The World Beyond the Hill: Science Fiction and the Quest for Transcendence

by Alexei Panshin

  And so it is that “Who Goes There?” does not open with the high thrills of the discovery of the creature and the destruction of the alien spaceship. Rather, it opens back at base camp with all the members of the expedition gathering to hear a chalk talk summary of what has been found.

  Indeed, the very first thing the story offers is a bracing whiff of the atmosphere of the camp:

  “The place stank. A queer, mingled stench that only the ice-bound cabins of an Antarctic camp know, compounded of reeking human sweat, and the heavy fish-oil stench of melted seal blubber.”341

  This is just the beginning. On the litany of reeks and stenches continues: liniment, wet furs, burnt cooking fat, dogs, machine oil, harness dressing—and the queer, neck-ruffling taint of thawing alien. (There it is in the background, underneath a tarp, dripping away.)

  No place described in earlier science fiction ever stank like this! But it is precisely this overwhelming atmosphere of pervasive, inescapable specificity—of smelly feet and seal blubber—that establishes a context in which naked fact and universal principle may plausibly rule.

  The true emphasis in “Who Goes There?”—like much of Campbellian science fiction—is on the definition and solution of a problem. And the problem set forth in this initial story of modern science fiction is a fundamental one:

  The creature from another world is strange, terrifying, and immensely powerful. But is it different in essence from what we know, or is it only different in kind?

  Here is the very significant reaction of the expedition’s doctor when he is first told that the monster has come back to life and escaped:

  “Copper stared blankly. ‘It wasn’t—Earthly,’ he sighed suddenly. ‘I—I guess Earthly laws don’t apply.’ ”342

  With this response, Campbell precisely catches the basic elements of the “literature of cosmic fear”343 described by H.P. Lovecraft in his classic 1927 essay, Supernatural Horror in Literature:

  A certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces must be present; and there must be a hint, expressed with a seriousness and portentousness becoming its subject, of that most terrible conception of the human brain—a malign and particular suspension or defeat of those fixed laws of Nature which are our only safeguard against the assaults of chaos and the daemons of unplumbed space.344

  This is the Techno Age attitude toward the wider universe at its most timorous—laid down as an aesthetic requirement!

  But in “Who Goes There?” John Campbell has raised his demon of unplumbed space not to confirm us in our habitual cosmic fear, but rather with the intention of resolving the problem of this alien monster using the new general principles of relationship and operation. Not mere Earthly law—which perhaps might not apply to demonic creatures from another star—but Universal Law, which surely does.

  As Blair, the biologist of the expedition, says, very shortly before he goes mad and has to be placed in isolation:

  “This isn’t wildly beyond what we already know. It’s just a modification we haven’t seen before. It’s as natural, as logical, as any other manifestation of life. It obeys exactly the same laws.”345

  What a radical new idea this was—that the biology and behavior of even an alien might be governed by laws as simple and manipulable as those of classical physics! And yet, this becomes the premise that the members of the expedition proceed upon. They set out to test scientifically who is a monster and who is not.

  What is more, in “Who Goes There?” it is assumed that all true human beings will naturally accept the appropriateness and efficacy of scientific testing. Indeed, the members of the human expedition are completely confident that those monsters masquerading as men will raise no objections to the principle of testing because anything less than complete assent to the power of science would be a dead giveaway of their non-humanity.

  However, the first test that the American scientists devise is not a success. Like the tests in “The Brain Stealers of Mars”—which were the presumed inability of the Martians either to copy human muscles well enough to sneeze, or to duplicate an acquired human immunity to tetanus—it is an Earth-minded test. The scientists immunize one of their sled dogs with the blood from two men. Their expectation is that the blood from any monster pretending to be human will be revealed as something other-than-human under laboratory examination.

  But the monster proves to have outmaneuvered them. The dog reacts to human blood—but also to monster blood. Not only is the test hopelessly compromised, but also it is certain that one of the two apparent humans who originally contributed blood must actually be an alien.

  In this traumatic moment, some of the members of the party are driven over the edge into madness, religious hysteria and murder. But others keep their balance. They devise a new and more effective test—this time not a test of human genuineness, but rather a direct test of alien difference. It employs a universal principle—the law of self-preservation—in such a way as to make the monster’s own superiority give it away:

  Does each part of the monster have independent life and crave to preserve it? Then take a sample of blood from each man and touch it with a hot wire. If it screams and tries to escape, it must be monster blood.

  This scientific trial-by-fire proves just the thing, and one by one, fifteen human-imitating monsters are duly identified and eliminated. And the last of these is Blair, the “mad” biologist. When he is discovered, it is with two homemade inventions—anti-gravity and atomic power.

  If he had survived for only a few more minutes, the world would have been his for the taking. As it is, human beings have been left with a couple of neat bonuses.

  There are a number of unexamined ambiguities within this pivotal story. Not the least of these is that Dr. Copper, who could only stare blankly and suggest the Lovecraftian otherness of the creature, is one of those who proves to be a genuine human being, while Blair the biologist, who first proposed that the alien must be a natural being subject to the same laws as any other manifestation of life, turns out to be a monster. How very odd it is that the creature should be the one to propose the basis for its own destruction!

