#115 = Volume 38, Part 3 = Noivember 2011
NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE
John W. Campbell, Jr., E.E. “Doc” Smith, and the Combat Information Center. To understand the Combat Information Center (CIC), think back to that scene in movies about naval combat in World War II or later: crew members are working in a darkened ship’s compartment staring at radar and sonar screens; others watch as details of the battle are plotted on a vertical Plexiglas sheet. This is the CIC, whose purpose is to gather battle information from a number of sources and interpret it as rapidly as possible.
In a letter written over 60 years ago to E.E. “Doc” Smith, John W. Campbell, Jr., editor of Astounding Science-Fiction, proposed a connection between Smith’s fictional command ship Directrix and the CIC of naval warfare. Campbell claimed, in a letter dated 11 June 1947, that the ship, depicted in “Grey Lensman” (Astounding SF. Oct. 1939-Jan. 1940), influenced the creation of this key concept. But can we believe what Campbell told Smith?
The letter, which begins by suggesting that Smith keep the matter “private and personal” and even that Smith destroy the letter, goes on to identify the naval officer who had been inspired by “Grey Lensman”:
CIC was introduced into the Navy scheme by a navy officer who was not then, nor is not now, able to explain to the Navy precisely where he got the idea. Unofficially, and in confidence, he has told me.
The entire set-up was taken specifically, directly, and consciously from the “Directrix.” In your story, you reached the situation the Navy was in—more communication channels than integration techniques to handle it. You proposed such an integrating technique, and showed how advantageous it could be.
You, sir, were 100% right. As the Japanese Navy—not the hypothetical Boskonian fleet—learned at an appalling cost. Sitting in Michigan, some years before Pearl Harbor, you played a large share in the greatest and most decisive naval action of the recent war!
Unfortunately, in order that a Naval officer with imagination enough to apply the science-fiction ideas he studies may continue to have the maximum possible influence on the Navy, the source of his ideas—a source the Brass Hats wouldn’t take to so well—must remain undisclosed. He’s Capt. Cal Lanning. At present, he is in charge of all Naval electronic research, with special emphasis on advanced spy ray equipment, detector screens, and detector screen analysis techniques.1Campbell closes with a request that Smith not repeat the story so that the officer can continue to apply sf ideas to other naval matters.
One striking feature of Doc Smith’s space operas was the massive scale of the battles: one such battle required control of fifty thousand ships. The Directrix, as described in “Grey Lensman,” was a spaceship intended to control a million ships in battle. The “tank” was the key—a three-dimensional display that had grown to a size of seventeen million cubic feet, displaying more than two million points of light. The dimensions given were a diameter of 750 feet with its highest point at 80 feet (Smith 138). Associated with the gigantic tank was a “reducer,” a smaller tank in which the large image in the main tank was replicated, although the amount of reduction made it impossible to distinguish details. When the main tank was operating, it used different colors to display different entities—fleets in motion, fleets still at base, planets, the Directrix itself, and the objective (138-40). Analysis of the complex battle situation presented in the massive tank was possible only by employing the powerful minds of Lensmen such as Kinnison and Worsel, assisted by a group of telepathic Rigellians (146).
The birth of the Combat Information Center is tied to the introduction of radar. Starting in 1930, the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) carried out research and development work in this area (Gebhard 171). A radar set, the XAF, was constructed by NRL and installed on the battleship New York in time to be used in Fleet Problem XX in early 1939 (180): the Fleet Problems, naval exercises conducted in the years between the World Wars, were used to experiment with new tactics and technologies. The Navy was so impressed with the operation of the XAF that an order was immediately placed for six copies, which were called CXAM (Wolters 218-19). Delivery occurred in mid- to late 1940 and additional radars of an improved design were delivered beginning in mid-1941. It was recognized that a radar operator, stuck in some small compartment, was too isolated and needed integration into existing shipboard communication systems. This led to the radar plotting room or radar plot, which included voice radios, a plotting table, a radio direction finder, and telephones for communication throughout the ship (Wolters 222-25). Radars were also developed for special purposes such as air search and gunfire control. With the consolidation of such diverse radar plotting activities, the radar plot evolved into the Combat Information Center.
