Ten (Stories) to The Stars

by Raymond Z. Gallun

  Thrust: What were your conscious motives—personal and/or professional—for selecting science fiction?

  Gallun: One conscious motive, particularly during those early days, was to make some money to live on, in a time when money was hard to come by; but getting paid for science fiction was like having a job which was mostly pleasure—which is quite an ideal situation. Also, I had ideas different enough from those of other scribes to make me want to express them.

  Thrust: Did you have any formal training in writing?

  Gallun: Training was just a matter of reading yarns that seemed good to me—maybe finding their defects, and what was good about them, and then trying to live through something, and put it down in an acceptable way. My first science fiction story, “The Crystal Ray," was written for Junior English in high school. “The Space Dwellers” followed quickly. These two finally got printed in Hugo Gernsback’s Air Wonder and Science Wonder in November, 1929, paying twenty-five and thirty dollars respectively. I was in! Big deal. I should add, though, that that many bucks bought much more than now.

  Thrust: What was the public attitude toward science fiction when you started out?

  Gallun: The public view of science fiction wasn’t very approving, though there was a small loyal element that was fascinated by it, as I was; one could surely tell by the letters in reader’s departments. I didn’t know anybody beyond myself, who was much interested, as a personal friend. Although I have no exact data, the people I was most in contact with looked upon it in a rather derogatory manner.

  Thrust: What was the status of the science-fiction market, particularly in terms of rates, in this period?

  Gallun: Back then, the science-fiction markets, particularly after the Depression got started, weren't very good. Pay was set at half a cent a word, except for Clayton's Astounding Science Fiction, which paid two cents. However, just as I was about to make it there, it folded. I'd taken a few cracks at Weird Tales, but it wasn’t my thing. When Astounding came back under Street & Smith, the market brightened a lot.

  Thrust: How did you view pulp science fiction at the time you broke into print?

  Gallun: I don’t quite know what "pulp” science fiction is. Of course, all the old magazines were printed on pulp paper, just as any kind of “quality" writing might be. Isn’t the present day Analog, and others, essentially still pulp, as far as the yarns are concerned? Lots of pulp was at least satisfying; whether it’s "good,” though, is harder to define, depending on who is reading it. My impression is that the Ziff-Davis Amazing, was more pulp than some of the others, but the circulation was pretty good, which indicates that it pleased many readers. When I was writing pulp, I might have wished it was on better paper; still, it was the kind of stuff which came most naturally to me. Though I was embarrassed by the vivid magazine cover illustrations, I understood that that was a strong and necessary selling factor.

  Thrust: From your perspective, how should the "pulp era" be remembered today?

  Gallun: An awful lot of present day science fiction is no better than pulp stuff. In fact, lots of it seems to have gone downward. I’m pretty tired of Galactic Empire stuff, and on a fantasy level, Tolkien imitations—monotonous and lugubrious, not to mention poorly done.

  Thrust: Would you agree with those critics who contend that you played a significant role in elevating the quality of pulp fiction to a more intelligent literary form?

  Gallun: I hope folks are right that I did that. I had a strong appreciation for good writing and was willing to toil at doing it as well as I could; I always kept a broad interest in general literature. If you get an idea that you think is really good, you want to do as good a job aq,you can, to make it as effective as you can—within the limits of time and patience, of course. Then there is the competition factor; you’re competing with other writers, in order to get into that small list of yarns that will be published. If you don’t do your best to improve, you're likely to be exed out—no paycheck!

  Thrust: Did you have a worked out philosophic view which you attempted to incorporate into your writing?

  Gallun: I guess that creeps in intuitively, and becomes part of the whole thing. What a writer fundamentally believes naturally is best, or he may often quite effectively argue a viewpoint like a good lawyer, to make a unified story, even though he does not fully believe what he says. And, of course, in portraying various characters in a yarn having differing views and beliefs, he must, to a degree, become those differing characters to make them real. In “Seeds of the Dusk," for example, I don’t know that I was much concerned with any moral dilemma, except that I had a sympathy with these sentient plants. To make the story sufficiently simple plot-wise, I had to have opposing bad guys; I had enough to tell about how the plants met their difficulties and enemies, and what their very different culture, science, etc. consisted of, without going into a more involved structure by making the Itorloo something more complicated than evilly decadent humans. Besides, as a matter of mood—the aging Earth, the ruined porcelain tower, symbol of a gentle, artistic human past that was dead—this peculiar decadence of the Itorloo seemed to match as part of Earth’s decline into senility. Their final demise, and the intrusion of greater and greater silence as a result, and the succession of these strange, universe-perigrinating beings, makes of this story, a unit of feeling. At least such, I think, was what I intended. In such things, I suppose a writer must follow intuition. Anyone who reads a story will draw his own conclusions about it, and it is nice to have a yarn with enough latitude to allow a considerable range for this. Moral awareness is fine; though I’ve sometimes suspected its overemphasis can pervert it into things less admirable.

  Thrust: What were some of the salient ideas or concepts that typified your fiction?

