When I was young, series of independent stories featuring continuing characters were extremely common. There were the Nick Carter books, the Frank Merriwell books, and others, too. There were magazines which, in each issue, carried a novella featuring some character such as the Shadow, the Spider, Doc Savage, Secret Agent X, Operator S, and so on.
Naturally, science fiction was influenced by such things. During the 1930s and 1940s, Neil R. Jones wrote some twenty stories featuring Professor Jameson and a group of companion robots with human brains; Eando Binder wrote ten stories about another robot, Adam Link; Nelson Bond wrote ten stories about a lovable bumbler named Lancelot Biggs.
However, the first successful series of novels in science fiction were by E. E. Smith. Between 1928 and 1934, he turned out three Skylark novels, and between 1934 and 1947, he turned out five Lensman novels.
In the 1940s, Robert A. Heinlein produced something new in his Future History series. Here the plots seemed independent and were set at widely different times, but they all fit into a consistent historical development of the solar system, so that there were references in stories set later in time to events in stories set earlier in time.
I began another series of this sort with Foundation in 1942. I expanded the background to the galaxy as a whole and proceeded to trace the history methodically from story to story, without jumping about. Later, I tied in my Robot series and my Empire series so that my own future history series now consists of thirteen novels-with others to come, I suppose.
Other series of the Foundation type followed, the most successful being Frank Herbert’s Dune series.
In fantasy, the great success was J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, which inspired a host of imitations. The late JudyLynn del Rey, and her husband, Lester, with their marvelous ability to spot trends, encouraged the writing of novel series and put them out under their publishing imprint of “Del Rey books,” so that we now have a virtual inundation of book series.
The fashion may pass, but while it is here, it seems to be bringing us a considerable number of good things to enjoy.
Survivors
Martin H. Greenberg and I have co-edited a series of anthologies for Daw Books, which include the best stories of a given year. We began with the best of 1939 (a book that appeared in 1979), and proceeded year by year until in 1986, the fifteenth volume appeared with the best of 1953. In press (as I write this) is volume sixteen which deals with the best of 1954, and in preparation is volume seventeen which deals with the best of 1955.
For each of these books, Marty writes a general introduction outlining the events of the year, both in the real world of science fiction, and in the imaginary world of the great outside. We then each supply a headnote for each of the stories in the volume. Marty’s headnotes deal with the science fiction writer’s career, while I write on some subject or other that either the author or the story has inspired in my weird brain.
I read Marty’s headnotes with avidity for they always tell me more about the writer than I know, but not more than I want to know, of course.
One thing that I’ve noticed, with some curiosity, is that science fiction writers tend to have a ten-year lifespan, or, if anything, less.
That is, they will write science fiction, sometimes copiously, for ten years or less, and then they will dwindle off and fade to a halt. Sometimes, they don’t even dwindle, they simply stop dead. It leaves me wondering why.
One explanation, of course, is that they find other and more lucrative markets. John D. MacDonald wrote science fiction in his early years and then made the big time in mystery thrillers. John Jakes wrote science fiction in his early years and then made the big time in historical fiction.
Another explanation is that they die-even science fiction writers die. Back in the 1950s, Cyril Kornbluth and Henry Kuttner died while each was at the peak of his career, and more recently the same was true for Philip K. Dick and Frank Herbert.
But there are those who simply stop and end what seems a fruitful career without switching to other fields and while remaining vigorously alive. I can even think of names of fresh young writers who graced the pages of this magazine in its early issues whom we (or anyone else) don’t hear from much anymore.
Why is that? Do they run out of ideas? Do they simply get tired of writing? Does science fiction change into new channels with which they are out of sympathy?
I simply don’t know.
Perhaps this is something that is true of all forms of writing and not of science fiction alone. Perhaps it is true of all forms of creative endeavor. Perhaps “burnout” is a common phenomenon which ought to be studied more than it is-by psychologists, not by me.
But if burnout is common, then what about those cases in which burnout does not occur? It may be just as useful to study those who are burnout-immune, and who have been writing high-quality science fiction steadily, prolifically, and successfully for, say, forty years and more, and who show no signs of breaking under the strain.
Lately, I have noticed that such people are termed “dinosaurs” by some observers in the field. I suspect that the term is used pejoratively; that is, it is not used as a compliment. From the things they have to say about the writers they call dinosaurs, I gather that, like the real dinosaurs, these writers are considered to be ancient, clumsy, and outmoded.
The term, however, is particularly inappropriate because the characteristic that we most associate with the real dinosaurs is that they are extinct, while the characteristic most noticeable about the writing dinosaurs is that they are not extinct. As a matter of fact, I gather from the nature of the comments made about these dinosaurs that those who use the term are rather aggrieved at them for not being extinct and for hogging too much of the spotlight for far too much time.
Well, that’s their problem. For myself, I prefer to use the term “survivors,” which is neither pejorative nor complimentary, but merely factual.
What are the characteristics that would qualify a science fiction writer to be a survivor?
To begin with, since I talked about a successful and steady and prolific writing life of at least forty years, a survivor would have to be at least sixty years old, and alive, and working. Naturally, he would have had to have started at quite a young age and been swatting away at it steadily since then.
I can think, offhand, of nine writers who fulfill these qualifications, and here they are:
1) Jack Williamson. His first story was published in 1928, when he was twenty years old. He has been writing steadily for fifty-nine years, and he is now eighty years old. To me, he is the undoubted and wellbeloved dean of science fiction. His “The Legion of Space, “ which bounced me off the wall when I was a teenager, appeared fifty-three years ago.
2) Clifford D. Simak. His first story was published in 1931, when he was twenty-seven years old. He has been writing steadily for fifty-six years and he is now eighty-two years old. His “City” appeared forty-three years ago, and “Cosmic Engineers” forty-eight years ago.
3) L. Sprague de Camp. His first story was published in 1937, when he was thirty years old. He has been writing steadily for forty-nine years and is now seventy-nine years old. His “Lest Darkness Fall” which I read in preference to studying for an all-important test in physical chemistry (without ever regretting it) appeared forty-eight years ago.