A means was found to separate the display from the rest of the radar electronics, which permitted additional displays known as repeaters to be placed at key locations, including the bridge of the ship (Boslaugh 44-46). It was necessary to distinguish friendly forces from the enemy in the radar display, and to do so, each friendly aircraft was equipped with a special transmitter triggered by the radar beam. When this signal was received, it caused that aircraft to be designated as friendly on the display. The name assigned to such systems was Identification Friend or Foe (IFF), so descriptive that it is still used today (Gebhard 251-53).
Caleb Barrett Laning, not “Lanning” as stated by Campbell, was a classmate of Robert A. Heinlein at the US Naval Academy, graduating in 1929: his naval biography and service record are the sources for the information presented here. Between June 1936 and May 1938, he attended the Naval Postgraduate School. Laning was then assigned as Radio Officer on the staff of Commander Cruiser Division Eight until September 1940. Following that assignment, he became Executive Officer of the destroyer Sicard. Upon leaving the Sicard in June 1941, he became Executive Officer and Navigator of the destroyer Conyngham. From October 1942 until the end of November 1943, he was indeed involved in many aspects of the development and use of the CIC. His key concerns were where the equipment should be placed, how it should be integrated into the ship’s systems, and how those who would work in the CIC should be trained.
Laning received the Legion of Merit for his contributions to the success of CIC. The once classified version of the citation for this award specifically mentions his part in having destroyer CICs equipped and crew members trained to direct fighter aircraft. Laning’s assignment during most of 1944 was as Captain of the destroyer Hutchins. He received the Navy Cross for his part in the Battle of Surigao Strait (24-25 October 1944). At the beginning of 1945, Laning left the Hutchins. Until August 1948, his assignment was in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations in Washington, DC. Laning worked in the Radar Section of the Electronics Division, where he was concerned with coordination of radar development activities. Following other assignments, Laning retired as a Rear Admiral on 1 May 1959; he died on 1 June 1991.
Given this information, it is easy to refute Campbell’s statement that Laning was responsible for inventing the CIC concept. There is no indication of any work with radar when he was Radio Officer of the cruiser division. By the time that the first CXAM radars were being delivered and installed, Laning was beginning his service aboard the Sicard, followed by the Conyngham, neither of which received one of the early radars (Gebhard 183). Laning became part of the CIC development effort toward the end of 1942, when it was already a clearly established concept. The citation for his Legion of Merit makes no mention of his having originated the idea.
Various letters from Laning to Heinlein show that he was a reader of Astounding and familiar with Smith’s stories. Other evidence exists, however, which shows that this did not influence his CIC work. The letter quoted below is dated 15 January 1944, after the completion of his CIC assignment:
For info, I have been the top man in “CIC” development for past year. You will be fascinated with the story, when it can be told. Basic ideas were frequently very similar to some of Amazing SF “brain-machine” ideas.... Save yourself for some super-stories.2
Laning says that he has been in CIC development, making no claim that he originated the idea. He states that the basic ideas associated with CIC were “very similar to” ideas that appeared in sf stories but does not say they were “based on” or “derived from” science fiction.
My sense is that any apparent connection emerges from the similarity of problems for Doc Smith’s Grand Fleet and the US Navy in a war. How is complex information managed during battle? When the problem is the same, it is not surprising to see similar solutions. Smith chose to track the massive Grand Fleet in one location, the Directrix; the Navy chose to have each ship equipped with a CIC that tracked a relatively small number of ships and planes. Smith had the large tank; the Navy employed individual radars. Smith had a reducer; the Navy had the radar repeater. Smith used colors in the large tank and reducer; the Navy used IFF circuitry on friendly craft to produce an indication on the radar display. Yet the real key to the operation of both approaches is not the technology employed but the brains of the operators—the Lensman and Rigellians in the Directrix, or the sailors and officers in each and every CIC.
I do not believe that Laning would have claimed in any communication with Campbell to have invented the idea of the CIC. This statement I attribute to Campbell, who made other errors in regard to Laning—the comment in his letter to Smith, for instance, that Laning’s assignment placed him in charge of all naval electronic research, when Laning’s work in Naval Operations was concerned specifically with radar. Campbell also says that Laning does not want the sf basis for the CIC concept revealed to his superiors; and since Laning could not have originated this concept, this statement has no meaning.