  Gallun: I was often concerned with trying to guess the physical structure, thought, and emotional characteristics of other-world creatures of an entirely separate origin. I tried not to borrow too much from the human world. I tried to escape the clichés of imagination which plague some science fiction efforts, such things as tigermen with stripes who go around growling, etc. Still, it is discouraging how limited our imaginations are. One is almost led to believe, however, that certain characteristics might be universal. For instance, fear, love, courage, etc. have definite biological functions, as do hunger, thirst, and the need for a proper temperature. For survival anywhere, are there any imaginable substitutes for these things? I also tried to construct other speculative comparisons with our own approach to science, or reversals of common ideas—like turning the living brain in a robot body around, and making it a robot brain in a living body. I like stories with characters who are entirely recognizable on an everyday level; however, I also like rather legendary characters. And I’m no reacher for Utopia; I don’t think we're built to stand such a place; nor contrary-wise, do I believe that man is generally such a lousy character.

  Thrust: How concerned were you with coming up with novel themes or plot twists?

  Gallun: I was always looking for them, and look, still. Some of the ideas I used many years ago have never been repeated that I know of, and I have wondered why. For instance, take the idea of life native to space itself. In 1934, I had a story titled, "A Beast of the Void," in Astounding. It was worked out as a kind of nature study—from the time when the man found the infant beast in a rock which might have been an ancient meteorite, extracted the creature from the rock where it had lain dormant, revived it by exposing it to sunlight, and watched it grow, meanwhile observing its vital metabolism based on various types of energy, including solar and atomic and a body fluid of high atomic weight. It consumed soil and rock, and it grew until it was a great radially-ribbed monster, dangerous to all Earthly life, not because it was vicious anymore, but because of its radioactive emanations. And it could fly into space by a natural form of corpuscular or ion propulsion. The man, already doomed by radiation, constructed a sealed cabin to strap to Darkness' back, and took his strange pet away from Earth, as a humanitari
an gesture, but also to give himself a glimpse of other worlds. So why until very recently at least, have I never seen a story about space biology? There may have been, of course, but if so, I’ve missed them. There seems to be a wide range of reasonable and romantic possibilities here. And why have I seen only one story which concerns binary worlds, other than one, called "Brother Worlds," which I turned out for Thrilling Wonder, in the early 1950s? I mean two worlds of approximately the same size, rotating around a common center, quite close together. If both were inhabited, even the primitive inhabitants of each planet might see that their respective companion-world was like their own; the round-world concept would come early; space travel, being readily suggested, would also come early. The possibilities for construction of yarns beyond this point are wide enough. And binary worlds must be quite common; our own Earth-Moon system is almost one. So why the curious neglect?

  Thrust: Were you interested in predicting the shape of things to come in those early stories?

  Gallun: I don’t think I was much concerned about predicting the future, with specifics about historical time, since it’s almost pure chance if you come out right; certain developments, though, lay in the expected course of events—Moon landings, improved medical means, probes to the planets, etc. The thing that is still startling to me is the advance in communications—a few watts of power being able to transmit signals over hundreds of millions of miles, reconstructing on-scene photographs from out there. For such things I still feel wonder.

  Thrust: Your brand of science fiction was intensely human—that is, it portrayed aliens and robots as integral parts of humanity. Were you trying to convey a specific message?

  Gallun: I’ve tried to make aliens and robots more or less human at the points where it counts, for it is where we can relate to them best. It seems to be human to anthropomorphise many things. Thus, a mountain or a great rock can become a loved and soulful presence. And even “Peter Pan” is portrayed in medical advertising as a little green devil grinning from under a derby hat; human mythology seems to follow its primitive structure in any era. Anyhow, it is perhaps all but impossible for us to try to imagine aliens that are not in some way human; our minds won’t stretch to that much difference, perhaps; on the other hand, it may be possible to conclude that aliens, if they are biological, must have familiar biological characteristics. Since they must survive against danger, they must know protective emotions similar to fear, courage, anger, determination, etc. If their kind is to survive, they must reproduce; if they must protect their helpless young, they must know the equivalent of love.

  Thrust: Were you surprised that your early story, "Old Faithful," created such a stir in the science fiction world?

  Gallun: Yes, I was rather surprised how well it was received. I tell the story of its genesis in my book, The Best of Raymond Z. Gallun. Briefly, I wrote the story, evenings at home, on the dining-room table—yes, by the light of a kerosene lamp—does this seem today a curious incongruity? “Old Faithful” was painfully written out and typed. Being by then a little doubtful of the shaky Gernsback publications, I sent the manuscript to Amazing Stories, which was also struggling to survive. I think it was well over a year before T. O'Conor Sloane, the editor, sent the story back with no comment that I remember. So I thought I had a dud, too much my own thing, and too much out of formula to interest any editor. It was only after I had sold several other yarns to the revived Astounding Stories, that I reread "Old Faithful," and, for the heck of it, sent it to F. Orlin Tremaine, who was then the editor. It was over a month before I heard—via correspondence with somebody outside of Street & Smith Publications—that Desmond Hall, then associate editor of Astounding, had said that the story was very much liked. My check arrived shortly thereafter. So, such were the uncertainties about what has since become my best-remembered yarn.