  In fact, the respect that the monsters volunteer for the new rule of scientific testing of universal principle is nothing short of remarkable. Despite their large numbers, common nature, and telepathic powers, the false humans completely eschew the possibility of joint resistance. They docilely take their turn in line to be tested and then electrocuted or ripped to shreds. We may be forgiven for concluding that if these malevolent monsters tamely bow down and worship the new vision of universal principle, it is because it is their vision, too.

  “Who Goes There?” would prove to be the most influential SF story since Stanley Weinbaum’s “A Martian Odyssey.” In effect, it was a highly visible public demonstration, a sign to all who could see, that John Campbell was out to turn science fiction into something new.

  But this electrifying story would be almost the last piece of fiction John Campbell would write. In the coming months, he would publish two more stories as John W. Campbell, Jr., and two as Don A. Stuart, but after the middle of 1939, when he wrote a Stuart short novel to fill a hole in Unknown, he would cease to produce fiction.

  The explanation usually given for this is that Campbell was called in by his superiors at Street & Smith and flatly told to stop writing fiction and stick to his editing—and that Campbell valued his paycheck enough to obey.

  But while there may be a degree of truth to this story, it doesn’t sound very much like John Campbell, a man who was rarely one to do anything he didn’t wish to do. If Campbell was prepared to give up his science fiction writing, it just may have been because he had finally figured out how to be an editor and get other people to do the writing for him. At least, Isaac Asimov tells us:

  I once asked him, years ago (with all the puzzlement of a compulsive writer who can imagine no other way of life), how he could possibly have borne to leave his writing career and become
an editor. I had almost said merely an editor. He smiled (he knew me) and said, “Isaac, when I write, I write only my own stories. As editor, I write the stories that a hundred people write.”346

  The problem in creating modern science fiction would be to find a hundred writers with some sense of the new vision, or a willingness and ability to pick it up, and to get rid of the rest. Along with the changes he made in the magazine, Campbell cleaned house at Astounding through 1938 and 1939. He swept out the debris of the Technological Age. He got rid of stories of mushy occultism, unfounded fancy and cosmic fear. He picked and chose among the established writers of science fiction, discarding all those who could not play by the new rules.

  E.E. Smith, of course, was one established writer acceptable to Campbell. His first Lensman novel, Galactic Patrol, had just begun serialization as Campbell became editor of Astounding. This was the most grandly scaled science fiction story yet, the climax of all Smith’s efforts since The Skylark of Space, and its very presence in the pages of Astounding gave Campbell’s editorial career the strongest possible initial boost.

  Even though Doc Smith would never exactly be a writer of modern science fiction, Campbell would continue to publish Lensman novels through the next ten years. Once more, Smith would be something like Jules Verne—a founding father who continued to work on into an era that was not his own.

  But even so, there would be good reasons aplenty for Campbell to give Smith’s great epic houseroom in the pages of Astounding. There was a moral confidence and an imaginative breadth to the Lensman stories that modern science fiction—for all its many special qualities and virtues—would simply never be able to equal. And indeed, even though during the Forties the Lensman series might sometimes seem a side issue, a relic, a leftover from an earlier era of SF, it would eventually prove to be the conceptual foundation upon which the latter-day Campbellian science fiction of the Fifties and Sixties would come to be erected.

  But Campbell’s other early inspiration, Edmond Hamilton, would not fare so well with him. Hamilton would appear in the Campbell Astounding just once at the end of 1938, and then never again.

  It happened this way: Campbell and Hamilton had been fellow members of a New York area SF writers circle. After he became editor, Campbell asked most of the writers he knew, including Hamilton, to contribute stories to his magazine. And Hamilton was glad to dash one off for him.

  But then Campbell did the Campbellish thing. He pointed out flaws in the story and asked for a rewrite. Ed Hamilton was an old pro accustomed to turning out first-draft copy, to repeating his plots, and to selling everything he wrote. So he was quite taken aback by this request. He fixed the story, but he didn’t send any more to Campbell.

  In later years, Hamilton would say in explanation: “The trouble was that I was trying to make a living writing s-f. John had very meticulous standards, and I would not be able to sell him enough s-f to live on. I sometimes regret I didn’t stay with John. With his help I could have become a lot better s-f writer.”347

  By contrast, a writer who was not attempting to make a living from SF alone and who was able to make the stretch to meet Campbell’s strictures might well perceive his appointment as editor as an unprecedented opportunity to do work of a kind and quality previously impossible. One such writer was newspaperman Clifford D. Simak. In the early Thirties, he had written “The World of the Red Sun” and several other science fiction stories, but after the failure of the Clayton Astounding, he had turned away from SF. But when he learned that John Campbell had become editor of Astounding, his interest was revived. Simak told his wife that Campbell would want a new kind of SF, and that he was confident that he would be able to satisfy Campbell’s requirements—both of which proved to be true.348 Writing science fiction strictly as a sideline, Simak would contribute stories to Campbell for the next twenty-five years.