Why would Campbell have made these errors? In a recent special issue of the fanzine Fantasy Commentator, a long article by the late Sam Moskowitz considers letters from Campbell to his friend Robert Swisher from 1936 to 1952. The date of one quoted fragment is not clear, but it appears before another letter dated 4 June 1946. My attempts to locate the original have so far proved unsuccessful. The fragment, preceded by comments by Moskowitz, is as follows:
Campbell was always full of scientific stories, some of them imaginatively embellished. He wrote of how improved radar “licked” the submarine menace. “The number of stories I could tell,” Campbell went on. “Some of ’em are lulus! How Dr. E.E. Smith helped—without knowing it—to win the Battle of Surigao Strait. The “Directrix” was in that fight—under another name and in another form. How Astounding helped the Navy with more than a dozen vital little systems and gadgets. (148)
This implies that at some time prior to June 1946, Campbell already possessed information that led him to see a connection between Smith’s Directrix and the CIC. The reference to the Battle of Surigao Strait does point to Laning, whereas Campbell’s letter to Smith only makes a general reference to naval operations around the Philippines. We might reasonably assume that the delay of a year or more contributed to the inaccuracy of his statements in the letter to Smith.
A further question is why Campbell took so long to present this information to Smith; but after “Second Stage Lensman” concluded in February 1942, no story by Smith appeared in Astounding until “Children of the Lens” began in November 1947. Perhaps there was no contact between them until it became necessary in 1947 to work out the details for serialization of the story.
What should we think of Campbell’s claim in this letter that the CIC information came directly from a naval officer? A face-to-face meeting between Laning and Campbell in New York or at Campbell’s home in New Jersey is not improbable, since Laning’s work required travel. Of course, we will never know exactly what Laning might have told Campbell at such a meeting; but if this information was revealed in the course of a conversation, it is easy to imagine that faulty recall might be a factor in Campbell’s later statements. Why did Campbell make the claims regarding the connection between the Directrix and CIC? Perhaps, since Laning was definitely familiar with the works of Smith, he may indeed have used the comparison to explain to Campbell how a CIC functioned.
Several editorials in Astounding show that Campbell believed in sf’s influence on modern science and technology. The fragment quoted in Fantasy Commentator states, offering no supporting details, that Astounding directly influenced the conduct of World War II. I believe that Campbell would have been quite pleased to present to both Swisher and Smith a specific example of sf influencing the conduct of the war, even if it required some manipulation of the details.
My conclusion is that the process leading to the Campbell-Smith letter began with information accurately presented by Laning concerning his wartime and postwar connection with CIC. This information was imperfectly recalled by Campbell when he wrote about Laning many months later. Similarities were converted to influences and were, as described by Moskowitz, “imaginatively embellished” (148).
The points made here in no way diminish the actual accomplishments of Caleb Laning in connection with the Combat Information Centers; but a closer look at the facts suggests to me that Campbell’s statements regarding the link between the origin of the Combat Information Center and the sf of “Doc” Smith should be taken with a grain of salt the size of the Directrix.—Edward Wysocki, Orlando, Florida
NOTES
1. The Campbell-Smith letter is used by permission of AC Projects, Inc., 7376 Walker Road, Fairview, TN 37064.
2. Correspondence between Laning and Heinlein, from the Robert A. and Virginia Heinlein Archives <http://www.heinleinarchives.net/>, is used with the permission of Admiral Laning’s daughter Jillian.WORKS CITED
Boslaugh, David L. When Computers Went to Sea: The Digitization of the United States Navy. Piscataway, NJ: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 1999.
Gebhard, Louis A. Evolution of Naval Radio-Electronics and Contributions of the Naval Research Laboratory. Washington, DC: Naval Research, 1979.
Moskowitz, Sam. “Inside John W. Campbell.” Fantasy Commentator 11.3-4 (2011): 2-157.
Smith, Edward E. “Grey Lensman.” Astounding Science-Fiction (Jan. 1940): 102-153.
Wolters, Timothy S. “Managing a Sea of Information: Shipboard Command and Control in the United States Navy, 1899-1945.” Diss. MIT, 2003.
