Sam Moskowitz’s “Uncrowned Masters” (1940) appeared in Fantascience Digest #12 (January-February 1940), so exactly eighty-one years ago. Moskowitz was twenty years old when he wrote it. (Like Wilson Tucker and “How To Write a Weird Tale”.) In Moskowitz’s piece, he centers in on six SF writers he feels are not appreciated enough. He begins by acknowledging the following as crowned masters: A. Merritt, E. E. “Doc” Smith, Stanley G. Weinbaum, Murray Leinster, Homer Eon Flint, George Allan England and John W. Campbell. He gives three criteria for what a master brings to the table: 1) causes a sensation with their first story, 2) style suited to SF and 3) a unique style all their own. He admits that some of these above-mentioned authors do not have all three, such as E. E. Smith, who Moskowitz feels got a boost by luck or timing instead of talent.
John Wyndham
Intro out of the way, Sam tells us of six other writers who deserve to be honored. Two are still masters today (and are actually read), a third was but has fallen by the wayside, and three are virtually unknown. It is these last three I want to focus on. The first current master is John Beynon Harris (better known as John Wyndham). Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids was recently refilmed for the third or fourth time. Moskowitz knows him from his early Pulp stories and the later John Beynon work, which he seems less enthusiastic about. (I thought it was only me who felt that way!) The novels that made his name famous world wide are still eleven years away when Moskowitz wrote this piece.
Clark Ashton Smith
Clark Ashton Smith is the second. He has been loved and denounced over the decades but currently is popular. Lovecraft mentioned him in “Supernatural Horror in Literature”. Some critics find his multi-syllable vocabulary obnoxious while others find him a poetic genius of fantasy. (You decide. The fact that I have so many posts on CAS will let you know which way I fall…) Moskowitz mentions his “Master of the Asteroid” in particular. Nightshade Press released all his original fantasies and Science Fiction in six corrected volumes. S. T. Joshi did a collection with notes. Not much chance of him being forgotten any time soon.
D. D. Sharp
The one who was popular then faded like a falling star is D. D. Sharp. This author made a splash with “The Eternal Man” (criteria 1) but never really built on the success afterwards. I’ve written about him before as well.
Now let’s look at the other three. These are the ones that intrigue me. Not prolific, they wrote a handful of pieces then disappeared. I have included E. F. Bleiler’s opinions from Science Fiction: The Gernsback Years (1998) for contrast. Bleiler’s book was published shortly after Moskowitz’s death.
W(illiam). K. Sonnemann
Moskowitz’s praise of Sonnemann includes quoting the editor, T. O’Connor Sloane who published the stories, that he was ‘deeply impressed’. Sam tells us: “If you understand Sloane you must know this remark was the greatest compliment he could pay. Sloane was known for letting exceptional stories stand on their own merits.”
“The Master Minds of Venus” (Amazing Stories, September 1934) has inventor, James Samuel Lee, experimenting with radio. He picks up the planet Venus. The Venusians are advanced in technology and telepathy. They train Lee to use their techniques in exchange for earth seeds. Lee uses his new powers to root out corrupt politicians and set up a similar system of government as the Venusians on Earth. (One that has no crime but also a three-tier class system!) When a power in Asia attacks, the Venusians destroy them with a ray. Eventually the people of Venus visit Earth, proving to be tall, blond humanoids. “The story is long and rambling, with considerable padding.. Far too long, too naive, and too muddled.” Science Fiction with Asian villains in not new and sadly begins with the first SF classic character, Buck Rogers.
“The Council of Drones” (Amazing Stories, October 1936) “The story is over long, but some of the bee lore is interesting.” Bleiler notes that Sonnemann “has had practical experience in bee husbandry”. Damon Knight thought highly enough of the story to include it in his Science Fiction of the 1930s. A scientist transfers his the mind of his friend, Fred Stevens, into a queen bee so he can experience the life of a bee for five minutes. Something goes wrong and the process doesn’t reverse. As a human-intelligent bee, the new queen tries ways to protect her hive from humans. This ultimately fails but she does spawn a new race of intelligent insects. She is destroyed when the farmer accidentally crushes her. Fred returns to his body, which has been in a nursing home for three months. The two men destroy the new strain of intelligent bees. Bleiler again: “The author avoids the usual facial personification of insects in such stories.” Paul Ernst and David H. Keller used other methods (miniaturization) to observe termite life.
“Greta, Queen of Queens” (Amazing Stories, February 1938) is a sequel to “The Council of Drones” and appeared in one of the last issues that Sloane edited. Soon the magazine would be sold and he would be replaced by Ray Palmer. Sloane writes of the story: “We have had in the past, many insect stories about the ways of ants and bees, but this story…the Editor feels that the development of sentiment in it gives it a very interesting cast of its own.”The intelligent bees have survived and they help the Americans in a war against those pesky Asiatics. Fred dies but is a hero to the bees. Bleiler does not comment on the story as it falls outside the time-frame of his book (1926-1936).
