Thoughts like this lead to trouble. I was hooked—or rather I had hooked myself. I already had experience in running a convention, having been chairman of one at the Henry Hudson Hotel in New York that the Hydra Club had sponsored. In addition I was personally acquainted with almost all of the American and British writers and I numbered a good many of European writers and editors as friends. Not only that, for some years I had been in correspondence with writers from behind what Winston Churchill called the Iron Curtain (a term not original with him; he borrowed it from Goebbels), the socialist countries under Soviet domination. I knew that I had had books published in the Soviet Union, since I had read reviews of them. At that time no money was ever involved, since the Soviets had never joined the international copyright agreement. The West stole their books—they stole ours. I had read some translations of Soviet SF so I knew they had a burgeoning SF literature of their own. Also, after living in Europe for over twenty years, I knew a lot of SF people there. My books sold well in Scandinavia, Germany, and Italy. We had camped through all these countries, meeting editors and writers. (Our children thought the world was populated only by SF writers. They were there at the end of any trip to any country.)
I broached the idea to Brian Aldiss and he was instantly enthusiastic. With his reassurance and aid I got the ball rolling for the First World Science Fiction Writers Conference, to be held in Dublin in September 1976. The fact that I was living in Ireland was a big bonus. Ireland was not a NATO country, that is, not a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The Soviets thought of NATO only as a group dedicated to the overthrow of the Soviet Union: the authorities there frowned upon cultural visits to enemy nations. At that time an Irish friend and keen SF reader, Fiach O’Broin, was working for Bord Fáilte, the Irish tourist board. He was not only an enthusiastic reader of SF but a good Irish civil servant who appeared to know everyone connected in any way with the government. Over a Guinness I broached the idea to him and I could not ignore the gleam of enthusiasm that glowed in his eye. Easily enough done, he insisted, not a problem at all.
Well it wasn’t easy, nothing in Ireland is, but with Fiach’s help an SF conference began to take form. All of the government agencies were behind me since this would encourage tourism in Ireland and bring in tourist money. Bord Fáilte would help with publicity. Hotel and travel bookings would be handled by the CIE. I also had an introduction to the Arts Council. This was vital if there were to be any Eastern Bloc attendees. In order to for them attend a conference abroad there had to be an official government invitation. The Arts Council of Ireland was official enough. They were shy at first, thinking I wanted them to shell out money.
Not at all! Not at all! What I wanted from them was a signed, official invitation. I would take care of printing more copies of the invitation. It was worded so that any writer could use it. Armed with this, the science fiction writers could get their various writers’ unions to pay expenses.
For aid in contacting the different governments I went for assistance to the Russian embassy. Here I met the cultural attaché (who was also the commercial attaché), a very pleasant man named Romanov. A good omen. He would be happy to oblige—but his hands were tied. No cultural agreement existed between the USSR and the Republic of Ireland. He explained. “I speak to the Irish government. Sign agreement, I say. Then you send us harp player. We send you the Bolshoi Ballet.”
This seemed like an offer that was hard to resist. We both knew why this lack of contact existed. Ireland was fervently Catholic and anti-Communist. Irish volunteers had actually fought for Franco against the Republicans in the Civil War. But times were changing. My tourist official allies were apolitical. A tourist from any country was gold. Sign! The pressure on the arts people was great. They bent—and broke. Very quickly after that cultural relationships were opened between the two countries. Score one cultural spring for science fiction. Ireland now admitted that the Soviet Union existed. The conference began to take shape, and thank goodness for the support of my family. Todd and Moira were both living with us in Ireland at the time and it could not have been done without their aid. The first writers began to trickle in from the States, mostly old friends; soon Joan ran a boarding house/restaurant for penurious SF writers. It was all beginning to coalesce.