William Wilson: The Creator of “Science-Fiction.” Although it is known that the term “science-fiction” was first used by William Wilson in A Little Earnest Book upon a Great Old Subject (1851), and I have previously contributed a short account of this matter to SFS (34.1 [Mar. 2007]), biographical information on Wilson has hitherto been unavailable. No data are given for the correct William Wilson in any general reference works or in such online resources as Wikipedia; and he is unidentified in such genre-specific works as the second edition of John Clute and Peter Nicholls’s Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (1993), where Brian Stableford states that he was a “UK writer, one of several contemporaries with the same name” (1334). Eleven years later, in his Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction Literature (2004), Stableford mistakenly identifies Wilson as a “Scottish poet who coined the term ‘science-fiction,’” identifying him perhaps with the poet who was born in 1801 in Perthshire, Scotland, and died in 1860 in Poughkeepsie, New York (Historical 393). Although William Wilson was indeed a poet, the national attribution is incorrect.
William Wilson was the third son of the bookseller and publisher Effingham Wilson (1783/5-1868), noted for, among other accomplishments, being Tennyson’s first publisher and for being an early proponent of Freedom of the Press; his mother appears to have been one Martha Hunt (Nye 284-90). The data in the 1841 England census reveal that William Wilson was fifteen and residing in the Civil Parish of St. Mary Islington East in Middlesex County; he was thus born in approximately 1826.1 It has not yet been determined where Wilson attended school or even if he received any formal secondary schooling, for he seems to have started work as an adolescent: an 1868 obituary of Effingham Wilson states that William had been employed at Effingham Wilson for 25 years (459-60).
Wilson is today remembered for writing A Little Earnest Book upon a Great Old Subject, in which chapter 10 discusses a work by “the celebrated dramatic Poet, R.H. Home ... entitled ‘The Poor Artist; or, Seven Eye-sights and One Object,’” which described “the world as viewed by a Bee, an Ant, a Spider, a Perch, a Robin, and a Cat” (138). Wilson expresses a hope that “it will not be long before we may have other works of Science-Fiction, as we believe such books likely to fulfil a good purpose, and create an interest, where, unhappily, science alone might fail” (137).
One suspects, however, that Wilson, an ardent Bardolater, would have preferred to be memorialized for his efforts at creating a playhouse dedicated solely to the works of Shakespeare. He published this argument in Hood’s Magazine in 1848, concluding that “Our hero, Shakspere [sic], is not alone for our worship, but also for our use! as God, who sent him amongst us intended he should be” (“House” 209-16).
A Little Earnest Book upon a Great Old Subject was widely reviewed in the newspapers and magazines of the day, and copies were sent to notable figures for their endorsements. Charles Dickens’s response is apparently lost, though its envelope, dated 24 May 1851, survives (Dickens 634). That Dickens responded positively is likely, for Wilson would in 1857 dedicate his Such Is Life: Sketches and Poems by Doubleyou to Dickens, while his 1860 Gathered Together: Poems contains two laudatory sonnets addressed to Dickens (131-33). Wilson later attempted to get Dickens to contribute to his Memorial to Shakespeare, but Dickens politely refused any endorsements, his letter of 6 May 1861 stating that “without the least reference to the merits of the case, I think it right to refrain from attaching my signature to the Memorial, for the reason that I have already strongly recommended two other literary cases, which are now—or ought to be—under the Minister’s consideration” (Dickens 409).
The response of Thomas Carlyle to Wilson’s 1851 gift survives, and it is enthusiastic, albeit somewhat incoherent: “it seems all overflowing with beautiful enthusiasm—and young hope and loyalty,—bright as one of these fine july [sic] mornings;—and let us believe, prophetic, as they are, of an opulent and useful day!” (168). It should also be mentioned that Gathered Together: Poems also includes a laudatory sonnet addressed to Carlyle: “Deep-visioned and Suggestive is thy page, / Large is thy Apprehension, new thy Power” (129-30).
