History Fail
25. Aug, 2009 
14 Comments
According to IO9, SF didn’t really penetrate our cultural awareness until it hit television.
They mention television of the past in passing in this introductory piece to a week’s worth of SF (and other genres) on the babble box. As usual, however, the focus is on current day and, as usual, their contentions are woefully historically inaccurate.
The opening makes this statement:
Science fiction started with novels and pulps, but mass consumption of the genre truly began when spaceships, aliens, time travel, and preternatural events invaded the small screen.
Depends on what you mean by science fiction, so far as the starting thing is concerned, but NOTHING was labelled science fiction (scientifiction) until the pulps in 1926, so – No. Science Fiction started with the pulps.
Nitpicky for sure. You could retroactively call the novels that Wells and Verne wrote science fiction, though a truer definition would perhaps be Victorian Adventure stories, Fantasies or ‘Scientific Romances’.
However, the real historyfail here is the contention that “mass consumption” (which I take to mean mass appeal/mainstream popularity/cultural penetration) of SF did not begin until the arrival of the television.
Entirely untrue. Metropolis – Fritz Lang’s movie – received international acclaim. In the silent film era. It did not, however, spawn a long tail. That development would be reserved for Sunday comic heroes Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon.
Buck (Anthony) hit the pages of Amazing Stories in 1928. It was re-imagined as a Daily comic (nationally syndicated) in 1929. A few months later, a color Sunday strip was added. The strips spawned book reprints and book tie-ins. The comic strip was discontinued in the late 60s! In 1932, Buck was serialized on radio. In 1933 a short film promo was premiered at the Worlds Fair (see it here). In 1939 a movie serial was produced. From 1935 on, the property generated all manner of toys.
Flash Gordon, created to compete with Buck, went even further.: Sunday strip in 1934, daily in 1940. Radio in 1935. THREE movie serials in 1936, 38, 40. Toys galore. Product endorsements, book tie-ins, the works.
Considering the technological restrictions of the day, the impact that these science fiction properties had on the culture is probably actually greater than anything that has since come along: you couldn’t view or listen to these things on your own schedule by streaming them on the web – you had to make time in your schedule to go or be at a particular place at a special time. There was no such thing as back-to-back schedules, no three-peat of a show during the week, no re-cap of the previous season.
There were tons of newspapers and multi-tons of comic strips back in those days. Of the few that remain in our cultural awareness today, two are science fiction properties. (A few others – Dick Tracy, Tarzan. How many others from that era can you name off the top of your head?) And these properties are STILL being “reimagined” to this day. Talk about impact.
You could say that a resurgence of science fiction’s popularity occurred with the advent of television – but not that it began with television.
You could also say that life actually existed before the internet – but what would be the point?
As I said in email: a) I doubt highly Terry would have used the phrase significantly earlier there; and b) it wouldn’t be relevant to the issue of when the phrase started to move out of “incredibly obscure” — meaning about 2-6 people using it — into as many as the couple of dozen of us using it by 1974-5, let alone it beginning to break out to more dozens of people within the next couple of years, let alone it going any further until 1982.
Although if you want to pin down the very first coinage/use, double-checking there would be helpful, as would asking any of Terry’s friends (not to mention his widow, Carol Carr) of the time: Greg Benford, Lizzy Lynn, Avedon Carol, Ted White, Debbie Notkin — it’s a long list, Terry had a lot of friends, and was much loved and is much missed.
And maybe Terry picked it up from someone else, let me stress. All I can say is that I got it from him, and he’s the source for the other folks in our circle of the time (there were many overlapping circles, of course, as there always are), so far as I know and recall.
It’s definitely the sort of usage that Terry would coin, to be sure. But that’s hardly definitive.
got the email and as I said in response – I’d really like to see the dates on those earlier, more obscure APAs, and whether or not Terry did use the phrase there.
Further: the first usage in a book seems to be, and I’m pretty sure this is correct (I also know Jesse Sheidlower), when David Hartwell used it in Age of Wonders in 1982.
I think it’s most likely he picked it up from Patrick Nielsen Hayden, though David might have come from it via other routes; you can ask either. Age of Wonders would have done a lot to spread the usage beyond our small circle of a few dozen people using the coinage “skiffy” up to that point (which I hope it’s clear we used as ironic commentary to respond to the then-growing usage of “sci-fi” by people then new to, or outside of, fandom).
As I suggested in email, I’d also suggest asking Carol Carr and Robert Lichtman what they recall.
David Hartwell’s original cited usage, however, is, ironically, incorrect in citing “skiffy” as used by “the science fiction reader.”
In 1982 this was absolutely untrue. But David was not an expert on fanhistory, or usage or quotes stemming from fanhistory, as opposed to science fiction itself.
(Some of us, particularly pnh, got him to correctly credit Peter Graham with originating “the golden age of science fiction is twelve,” which Peter, a former co-editor of fanzines with, yes, Terry Carr, first used in an issue of the fanzine Void in 1957; David previously had it as anon.)
Geez, I wish your blog had a preview option, so I could double-check if I’ve accidentally left open a tag.