Memberships began to come in—and not only from writers. SF publishers were equally enthusiastic and I signed up many of them as well. The usual number of things went wrong that go wrong with any conference. We got past them. First there was the matter of gophers. Fan volunteers at any convention who will “gopher” anything. I hoped that the Irish Science Fiction Association would fill that hole. I told them they must wear suits, shirts, and ties, which led to moans of agony. Okay—borrow your father’s. And all beards to be trimmed neatly, girls exempted.
Then the members began to arrive in the middle of September, 1976. Writers from the United States and the British Isles were well represented. Sam Lundwall, on a recent visit, came up with a photo taken at the conference and it is a bittersweet nostalgia trip to look at it. There, smiling and filled with life, are Ted Sturgeon, Gordy Dickson, Alfie Bester, Kyril Bonfiglioli, Jim White, Forry Ackerman, Bob Sheckley, Anne McCaffrey, Rob Holdstock, and Naomi Mitchison; all gone to the big conference in the sky.
Tom Doherty represented American publishers; John Bush, Toby Roxburgh, Nick Austin and Nick Webb represented Britain. Happily, French authors and publishers turned up. Sam Lundwall made it all the way from Sweden.
But no Russians. The one Russian I wanted to meet was Yevgeny Brandis. He had signed up—but unhappily died soon after. He was a world-renowned critic of English literature who had now turned to science fiction. (He had compared my work favorably to that of Jonathan Swift; I really did want to meet him!) In fact the only East Bloc members were Péter Kucka and Peter Szabo from Hungary.
They must have given the con a good report because when we had the second conference eighteen months later we got not only Russians, but Hungarians, East Germans, Czechs, and many more from many countries.
The closing ceremony of the conference was a banquet where we enjoyed a very good Irish meal of smoked salmon, rib of beef, and dessert flambé—all at the unbelievable price of eleven dollars a head.
This first conference was a success—at least in Ireland. Press and television turned up and we had great coverage. The daily sessions were good and informative. Particularly a panel where writers told publishers what they should be publishing. While the publishers told the authors what they should be writing. Great stuff.
In fact things went so successfully and there was so much enthusiasm for another meeting that I bit the bullet and starting planning another one. Once we’d had a successful first conference, everyone who had missed it signed up for the second one. The venue this time was at the Royal Marine Hotel in Dun Laoghaire, the ferry port close to Dublin.
It was a resounding success. The Russians arrived. Yeremy Parnov came, the president of the SF branch of the writers’ union—along with the president of the union himself. This was a great coup for SF because the writers’ union ran publishing in those dark pre-glasnost days. They saw that only those authors they approved of were published. The Soviets opened the gates to the West for the party faithful. Hungarians, Czechs, East Germans, they all came. The Russians did not have very much money to spend and brought suitcases full of tinned fish to eat. Although Joan was in bed with a rotten cold, she took pity on them and their food and invited them to dinner. We did not have a lot in the house but a meal was cobbled together from packet soup and other fairly pedestrian items found in the cupboard. The Russian guests ate with gusto and were extremely flattering with their praise for the simple meal; I guess it was much better than having to eat cold tinned fish!
Attendees arrived from the West as well, authors and publishers from Germany, Italy, Sweden, Norway, France—they were all there, plus the Americans and Brits, of course.
And, oh, did we enjoy ourselves. This was cultural
intercourse at its very best. (I will close the curtain on any other forms of intercourse.…) Deals were made, contracts signed. I met my Italian publisher, Gianfranco Viviani, and my German publisher, Wolfgang Jeschke, and we became the best of friends; still are.
Behind the scenes Moira was coping with the complications of people arriving from various countries speaking a variety of languages and communication not always flowing optimally. She thought she had everyone sorted and settled when an exhausted-looking man with a large suitcase arrived and stated loudly, “I am Russian and I am staying!” Eventually a room was found and diplomatic relations saved.
After the final session there was, by popular request, another meeting. Enthusiasm was high. How could we continue the good works started here? An organization was born: World SF. In a moment of madness I accepted the nomination as founding president.
For many years it grew and flowered. It was truly international, with meetings in many countries right around the globe, with officers from many lands. World SF became international. We had conferences in many of the member countries—then went right around the world. The conference we held in China opened that country to SF. I am much cheered the way my original idea has grown and very happy to see SF authors linking hands right around the world.
18
I was very ill and in April 2000 had to undergo open-heart surgery: I had a quintuple bypass operation. They cut my sternum in two and then wired it back together. For weeks it creaked when I breathed—the cardiologist told me this was normal and assured me it wouldn’t break apart.
Nat Sobel, my agent, and my publisher, Tom Doherty, came up with two books to get me some money: A Stainless Steel Trio—an omnibus of three of my novels—and 50 in 50, which I did do some work on after I left the hospital. I picked the stories after Paul Tomlinson scanned them all for me. The collection was published to mark my first fifty years as a professional science fiction writer. They say the first fifty years are the hardest.…
* * *
In 2004, Brian Aldiss and I were inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. He and I were the two living recipients, Mary Shelley and E. E. “Doc” Smith the dead ones. Not bad company to be in. The ceremony took place at the annual Campbell Conference in Kansas. We had agreed, Brian and I, that as we were being inducted into the SF Hall of Fame, we’d get all dolled up. Moira had purchased a new shirt, cummerbund, cufflinks, etc., and carefully packed it all up for me. When I got to my hotel I’d hung up my tux and thrown my shoes in closet. When the time came to get dressed, I couldn’t find my shoes so I wore my brown sandals. The photos would only show me above the waist, so it wouldn’t be a problem. Brian came down in his tuxedo—and a pair of slippers: he’d forgotten to bring his shoes or lost them or something. Then a fan took a photo of us from the side showing our shoes! When Moira saw it she said, “Daddy, is that the best you can do?”
The Campbell Conference is also where they now present the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. Brian and I, along with a group of friends, created the award in 1972. Our intention had been to found a prestigious literary prize that was awarded for something more than merely the results of a popularity poll. It was to be awarded by a jury made up of authors and academics who taught science fiction. It didn’t really work out and it was a foolish idea by hindsight.
We gave Barry Malzberg’s novel Beyond Apollo the first John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 1973. It was a choice that caused a minor feud. Leon Stover thought it was a terrible book and the kind of book that John Campbell would not have bought. It was a very avant-garde novel, and the whole point of the award was to acknowledge well-written books of the kind John Campbell would not have bought. I didn’t particularly like the book, but Brian and Will McNelly and others were all pretty hot about it, so we gave it the award. It was years before Leon talked to us again.
* * *
I have just sat back in my chair and have taken a good, long look at what I have been writing here. For all the very obvious reasons, I have been concentrating on my life in writing, my personal ambitions, woes, failures—and successes. I had the sudden realization that the most important fact of note in all this history is the momentous importance of my wife Joan in every bit of my existence. What my life and my career would have been like if I had not been married to her, I hesitate to think. Without her love and companionship my existence, not to mention my work, would have been quite different. Without her beside me at all times I would not have done the things that we have done together, been the places that we have been—nor would I have written the books that I have written.
So with her love and her unstinting aid I have become the writer that I am. Fifty novels later I pause to reflect. Writing is a solitary profession—but it should not be a lonely one. I can think of many people who have affected my career, aided it as well. Friends, teachers, other writers. Every writer needs support. A good agent must head any list of authorial necessities. Without a good, reliable, intelligent, tested, experienced agent, a writer has a built-in, lifelong handicap.
This is a truism that has proven itself time and time again. I knew one very well-known SF author who, to save 10 percent of his earnings, acted as his own agent. Early in his career an editor friend and I estimated that any fair agent would have doubled or trebled his income. By the end of his career he was out millions of dollars. (On the other side of the coin, there was another very good writer who stayed with a bad agent for his entire career; he was so lost in the agent’s stable of second-raters that he received the same price for the last book he wrote that he did for his first one.)