After the 1860 publication of Gathered Together, William Wilson does not appear to have acted creatively; no further books by him have been noted, and his name appears to be absent from the periodicals of the time.2 He was running Effingham Wilson, Publisher, which presumably took more of his time and energies, and such energies as were not spent professionally appear to have been devoted to his Memorial. Wilson died in Middlesex on 4 July 1886, according to an obituary in The London Gazette (2879). The Effingham Wilson imprint lasted until 1932, when it was acquired by Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, Ltd. (Nye 290).—Richard Bleiler, Willington, CT
NOTES
1. Wilson’s age is given as fifteen, implying he was not above fifteen. The 1841 census is notoriously inaccurate with regard to ages. As <www.progenealogists.com> states, “it is important to bear in mind that the ages for all individuals above the age of 15 were rounded down to the nearest five years. Thus, if someone reported their [sic] age as 22 years old, then they would likely have been enumerated as 20 years old in the census. Having said this, there were plenty of enumerators who recorded specific ages on the census returns” (Census Records).
2. Wilson was, however, probable compiler of In Memory of Effingham Wilson (London: Printed for Private Circulation, 1868).WORKS CITED
Carlyle, Thomas, and Jane Carlyle. Collected Letters of Thomas and Janes Welsh Carlyle. Vol 27 (1852). Ed. Clyde De L. Ryals et al. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1999.
“Census Records: The Records.” Web. 13 July 2011.
Dickens, Charles. The Letters of Charles Dickens. Vol. 12 (1868-70). Ed. Madeline House et al. Oxford: Clarendon, 2002. 634.
“Doubleyou” [William Wilson]. Such Is Life, Sketches and Poems. London: S. Eyre, 1857.
Nye, Eric W. “Effingham Wilson.” The British Literary Book Trade, 1700-1820. Ed. James K. Bracken and Joel Silver. Detroit, MI: Gale, 1995: 284-90.
“Obituary [Effingham Wilson].” The Bookseller 1 July 1868: 459-60.
Stableford, Brian. “William Wilson.” The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Ed. John Clute and Peter Nicholls. London: Orbit, 1993. 1334.
─────. “William Wilson.” Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction Literature. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2004. 393.
“William Wilson, Deceased.” London Gazette (24 May 1887): 2879.
Wilson, William. “A House for Shakspere (A Proposition for the Consideration of the Nation.)” Hood’s Magazine (Sept. 1848): 209-16.
─────. A Little Earnest Book upon a Great Old Subject. London: Darton, 1851.
─────. Gathered Together: Poems. London: Longman, 1860.
Worms, Laurence. “Effingham Wilson, 1783-1868.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004.
R.D. Mullen Research Fellows, 2011-2012. I would like to announce the winners of the third annual R.D. Mullen Research Fellowship, funded by Science Fiction Studies in the name of our late founding editor to support archival research in the J. Lloyd Eaton Collection of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, and Utopian Literature at UC-Riverside. The committee—chaired by me and consisting of Andrea Bell, Neil Easterbrook, Joan Gordon, and Brooks Landon—reviewed a number of excellent applications and settled on a slate of three winners for 2011-12:
JASON ELLIS is a PhD student in the English Department at Kent State University. His dissertation studies what he calls “neuronarratives,” sf texts that deal with the cognitive implications of artificial intelligence and human-machine interfaces. He is the coeditor of The Postnational Fantasy: Postcolonialism, Cosmopolitics, and Science Fiction (2011) and has published articles on H.G. Wells, on digital nomadism, and on World of Warcraft. He plans to visit UC-Riverside to do research towards the writing of a dissertation chapter on “the effects of brain trauma” in the work of Philip K. Dick.
ALEXANDER ISER is a PhD student in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne. His dissertation focuses on how time-travel narratives draw out the links “between apocalyptic crises and societal conceptions of time.” He will be spending several weeks at UC-Riverside examining the Eaton’s extensive fanzine collection for evidence of how readers interpreted major time-travel stories as allegories of cultural crisis.
JENNIFER L. LIEBERMAN is a PhD student in the Department of English at the University of Illinois. Her dissertation, entitled Power Lines: Electric Networks and the American Literary Imagination, studies how “literature helped to shape American perceptions of electrical technologies between 1870 and 1952.” She has published essays on Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court and on Gertrude Atherton’s Patience Sparhawk and Her Times. At the Eaton, she plans to explore dime novels, boys’ adventure stories, and other proto/early-sf materials in terms of their evocation of the engineer as “the new frontiersman of the twentieth century.”