“Printed citations I’ve seen for ‘Skiffy’ declaratively put its origins as ‘1974′”
That’s exactly what I remember. And I unaware of any earlier use, and I think I’m in a fairly good, though certainly not absolutely definitive, position to speak to this, given my past knowledge of fanhistory and fan usage.
Unless someone can point to a specific, citable, prior usage, I’d go with that. I’d also like to see the specific cite to what’s alleged to be the specifically cited first use, though, of course.
“I opted for ‘circa 60s’ for three (what I believe are very good reasons): I can’t believe it took two decades for FANS to coin Skiffy from Scifi”
Nonetheless, I’m as close to certain as I can be that it’s true. I’m unaware of any earlier usage, and can absolutely state authoritatively that if there were any prior usage to that date it would have been incredibly obscure.
You can either take my word for this, or not, but otherwise please do ask any other fanhistorians you like; ask on the Timebinders mailing list, or any surviving authority.
“much of fandom’s earlier works have NOT been seen, read or catalogued by those who put such things on the web”
Yes, but they’re not me. I know more than they do, on when which fannish usage came into use, in most cases.
And, as I said, ask anyone else you think is in a good position to know. Perhaps Joe Siclari, or Ted White, for instance.
I see the oft-unreliable, sometimes reliable, Wikipedia has an entry on “skiffy” and cites http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Encyclopedia_of_Science_Fiction
That several-times-updated Encyclopedia had most such contributions written by Dave Langford, if you were unaware of it. It’s generally an extremely reliable resource, so far as I know, though I’d ask David himself what he knows about that entry.
I’ll drop him a line to ask.
Gernsback was writing and publishing recognizable SF in 1911 in his magazine Modern Electrics. I seem to remember that he called them Electric Stories.
Smith’s Skylark of Space was finished in 1916 and it is clearly SF. In those days such novels were called Scientific Romances. The term described the works of Verne and Flamarion and was invented in 1886 by Charles Howard Hinton.
It used to be that SciFi was TV or movies and SF was literature, but that turned out to be too controversial. Secretly I use SF to describe written Science Fiction when I am with people I trust. I use the term Scifi where it is possible that I could be attacked by Dr. Who fans.
Printed citations I’ve seen for “Skiffy” declaratively put its origins as “1974″
I opted for “circa 60s” for three (what I believe are very good reasons): I can’t believe it took two decades for FANS to coin Skiffy from Scifi; much of fandom’s earlier works have NOT been seen, read or catalogued by those who put such things on the web; I didn’t want to get yelled at by the inevitability of someone showing up with an earlier, provable citation.
“Fans
Circa 1960s Skiffy”
I can’t say for sure who coined that usage, but those who picked up on using it jokingly, by the Seventies, centered around those of us who picked it up from Terry Carr.
I’d also observe that it had variant usage: some just used it ironically to refer to all science fiction, while others used it more specifically to refer to bad stuff, aka “sci-fi,” which, of course, has now become the generically accepted mainstream term for the field. Sigh. (We lost that battle a long time ago.)
But “skiffy” was, to be clear, a direct response to the “sci-fi” usage, as an ironic repronunciation of it, sometimes used to somewhat different purposes.
Offhand I don’t recall seeing it in use prior to the mid-Seventies, though; do you have any pointers to earlier use, including, as you say, the Sixties? I’d be quite interested if you did.
“Depends on what you mean by science fiction, so far as the starting thing is concerned, but NOTHING was labelled science fiction (scientifiction) until the pulps in 1926, so – No.”
If we’re being picky, as you allude, not until Gernback had to start Science Wonder Stories (and Air Wonder Stories) in 1930, did he have to invent a new term, “science fiction,” to replace his original “scientifiction.”
Although the original did leave us with that now little-used abbreviation of “stf.”
Right you are:
Gernsback:
1923 “Scientific Fiction (number)”
1926 “Scientifiction” (STF)
1930 Science Fiction (SF)
Heinlein
Circa 1947 Speculative Fiction (SF)
Ackerman
circa 1954 Scifi
Fans
Circa 1960s Skiffy
Network Idiots
2009 SyFy
Davidson
2009 SkYfFY
A couple of years ago while visiting my brother, “the rocket scientist,” we rented the restored version of Metropolis. Oh, my brother is an aerospace engineer. We enjoyed the movie and I think I appreciated it more now that I’m almost a grown up.
Used to watch Rocketman and Superman in the late fifties. I guess these shows helped to fuel my imagination with alien world and stories I could put into print.
Thanks for sharing this article.
IO9 seems to think that SF began about 25 years ago and most of it was TV or Film.
A while ago they had their list of top 20 SF books. The only older books listed were ones that were made into movies. I doubt if the had read them. They listed Frankenstein #1 – a poor first novel by an 18 year old, that was only listed because of all the monster movies.
I know – and most of the time I ignore them entirely (as they ignore me and others who have been critical of them; must gall them no end that my blog is on Ottinger’s review list that they put up the other day (they’ve even taken down my comments a few times…)
But when they willfully remain ignorant of history, when they hold themselves out as a news source and obviously do NO research, I feel compelled to comment on it.
That article would actually have been better if they’d paid a little attention to history…
I don’t know why you waste time reading io9. It is the functionally illiterate voice of the LOL generation.
TV and the movies are like pot. With luck it leads to the hard stuff – like words and ideas.