As an artist, then as a writer, living and working in New York in the early days, I really had no need for an agent. When I first began working as an editor I began to have business contacts with most of the agents in the city. I was glad that I still handled my own work since I never hit it off with any of them except Bob Mills; Robert P. Mills. He was the managing editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction from its inception. He was also founding editor of Venture Science Fiction. When Tony Boucher resigned as editor of F&SF Bob stepped in as editor there as well. He liked my stories and bought them—but was a friend as well as an editor. It was my good luck to be in New York when he made a major career change from editing and became a literary agent. I happily climbed aboard his wagon. I think I was his second client; Gordy Dickson was the first.
Our business and personal relationship continued for a good number of years. But I was living abroad when he became ill, and I knew nothing about it. When he died I found myself agentless and friendless in the cold world of publishing. What to do? It was panic-stations time.
Once a writer begins to sell seriously he or she must have an agent—this is a matter of fact, not opinion. A doctor who treats himself has a fool for a patient. The same is equally true of writers and agents. It was most depressing. I was living in Europe, pinned down to a writing schedule and unable to get to New York. And if I did—what would I do when I got there? After editing countless magazines, and over fifty anthologies, I knew all of the agents who handled science fiction. I could not see myself embracing any of them. For the first few years after Bob died, when contracts came up, I just renewed them, afraid to change a thing. But this was just painting over the cracks and had no future. Reluctantly, I scheduled a trip to New York, not really sure what would happen when I got there.
Then serendipity struck. A film producer friend in London told me that while I was in the Apple I should look up a literary agent friend of his. Yeah, yeah. I made a note of the name. But when I reached the city and talked to some friendly editors I began to realize that I had struck the mother lode. I wasn’t acquainted with Nat Sobel, because, at the time, he had no SF writers in his stable. But he had many good writers, and even numbered English publishers and major magazines among his clients. He was a big-time agent, well known and well respected. But would he look at me and my specialty field? He not only looked—but he smiled.
We have been go
od friends since the moment we met. And he is tops in a very competitive field. Liked and appreciated not only by the authors in his stable, but by editors and publishers as well. Not only did joining Sobel Weber Associates seem like a good idea at the time, but it has been the prize-winner ever since. My everlasting affection and appreciation, Nat. Since you will read this first, allow me at least this little bit of commendation—knowing full well if I go on you will ruthlessly expunge all personal detail.
But you can’t stop me saying … thank you! My advice to all writers is to get a good agent. Not just a good one, get the best. After that is done, take a deep sigh of relief and turn to the next big hurdle. Which is of course finding a good editor. I can happily report that I have been blessed with most exemplary editors, first in the magazines and then in the books. Head and shoulders above the pack was, of course, John W. Campbell, Jr. In his heyday he was the emperor of the SF world. His death did not diminish him; nothing could. He will stand forever as the editor who invented and shaped modern science fiction.
No hands will be raised in protest when I say this. If, like me, you grew up under the umbrella of Astounding Science Fiction, you were present at the birth of the world. The old Amazing Stories was a great read when you were six years old. If you had any taste at all, you began to have your doubts by the time you reached seven. I was twelve years old in 1937 when John became editor of Astounding Stories and the new age began. He retitled the magazine Astounding Science-Fiction a year later, and it stayed with that name until 1960 when it became the more sedate Analog. But whatever it was titled it was always his brainchild, his invention: the magazine that changed the world—our little SF world, that is. John knew exactly what he wanted to publish and worked his writers very, very hard to get them to realize that vision. The pulp hacks went to the wall and his band of accomplished writers prospered. Among their ranks are E. E. Smith, Robert Heinlein, A. E. van Vogt, Eric Frank Russell, L. Sprague de Camp, Isaac Asimov, Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore, Clifford Simak, Theodore Sturgeon, Jack Williamson—even L. Ron Hubbard. Soon their ranks would be expanded by fans who read these first giants of the Golden Age, then became ASF writers themselves. Like James Blish, Gordon R. Dickson and … myself.
Harry Harrison! Harry Harrison! Page 24