I am very grateful to the committee for their work in vetting the applications, and my congratulations to the three winners, whom I hope to see soon here at UCR.—Rob Latham, SFS
Required Reading. Forbidden Planet, the UK-based bookstore chain, has posted a list of “The Fifty SF Books You Must Read” on its website. Its top-ten recommended titles are:
1. Dune (1965) Frank Herbert
2. The Forever War (1974) Joe Haldeman
3. Shadow and Claw (1980-81) Gene Wolfe (The Shadow of the Torturer [1980] and The Claw of the Conciliator [1981], first and second novels in the tetrology The Book of the New Sun)
4. Neuromancer (1984) William Gibson
5. The Demolished Man (1952) Alfred Bester
6. The Dispossessed (1974) Ursula K. Le Guin
7. Gateway (1977) Frederik Pohl
8. The Man in the High Castle (1962) Philip K. Dick
9. Childhood’s End (1953) Arthur C. Clarke
10. Timescape (1980) Gregory BenfordAs might be expected, a number of posts on the web page object to omissions or suggest alternative titles by recommended authors. My own difference has mainly to do with the list’s title: “The” fifty sf books, when so many more might for various reasons have been highly recommended? I agree with a high ranking for Dune, for instance, but would have placed H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds (1898) in the #1 slot, or at least much closer than #22. (On the other hand, The Time Machine [1896]might have been preferable in that top slot.)
Several comments on the website rightly object to the absence of any title by Olaf Stapledon. Despite the inevitable limitations of a fifty-book sf canon, however, the recommendations should point new readers to some of the genre’s finest achievements. For more details, see <http://forbiddenplanet.com/picks/ 50-sf-books-you-must-read/>.
A similar US poll, evidently inspired by Forbidden Planet’s but including fantasy as well as sf titles, has been posted on National Public Radio’s website:<http://www.npr.org/2011/08/11/139085843/your-picks-top-100-science-fiction-fantasy-books>. The verdict of some 60,000 voters? Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy (1954-55) came in at #1; Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (originally a radio series; the first novel was published in 1979) was #2. Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game (1985) was the highest rated sf novel at #3.—Carol McGuirk, SFS
International Research Association in Popular Literature and Media Culture. “Association Internationale des chercheurs en Littérature Populaire et Culture Médiatique” (LPCM) was founded on 26 May 2011. Our organization seeks to examine in an interdisciplinary and international perspective the forms and practices of the last two centuries of new media, accounting for their evolution throughout the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. We aim to assess the importance of such practices in the construction of a collective imaginary, with attention to differing historical, social, and national media contexts. The LPCM hopes to bring together methodologies from different disciplines, among them Literature, Art History, Film Studies, Performing Arts, Information and Communication Technology, History, Sociology, and Cultural Studies. LPCM invites participation by academics, researchers, and PhD students from all countries who are interested in research on literature and popular media cultures, including their most contemporary forms. Our goal is to facilitate engagement in collective projects, conferences, publications, and national, European, and international research. We already have developed a number of research aids and are in the process of implementing an international database on mass-market fiction: <http://www.flsh.unilim.fr/lpcm/>. There is a peer-reviewed journal, Belphegor <http://etc.dal.ca/belphegor/> and Virtual Museum <http://www.popular-roots.eu/>. The Executive Committee includes President Jacques Migozzi (Université de Limoges), Vice-Presidents Angels Santa (Université de Lleida) and Sarah Sepulchre (Université Catholique de Louvain), Secretary Matthieu Letourneux (Université Paris Ouest), and Treasurer Anne Besson (Université d’Artois).
