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December 17 - December 30, 2018
felt like E. E. Smith with the excitement, love interest, and villain removed.
JWC
its author was less interested in action than in describing the spaceship, with its “six-inch iridio-tungsten alloy shell,” and in delivering endless technical lectures that might have been transcribed straight from his textbooks.
JWC
showed barely any competence as a writer and minimal affection for the genre.
JWC
a story with millions of spaceships and no recognizable human beings.
JWC
adventurers who deliver huge blocks of exposition while puffing on pipes.
JWC
His aliens were often more interesting than his men. An extraterrestrial could be flawed, while his human protagonists were all generic heroes—invariably tall and strong—who represented the kind of genius inventor he wanted to be. The results read, accurately, like the work of a bright, lonely kid who knew everything about chemistry and nothing about people. And there were no women in sight.
JWC
the magazine paid promptly and well, which naturally drew the best authors—but
He claimed to write a hundred thousand words a month, which was a gross exaggeration. As always, he turned himself into whatever he thought would impress everyone else in the room,
LRH
The only source for this story is Hubbard himself, which is reason enough to be skeptical of it—but
the club be recognized along new lines—a
reorganized?
a machine that can predict when a person will die—a
Machine of Death!
Years later, Bradbury gratefully remembered his mentorship: “Heinlein taught me human beings.”
the check from “Blowups Happen” allowed him to pay off his mortgage,
RAH. Those were the days!
attempted to tone down the racism. He wasn’t entirely successful,
RAH revising JWC
Hubbard used it as an excuse to outfit his boat for free,
Hubbard later said that Polly had undergone “five abortions” during their marriage.
His casual assumption that Europeans had an advantage over other races led to stories in which humans were shown to be superior to aliens,
JWC
What you contributed to science fiction was a direct expression of what I’d been vaguely groping for—personalized, emotionalized science fiction instead of intellectualized stuff.
JWC to RAH
claiming that his father had been the commander of the USS Astoria—in fact, he had been a supply officer—when
LRH
The truth was much less glamorous.
Hubbard was ordered home: “By assuming unauthorized authority and attempting to perform duties for which he has no qualifications, he became the source of much trouble.” On
when his girlfriend caught sight of Asimov, she was horrified enough to apologize to the friend whom she had convinced to come along. The girl’s name was Gertrude Blugerman.
Asimov had always seen fiction as a hobby or a way of paying his tuition,
an achievement that existed entirely in his imagination.
LRH
“not temperamentally suited for independent command.”
LRH
Hubbard protested in vain. He had learned nothing from his earlier mistakes,
he never ceased to believe that he had sunk “two Jap subs without credit.”
LRH
Hubbard had been commander of his own vessel for a total of eighty days. A fitness report rated him below average, stating that he was “lacking in the essential qualities of judgment, leadership, and cooperation.”
he complained of various pains—although he later admitted that he had invented them to avoid punishment—and
LRH
if they had been better physical specimens, they might not have been writers at all—but
Meow!
two or three hundred dollars worth
dollars'
What I’m trying to do in science fiction is to turn it away from the hard, rather brittle practicality
JWC
Campbell—who had made his name with stories in which huge engineering problems were solved overnight—was growing impatient.
Like Hubbard, he was burdened by an obsolete idea of heroism.
JWC
Riley reported that Campbell was “somewhat of an egotist,”
Neither version was true.
“very temperamental and often has his feelings hurt.”
LRH
Hubbard wasted no time in embellishing his experiences,
He used his imaginary war wounds to explain his fragile mental state, as well as to make himself attractive to women,
LRH
watching me sharply as he talked as if to see how much I believed. Not much.”
LRH
At best, these were embellishments, and at worst, they were outright lies.
LRH
a juvenile novel for boys.
No real love interest and female characters should be only walk-ons.”
RAH
Hubbard asserted that he been told
Hubbard also said, falsely, that he had received a Guggenheim Fellowship for his work,
“I had known [Hubbard] as a professional, accomplished liar since 1938; nothing he said could be believed without personal conscious cross-checking.
JWC
I firmly believe this technique can cure cancer.
JWC
It was a reasonably effective system of talk therapy,
(dianetics)
Campbell compared it to figuring out a story idea, and it sometimes felt like an attempt to institutionalize his method of raising the intelligence of his readers.
(dianetics)
Hubbard himself was less good at it, and observers later noted that he rarely followed his own procedures:
