Early days of a better genre

[randy_byers]

For those of you (all two of you) who are actually as interested in pre-Amazing science fiction as I've become, I should mention the piece I wrote for Rich Coad's new fanzine, Sense of Wonder Stories, which is available as a PDF. My article, "The Early Days of a Better Genre," will make you want to read Garrett P. Serviss. Or else!

The whole zine is very good. I was particularly impressed by Robert Lichtman's survey of H.P. Lovecraft's non-fiction, including a collection of his amateur journalism -- amateur journalism being one of the predecessors of fanzines -- and, in a related vein, Bill Burns' article on Edison's invention of the electric pen, which was a predecessor of both the mimeograph and the tattoo gun! Pretty cool beans.

In response to my piece, and in particular to the question "where did the Tharks come from?", jerrykaufman pointed me to a fascinating, although long and rambling, article by Dale R. Broadhurst called "John Carter Beginnings?" about some of the theories about Edgar Rice Burroughs' influences. One of these, apparently first proposed by Fritz Leiber, is that Burroughs got some of his ideas about Mars and its inhabitants from the Theosophists. I actually found the argument as presented here fairly unconvincing (although that may reflect Broadhurst's own skepticism), but it connected to the reading I've been doing about A. Merritt's The Moon Pool, which really does seem to reflect Theosophist ideas.

I recently read The Moon Pool in its original magazine form, and I started a review but got bogged down on it. Maybe I'll get back to that to try to dig at the Theosophist angle some more. In any event, it was the Merritt book that convinced me I needed to read She in order to get a better feel for how the lost world sub-genre shaped science fiction. (Haggard to Merritt to Lovecraft, oh my!)

And so the literary road leads ever on and on.

Comments

[dalmeny]

all two of you

There might be three, unless you're including me here.

I'm not familiar enough with Barsoom to comment, but I wouldn't be that surprised if there were Theosophical elements, even if they were borrowed second or third hand. The world view is just too fantastic. I know they explicitly influenced a few Lost Race novels, as I read The Last Lemurian a while back, which is set in Australia.

I have a copy of The Moon Pool, which I think I picked up because of the Theosophy link. Maybe it's time to read it. I found Blavatsky's work quite unreadable, but Scott-Elliot's quite entertaining.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

There are certainly elements of Barsoom (including the four-armed oviparous Tharks) that map onto Theosophical ideas about the history of the human race. The problem is that there's no evidence that Burroughs read Blavatsky or any of the other Theosophical writers. (Whereas A. Merritt, for example, had an active interest in the occult and read widely in the area.) However, Broadhurst does point out that Burroughs could easily have picked up ideas from newspaper reviews of Theosophical books.

Australia was apparently one of the favorite locations for lost world stories (along with Africa, South America, and Antarctica -- not to mention the hollow earth), because the interior was considered empty and unexplored by European writers. Why, there could be anything in the outback!

The Moon Pool is a lot of fun from a fantastical world-building point of view, although the characters and plot are pretty pulp-formulaic. Of course, I'm also partial to it because it happens on and under Ponape (now Pohnpei) in Micronesia. There's a terrific lost world story to locate on Yap, too, because they have a legend of a sunken island where the magicians went to escape the white men.

[kim-huett.livejournal.com]

I have a .pdf file I made of an exchange between Dale Walker and Sam Moskowitz on the topic of Tarzan's literary antecedents I plan to send you in response to your suggestion that Burroughs fans like to think of him as springing from nowhere. In fact a certain strand of fandom was endlessly obsessed about who influenced who, it was their second favourite game, right after who was hiding behind which pseudonym.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Ooh, yes please! I'm sure I overstated the case, but it still croggles me when I read stuff like Broadhurst's discussion of Burroughs fans pooh-poohing the idea that The Jungle Book was an influence on Tarzan. His coverage of the clash between Dick Lupoff and the Burroughsians is one of the more interesting sections of the article.

On a slight tangent, it strikes me that Burroughs fandom is kind of a world unto itself -- perhaps like all fandoms that are focused on a specific artist or show. But it's remarkable how long it has lasted. That Erbzine site has a shitload of material on it, which to me is a sign of continuing life. Although admittedly a lot of what I've seen seems to be from the past.