  But it was not sufficient for Campbell to simply sort through the established writers of science fiction in search of those capable of working with him. Too few of the established writers of science fiction were in tune with the new scientific vision, and even fewer were prepared to be taken over the jumps by young John Campbell.

  To write his new science fiction, Campbell had to draft, discover and invent a whole new set of writers. Of all the many labors that he performed as he strove to bring modern science fiction into being, this gathering and training of new writers would be by far the most significant.

  Campbell was at his very best in pursuit of these unknown persons capable of presenting the new vision for him. He was subtle, observant, patient, persistent, and infinitely resourceful. And even so, one of the first writers he found was initially forced upon him against his will.

  At the very outset of Campbell’s editing career, in that brief moment when he was still expressing a measure of uncertainty about filling the pages of a monthly magazine with new stories, his superiors at Street & Smith thought to provide him with an insurance policy. They called in a couple of top pulp adventure writers—reliable professional yarnspinners—and told Campbell to accept any work they cared to submit to him.

  Campbell protested this vigorously. Science fiction was fundamentally different from other pulp literature. It wasn’t just to be cranked out by the yard. What is more, to pay these guys his top rates for anything and everything they wrote would cut the heart right out of his budget. He didn’t want to do it. But F. Orlin Tremaine was one person he would heed, and when Tremaine told him to do it, he did it.

  Campbell was already familiar with one of the writers imposed upon him, Arthur J. Burks. Burks actually had some previous science fiction writing experience, including stories published in the Clayton Astounding. And one way or another, he and Campbell did accommodate themselves to each other to the tune of one so-so novel and a series of mild, rationalized space opera stories. But after only one year and half-a-dozen stories—and the departure of F. Orlin Tremaine from Street & Smith—Burks would be gone from the pages of Astounding, swept out in Campbell’s great spring housecleaning.

  But the other writer who had been forced on Campbell would serve as a longer-term asset—of a kind. This was L. Ron Hubbard, who is best known for his later career as the founder of the religion/mind-control system Scientology.349

  This big redheaded people-charmer was born in Tilden, Nebraska on March 13, 1911.350 Probably. Possibly. With Hubbard it is hard to know exactly where the real truth lies since his greatest continuing pleasure in life was in telling stretchers, striking poses, and seeing just how much falsity he could get other people to swallow. In a revealing moment, he once said:

  “Now you say you have to be absolutely truthful. Sincerity is the main thing, and truthfulness is the main thing and don’t lie to anybody . . . and you’ll get ahead. Brother you sure will. You’ll get ahead right on that cycle of action, right toward zero! . . . It’s a trap not being able to prevaricate. . . .

  “You say, ‘You know, I was downtown the other day and there’s this Yellow Taxi there, and I started to step into this Yellow Taxi, and I’ll be a son of a gun if there wasn’t a big ape sitting in the back smoking a cigar. And I closed the door and walked on down the street.’

  “This makes life more colorful.”351

  Hubbard’s usual public pretense at the time he and Campbell met was that he was a globe-trotting explorer who paused from time to time between adventures to catch his breath and turn out pulp stories. In this, he would be imitating earlier writers of pulp adventure who may or may not have had a better claim to the pose.

  In fact, however, the only real accomplishment of this college dropout had been to sell his dreams of adventure to others in story form. And when he blew into town with his latest tale of being shipwrecked in the Aleutians and forced to survive on whale meat and seaweed, or whatever, the actual fact was that he was living in the state of Washington with a wife and son, either attempting to psych himself up to write or else pounding out stories at red-hot speed.

  At the times
when he was able to write, Hubbard would slap first-draft copy onto a long roll of typing paper, not wishing to be slowed down or have his mood broken by having to remove one sheet of paper and replace it with another. And when his stories were finished, he would have his wife check them over and mail them out, but he wouldn’t necessarily read them himself after they had passed through his typewriter.

  The result of these habits was stories which moved along pell-mell, with a certain verve and charm and superficial plausibility, but which ultimately didn’t add up to much. They were good enough to get by, but they weren’t original or substantial work.

  For the claim that Hubbard (and Burks) were initially forced upon Campbell over the editor’s protest, we have only the word of this dedicated toyer with the truth. So take warning that the tale is not completely to be relied upon.352

  What makes it seem possible, however, is that Hubbard had no previous background at all in writing science fiction, or even in reading it. He was in no way a natural writer for John Campbell to pick out and cultivate on his own. Not only did Campbell take him on as a writer, however, but it is clear that at the outset the editor was bowled over by Hubbard’s personal flash and dazzle. He went out of his way to find niches for this operator within his magazine and to work out grounds for him to write SF.

  That took a certain amount of discussion and negotiation. The fact is that Hubbard had no more than a glancing acquaintance with most contemporary science. He’d lingered in engineering school only long enough to pick up the talk. He had read some fantasy—The Arabian Nights and Washington Irving’s Tales of the Alhambra. He’d read quite a bit of occult literature. And he had an interest in the hidden powers of the mind.