Stephen G. Hale
Moskowitz notes that Hale only wrote the two stories but was alive in Philadelphia, where he worked as a high school art instructor. “Whenever I think of great science fiction stories, I think of Hale’s last man on earth combing the sky in desperation…”
“The Laughing Death” (Amazing Stories, April 1931) The scientist, Murch, invents atomic power then uses it to drive boring machines called Worms. He is able to dig tunnels very quickly. He builds some of these because he knows a great war is coming. His arch rival, Grubsnig (Ginsburg backwards) cuts the controlling cable on one of his machines and the device cuts the Earth into two pieces. As Moskowitz mentioned, Murch stands there watching the other half of the earth drift away. The story’s implied anti-Semitism is the worst kind of subliminal messaging. Bleiler thought of the story: “A rather confusing mish mash of motifs…”
Hale wrote a letter to Amazing Stories (April 1932) in which he addresses a matter of racism (he apologizes for implying Spanish people are not white) then goes on to describe a cross-country camping trip. He tells of running into a fellow who was just finishing the current issue of AS with his story. They discussed how authors sometimes leave their stories unresolved. The encounter helped inspire the sequel.
“Worlds Adrift” (Amazing Stories, May 1932) One of the few survivors of the hemisphere separation, Bob, joins forces with an old man who calls himself Brown. (Obviously Grubsnig.) Together they create a device from the Worms that will pull the two halves of the earth together. Unfortunately they don’t take the Moon into account and the device fails. One half of the world has the Moon stuck to it and the other drifts off into space. (Shades of Space 1999?) Bleiler: “Not much better than the first story.” And as for giving the story an ending, Hale has simply replaced one open-ended ending with another.
That these two authors remained unknown doesn’t surprise me. Amazing Stories under Sloane sank further and further down the fans’ radar as other Pulps came along that provided better material over-all. This lack of warmth is evident in Lester Del Rey’s Worlds of Science Fiction (1979) and Isaac Asimov’s Before the Golden Age (1974). Since fans had written the magazine off as mostly bad, these “gems” might have gone unnoticed.
K(arl). F(rancis). Ziska (1900-1979)
The next author had the advantage of appearing in the much better liked Astounding, though this is in the Tremaine years before John W. Campbell made it the central publication of the Golden Age of Science Fiction. The plots are not so much unique but have other qualities. Moskowitz quotes Campbell: “Does the plot really matter when the writer is so damned good, and the characterization all that could be desired?” This seems like a reverse on the whole “Literature of Ideas” philosophy.
“Succubus” (Astounding Stories, May 1934) has a mad scientist, Boronoff, cross-breed plants and humans. He creates a beautiful female vampire that eventually crushes him to death. As a fan of plant monsters, I am there but the plot was not new in 1934. (It wasn’t even that new when H. G. Wells used it in 1894.) It would be endlessly repeated in the Horror comics. E. F. Bleiler says the story is a trite theme handled in a trite manner and wonders if it is meant to be a parody.
“Man of Ages” (Astounding Stories, October 1934) gives us a man who goes by various names and is the most accomplished athlete in the world. He is also a war hero, having defeated the invading Mongolians almost single-handedly. When Dr. MacPherson needs a subject for a human trial of a new drug, our superman volunteers. Now we learn that he has been alive since 1932 (The date is 2450.) His father had blasted him with cosmic rays and turned him into an immortal titan. MacPherson administers his lethal drug but the man survives. Let’s keep in mind a few dates. Superman would premiere in 1938 but Philip Wylie’s Gladiator was 1930. Bleiler notes that the story is similar to Wylie and that it is a silly tale. Moskowitz ends the entry by suggesting that Siegel & Shuster got the idea for Superman from Ziska’s “Man of Ages”. I know I thought of the Hulk (gamma rays) and the Fantastic Four (cosmic rays). The Pulps really did do it all first.
The author of “Uncrowned Masters” ends with the hope that “someday the world will wake to the brilliance of their writings”. He also holds out hope for Laurence Manning, Chester D. Cuthbert, Thos. S. Gardiner, Clare Winger Harris, Francis Flagg, W. Alexander. Will H. Gray, Phillip Jacques Bartel and others. He ends with typical fanzine bravado about them returning gallantly, presumably with trumpets and parades. Don’t hold your breath.
I wonder how he saw these choices years later. Youthful silliness or did the opinions hold? We can glean a small window on this from his later publications. His Modern Masterpieces of Science Fiction (1965) does not contain any of these six authors. (To be fair, he had 25 more years to choose from.) Of his twenty-five anthologies, only John Wyndham appears (twice) and with early Pulp tales. In his non-fiction books, like The Seekers of Tomorrow (1963) only Wyndham garners an entry.
Sam Moskowitz’s “Uncrowned Masters” is a snapshot in time. Sam matured as SF did likewise. He became a champion of many writers, of Science Fiction and Fantasy in general, and one of the first real critics of the genre. That these youthful selections may have aged over time is hardly surprising. I think of my own examples, not writing so much as television. Try and get your kids to sit through an episode of Space 1999 or The Man From Atlantis! (Two shows I loved back in the 1970s.) Nostalgia keeps me watching. They look like coyotes in a trap, eyeing their legs….
