorker, July 25 2011).

H. G. Wells, War and the Future (Simon & Schuster, 1917).

I read it so you don’t have to: Black Genesis

In the 64-year history of the Hugo Awards, about 300 novels have been on the shortlist. Not all of them have been great, and some have been risible. But there is no book other than Black Genesis whose inclusion is as contemptible.

The cover might offer
a clue as to some of the
racial attitudes within.
(Image via ABEBooks.com)

Black Genesis by L. Ron Hubbard made it onto the Hugo Shortlist in 1987 under dubious circumstances. According to those who were involved in Conspiracy '87 (where the awards were handed out), a majority of the book’s nominating ballots were photocopies and were submitted by people who had no prior involvement with Worldcon, and who did not turn up in person for the event. 

But even if the tactics were questionable, and even if it was an unworthy book, the rules are the rules, so its nomination stands. Mr. Hubbard is immortalized as a Hugo-nominated author.

If there had to be a major push to get Hubbard a posthumous nomination, it beggars belief that Black Genesis would be the vehicle through which they chose to do so.

Not His Best Book

Hubbard was once capable of writing an engaging, entertaining fast-paced action novel. To The Stars shows his basic competence as a writer of adventure stories. Final Blackout is actually pretty good, despite fascistic themes. Battlefield Earth is silly, but surprisingly fun.

Hubbard was capable of
writing, even if some of
his books were fascistic.
(Image via Amazon.com)

Few of these works would have necessarily warranted a Hugo nomination, but none of them would have been an insult to the nomination process. The same cannot be said about Black Genesis.  

To fully appreciate the scope of Black Genesis’ failings, one has to experience it as the second part in the 10-part Mission Earth series. The first volume (The Invaders Plan) sets up antihero protagonist Soltan Gris as the sidekick to a noble, incorruptible übermench Jettero Heller, as they are sent to Earth to prevent humanity from wiping itself out so that 50 years from now the Voltarian Empire they serve can conquer the planet.

Unbeknownst to Heller, Gris is part of the Voltarian secret police, and for arcane and labyrinthine reasons he is trying to undermine Heller.

That first (615-page) book consists of nothing but these two characters planning and outfitting their mission. Hugo-nominated novel Black Genesis starts with the pair of them arriving on Earth and beginning to set their respective schemes in motion.

Unpleasant Antihero

Gris is one of the most deeply unpleasant protagonists in all of science fiction. This is clearly intentional, since Hubbard is ham-handed in his efforts to make Gris seem like a jerk. But the intentionality does nothing to mitigate how little fun it is to read Gris’ whinging internal narrative.

L. Ron Hubbard composed a soundtrack
to the 10-volume Mission Earth series.
The official album, performed by
Edgar Winter can be listened to here.
(Image via allmusic.com) 

Given the author’s well-known aversion to psychiatry, it will not astonish anyone that one of the primary antagonists of the book is a psychiatrist, and given his dislike of government, the depiction of the Voltarian Empire’s bureaucracy as hopelessly inept seems inevitable.

What is more surprising is the deep-seated racism, the simmering sexism, and virulent anti-gay attitudes on display. Some of this is framed as ‘satire’ or ‘social commentary.’ But if it is either of these things, it does not work.

Beyond Hubbard’s deeply unpleasant political beliefs are the underlying structural issues that undermine this bloated novel.

Often the middle part of a trilogy fails to advance the overall plot because the dénouement has to wait until the concluding book. In the case of this 10-volume series, it’s clear by the second book that nothing significant will happen until several more tomes are complete.  

Contrived and Meandering

If you like Black Genesis, there are nine
more volumes for you to read. 

So Gris and Heller spend this book (and the next) in a series of contrived happenstances that exist only as mild annoyances and opportunities for Hubbard to proselytize. The plot meanders and wanders from one example of how awful, incompetent and venal Gris is to the next, without actually advancing the character’s supposed long-term goals.

It is deeply unfortunate that this book was on the Hugo shortlist, both on a moral and on an artistic level. That being said, it does put into perspective the relative quality some other lesser nominees, and makes us appreciate their merits.

Black Genesis placed sixth out of five nominees in 1987, losing to Orson Scott Card’s Speaker For The Dead, and finishing behind ‘no award.’ It was a deserved loss.