For more information, contact Jacques Migozzi at <jacques.migozzi@ unilim.fr> or Matthieu Letourneux at <mletourneux@free.fr>.—Jacques Migozzi, President, LPCM
“Speculative Fiction”: Conference Report. On 18 June 2011 the University of Liverpool held the inaugural conference on “Current Research in Speculative Fiction” (CRSF), a one-day postgraduate conference aimed at providing a friendly yet professional atmosphere in which PGs can showcase their research and obtain valuable feedback, as well as networking with other researchers working in the fields of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Despite being a new addition to the conference circuit, CRSF 2011 achieved an international selection of delegates who represented twenty-five academic institutions in six countries in Europe and North America. Twenty-eight papers were grouped into panels on topics as diverse as “Rethinking the Vampire,” “The Science in Science Fiction,” and “Psychology and Reality.” Many delegates embraced the idea of “Speculative Fiction” as an overarching dialogue among the disciplines of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and their many variants; as a result we received papers on the fantastic in Shakespeare, coma fiction, graphic novels, and hollow-earth fiction, along with more traditional but equally fine sf papers on the Singularity, J.G. Ballard, Dystopian Britain, and Androids. In addition to these papers, keynote lectures were given by Andy Sawyer of the University of Liverpool (“The Strange Case of the Science Fiction Short Story”) and Professor Adam Roberts of Royal Holloway, University of London (“The Comedian as the Letters SF”).
The event was designed, organized, and run by Postgraduate Researchers from the University of Liverpool: Chris Pak, A.P. Canavan, Clare Parody, and myself. Given the day’s success, planning has already begun for a second conference in early Summer 2012. Information on the past and forthcoming conferences is located on the “Current Research in Speculative Fiction” website: <http://www.currentresearchinspeculativefiction.blogspot.com>.—Glyn Morgan, University of Liverpool
“The Monstrous Fantastic” at ICFA. The thirty-third annual meeting of the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts will be held at the Mariott Orlando Airport Hotel on 21-25 March 2012. This year’s theme is “The Monstrous Fantastic”; the Guest Scholar will be Jeffrey J. Cohen and the Guest of Honor will be China Miéville.
J.R.R. Tolkien described the three monsters of Beowulf as “essential, fundamentally allied to the underlying ideas of the poem.” The fantastic has spawned many such integral monsters and monstrosities. Our 2012 conference will explore the many creative and cultural constructions of monstrosity, ancient to contemporary. We expect that there will be papers on our honored guests. The deadline for proposed papers (31 October 2011) has passed, but details of the sessions should soon be available online at <www.iafa.org>.—Crystal Black, IAFA Public Information Officer
SF and Fantasy Translation Awards. The 2011 Awards were presented at the Eurocon in Stockholm. The Guests of Honor, Ian McDonald and Elizabeth Bear, opened the envelopes. In each category the jury selected an honorable mention as well as a winner. The results are:
Long Form Winner: A Life on Paper: Stories, Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud, translated by Edward Gauvin (Small Beer Press); original publication in French (1976-2005). The stories in this collection, the first English translations of Châteaureynaud’s work, are written with such delicacy and economy that the reader may be unprepared for the disquieting irruptions of unreality that break into experiences of the narrators and characters. This is fantastic fiction so subtly crafted that even outrageous violations of reason—a man sprouts tiny wings, a siren swims ashore, a guillotined head complains of its decomposition, a mummy in a double-bass case sings beautifully in Breton—seem verisimilar: it all fits together with cunning perfection. Edward Gauvin’s translations are models of the discipline, masterfully attuned to Châteaureynaud’s stylistic shifts, scrupulous ambiguity, and dark humor.
Long Form Honorable Mention: The Golden Age, Michal Ajvaz, translated by Andrew Oakland (Dalkey Archive Press). Original publication in Czech as Zlatý Věek (2001). A brilliant work of utopian fiction and an extraordinary shaggy-dog story confidently told. The peculiar architecture of the unnamed island, the islanders’ strange language games and mutable writing system, their knowing manipulations of would-be colonizers, and the method of the island’s sole, parodically hypertextual historical novel, called simply the Book, are realized on many registers. Ajvaz’s novel seems as much a shorthand encyclopedia of modern thought on language, mind, and fiction-making as an entertaining, Swiftian travelogue. Andrew Oakland’s translation deftly crosses all these fictional and nonfictional orders without a misstep, capturing the novelist’s humor and philosophical rigor.