  Thrust: In an entreating story titled, "Prodigal's Aura," you suggest the results of interplanetary travel might prove to be quite beneficial. That story was written in 1951, over a quarter-century ago. What did you hope for at the time? Have your hopes been realized?

  Gallun: The solar system of “Prodigal’s Aura" was superficially more interesting than the one which has so far emerged as a reality. Also, its scheduling was somewhat ahead of how things have turned out. But a scribe had to make the scenes of his story as interesting as possible. Benefits have emerged from the space program: in material senses, these are so far just technological spin-offs; no commercial products yet come from out there, and except for metals retrieved from asteroids brought close, may never come into much use until people are working on the Moon or using them in local living on Mars. Exploration of the local solar system might yet yield us some surprises—in the depths of the Gas Giants, out of the triangular pyramids of Mars, its soil, and the over fifty-five million square miles of its surface, only lightly touched so far in two tiny spots. Then there is the listening for organized signals from the stars. Yes, I am optimistic. And if innumerable old fantasies get broken up by reality, the reality itself can be more interesting, satisfying, and unimaginable than any imagining.

  Thrust: A prominent theme in your work was the notion of body-miniaturization. How did you attempt to work this problem out in your writing?

  Gallun: The concept of miniaturization had a certain romantic appeal to me. What kid of whatever age in years doesn't enjoy imagining being tiny or a giant? At dust-grain level, the same physical laws continue to apply, but are altered in effect. We could float in the air, see dust floating by as rocks or bundles or twigs. We would be able to do strange things—even winning against humans of normal size which would have difficulty in even finding us. Certain problems are, of course, hard to surmount logically; for example, how could so tiny a brain enable us to retain intelligence? My answer has been to put a converted brain on an electronic rather than a chemical level. My best working out of this has been in People Minus X. This story concerned the replacement of the natural, protoplasmic tissues in the human body with a special living-tissue called vitaplasm. Vitaplasm is slightly heavier than protoplasm; it contains silicon; it is capable of the same kind of water-based, combustion-energized metabolism as natural protoplasm; but in the absence of oxygen to breathe, it can shift to other energy-sources, including the non-chemical—nuclear energy, sunlight, cosmic radiation, etc. By having his normal body tissues reconstructed in vitaplasmic form, anybody can become a stronger and heartier, more lasting individual, capable, for example, of going into space without any protective equipment. As such an android, he can become, in effect, an immortal demigod. The story evolves as a conflict between the adventurous persons who accept this new option eagerly, and those who hate it and are fearful, and want to remain as they are. As a solution to the inevitable tensions, the new android species shrug and go away as pioneers to the planets of Sirius.

  Thrust: In writing such stories, how did you conjure up in your mind what life might be like on other planets?

  Gallun: I was tired of the clichés—cat-men, alligatormen, etc. They're still just crudely masquerading humans. These characters laugh, become mean, even drink in very human-type bars, like the bad men in the wild west. But take away a character's tears and smiles, his capacity for such behavior and even the knowledge that such things exist some place, and whatever humanity can be parallel in such a being shines through with dramatic surprise and pleasure, and with far greater probability.

  Thrust: You've described “The Restless Tide" as your favorite tale. Why? What sets it apart from the rest of your work?

  Gallun: This was one story aimed from the start at analysis of the nature of man, as it seemed to me then, and I think the chain of events since 1950 bears this out quite well. Mankind has always engaged in struggle, struggling all the way from what we were to what we are; it is not only mankind that is involved, it is the whole of biological history. We still struggle for peace, and beyond that, for some Utopia or Nirvana. But when we say we struggle for such things, we are trying to combine inco
mpatibles. As a result, we have the Great Human Paradox that continues to confound us; there is the most militant peace-lover, who, if you try to point out some defect in his philosophy, will likely poke you in the eye in the most warlike manner. Yet, there is that Bright Star of Perfection and Total Harmony that keeps leading us on. As long as it is distant enough, it remains an inspiration for good; but if it gets too close, its aspect changes. The mountaintop, seen from afar, may be quite beautiful; however, if you get there and have to stay, it may become quite miserable. Perfection is stasis—it can’t go forward, because there is nothing better; it can’t go back, because then it would be less than Perfection. So it stands still, ceases to live, and is a kind of death. To lusty, vigorous humans, Perfection would soon become utterly, maddeningly dull—though they might not realize this in advance. Perfection cancels itself by its own intrinsic Imperfection. Nirvana is simply non-existent, and the primitive human psycho revolts in disgust. No amount of reasoning or civilized veneer can down those primitive, struggling drives. In “The Restless Tide,” people agree on a compromise; when restlessness comes, either from too much struggle or from too much ease and comfort, there must be a periodic change to keep them in balance, and out of dangerous trouble. I worked for three weeks on this particular story. I wanted to get the incident-placing and wording just right for what I was trying to do. In general, I feel I was fairly successful in this. It is obvious, of course, that I am not a Utopian, nor do I put man down as an eternally evil creature as so many tiresomely do. Rather, we are “like a sturdy plant, crude but magnificent, and caught between rot and fire.”