Short Form Winner: “Elegy for a Young Elk,” Hannu Rajaniemi, translated by Hannu Rajaniemi (Subterranean Online, Spring 2010). Original publication in Finnish (Portti, 2007). This offers a brilliant crossing of multiple sf and fantasy genres, marked by canny humor, melancholy, and a looming sense of menace, and shot through with memorable images and exchanges. Rajaniemi’s evocative prose hints at a richly conceived backstory of a technological apotheosis that has refashioned real and virtual worlds. Many of the details are only hinted at but never seem under-imagined. This is a rare work of short fiction that grows more complex on successive readings.
Short Form Honorable Mention: “Wagtail,” Marketta Niemelä, translated by Liisa Rantalaiho (Usva International 2010, ed. Anne Leinonen). Original publication in Finnish as “Västäräkki” (Usva [The Mist], 2008). An intensely told, unsettling parable of the family in an age of hyperreality and alienation. Rantalaiho’s precise translation of Niemelä’s spare, detached prose admirably captures the narrator’s anxiety and imperfect understanding of the bonds that join her to the daughters (and kinds of motherhood) between which she must choose.
Special Award: In addition to the standard awards, the Board of ARESFFT presented a special award to British author and translator Brian Stableford in recognition of the excellence of his translation work.
The jury for the awards included Terry Harpold, University of Florida, USA (Chair); Abhijit Gupta, Jadavpur University, India; and Dale Knickerbocker, East Carolina University, USA.—Board of Directors, Association for the Recognition of Excellence in SF and Fantasy Translation
SF at the British Library. From 20 May through 25 September 2011, the British Library mounted its first ever sf exhibit, entitled “Out of This World: Science Fiction … But Not as You Know It.” Co-curated by Katya Rogatchevskaia and Andy Sawyer, the show was a multimedia display organized into six broad categories: Future Worlds, Alien Worlds, Parallel Worlds, Virtual Worlds, End of the World, and The Perfect World? The book display featured an array of works, including a 1516 first edition of Thomas More’s Utopia, a 1668 reprint of Margaret Cavendish’s The Blazing World (1666), an 1818 first edition of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and, from the twentieth century, selected pulp and digest magazines, hardcover and paperback novels, and comic books. Also included were manuscript pages from the works of authors whose papers are held by the Library, such as Angela Carter and J.G. Ballard.
Ballard’s fiction was the subject of one of several special events held in the exhibition: a panel discussion featuring novelist Toby Litt, producer of the film version of Crash (1996), and the late author’s two daughters. Other events included celebrations of the work of Stanislaw Lem and Robert Holdstock and a discussion of the role of prediction and speculation in sf entitled “Worlds of Wonder?”; participating were sf authors and critics Brian W. Aldiss, Mark Bould, Neil Gaiman, Roger Luckhurst, Farah Mendlesohn, and Adam Roberts, among others. An auxiliary exhibit on “The Worlds of Mervyn Peake,” a major fantasy author and artist, began on 5 July and ran through 18 September.
To coincide with the exhibition, the British Library published Mike Ashley’s Out of this World, a freestanding genre study that functions as a kind of extended catalog. As one might expect from Ashley, author of the standard three-volume history of sf magazines (Liverpool UP, 2000-2006), the text—a historical/thematic study divided into the same six categories as the show itself—provides clear and intelligent, if a trifle dull, exposition, and is accompanied by a host of gorgeously reproduced images (book and magazine covers, film stills, and more). The volume can be purchased in the US from the University of Chicago Press; for publication details, see the entry in the Books Received column at the end of the review section in this issue.—Rob Latham, SFS
SFS Goes Electronic. Science Fiction Studies is changing its subscription options. Effective January 2012, SFS will be available exclusively in the following two formats: electronic-only or print+electronic. There will no longer be a print-only subscription option. All SFS subscriptions will continue to be for the calendar year. SFS has also joined JSTOR’s “Current Scholarship Program,” and JSTOR will service all of SFS’s institutional accounts. The new subscription rates (per annum) will be as follows:
ELECTRONIC-ONLY PRINT+ELECTRONIC
Institutions US$50.00 Institutions US$65.00
Individuals US$30.00 Individuals US$40.00POSTAGE FOR PRINT+ELECTRONIC OUTSIDE NORTH AMERICA
Institutions US$15.00
Individuals US$15.00
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