Nostalgia is practically my middle name. Looking back can be sweet, but it can also be poisonous.
I was a science fiction freak when I was a boy. I voraciously read the fiction, but I also loved reading about science fiction. One of the best books I read was Damon Knight’s The Futurians. They were a group of fans-turned-professionals who became some of the most important names in the history of the field.
Science fiction fans were crazy from the start. Smart, yes, obsessed, sure, but also maniacal in their activities. SF fans became organized and communicated through letters sections of magazines and they also handmade zines to celebrate the genre. Dozens of little fanzines came and went, and fans cheered, argued, fought, betrayed one another, and generally behaved like crazy people.
The first SF convention was in July, 1939. There were rival factions, and a nearby counter-convention.
It all sounded so wonderful to me. I thought I was born too late. I wanted to be there in the thirties and forties, in league with these impassioned mutants.
All the great stuff going on in the seventies and I longed to be in the past. How silly.
Many years later I became involved in horror fandom and I saw many rivalries and lynch mob tactics. You know what? It sucked.
In fact, the scene described in Harry Warden Jr.’s All Our Yesterdays is remarkably like today’s horror community. You have your pros, the ones who publish in the mass market. And there’s the independent authors, publishers, podcasters, and artists. They remind me of nineteen forties fandom.
All Our Yesterdays is incredibly detailed, but I’m sad to say it’s more than a little bit dull. The amount of information in the book is staggering, but there’s not a lot of personality in the book. It’s certainly not as entertaining as Damon Knight’s uproarious account of the Futurians.
There are dozens of names in the book. People who were important in the community, who were movers and shakers in a cauldron that shaped modern science fiction. I consider myself fairly well read on the subject, but the vast majority of them were unknown to me.
Names, faces, writing. People long dead, forgotten. What chance at immortality do I have? Or any of the desperate influencers who ceaselessly promote themselves. All but the very, very few will be buried to the sands of time, as if they never lived.
I still have romantic feelings toward the SF conventions of yesteryear. The ones I’ve been to in the last couple decades are horrendous. You see lots of cosplayers, but few readers. They like to point out that Forrest J Ackerman wore a costume at the first SF con, but that was a lark. Forry was a reader first and foremost.
Anime art, geegaws, crafts, and fortune tellers. Fortune tellers! They’d be run out of town at an old convention. Yes, there are loads of indie writers, but how many are worth reading?
Wilson Tucker, an old pro writer you probably don’t know of, wrote the introduction. He calls Harry Warner the Hermit of Hagerstown. Harry wasn’t a conventioneer, preferring to conduct his fannish activities from afar. That’s probably why so much of this book is dry as dust. The stories he tells are second or third hand accounts. Harry knows, or knew (RIP), his subject, but it’s remote knowledge. All Our Yesterdays almost reads like the Bible with all those mind-numbing begats that go on for pages and pages.
It’s a world long gone, even if there are traces of it still alive today. I've met a handful of fans who worship the printed word, but they are relics of another time, another place, another space.
It seems like horror is becoming the same way. I encounter fewer genuine readers and more fans acting like pros. Why be a reader when you can be a real author? Yes, you can be a talk show host, a publisher, a critic. Why not jump the line and be a real pro without learning the trade from the ground up?
I am a published writer and a somewhat respected critic, but at heart I am a fan. Proudly, unflinchingly, honestly. Perhaps a few will remember me as someone who loved the genre more than I love myself.
All Our Yesterdays is a fascinating book, but I only recommend it to the staunchest fans who are interested in the underbelly of science fiction history. It’s nearly a reference book, and I admit that I skimmed parts of it. This one only covers the nineteen forties! Warner did another one that focuses on the fifties. Yes, I ordered a used copy of A Wealth of Fable and I plan to read it fairly soon. If you happen to be curious about the subject, dig up Knight’s The Futurians. If you like that one and thirst for more, look for Frederik Pohl’s The Way the Future Was and Isaac Asimov’s In Memory Yet Green. All Our Yesterdays is strictly for obsessives like me.
Maybe someday there will be a book about horror fandom. Brian Keene is the logical choice to write it. My work in the message board era and my nonfiction writing might qualify me to be a small part of it.
Written by Mark Sieber
I was a science fiction freak when I was a boy. I voraciously read the fiction, but I also loved reading about science fiction. One of the best books I read was Damon Knight’s The Futurians. They were a group of fans-turned-professionals who became some of the most important names in the history of the field.
Science fiction fans were crazy from the start. Smart, yes, obsessed, sure, but also maniacal in their activities. SF fans became organized and communicated through letters sections of magazines and they also handmade zines to celebrate the genre. Dozens of little fanzines came and went, and fans cheered, argued, fought, betrayed one another, and generally behaved like crazy people.
The first SF convention was in July, 1939. There were rival factions, and a nearby counter-convention.
It all sounded so wonderful to me. I thought I was born too late. I wanted to be there in the thirties and forties, in league with these impassioned mutants.
All the great stuff going on in the seventies and I longed to be in the past. How silly.
Many years later I became involved in horror fandom and I saw many rivalries and lynch mob tactics. You know what? It sucked.
In fact, the scene described in Harry Warden Jr.’s All Our Yesterdays is remarkably like today’s horror community. You have your pros, the ones who publish in the mass market. And there’s the independent authors, publishers, podcasters, and artists. They remind me of nineteen forties fandom.
All Our Yesterdays is incredibly detailed, but I’m sad to say it’s more than a little bit dull. The amount of information in the book is staggering, but there’s not a lot of personality in the book. It’s certainly not as entertaining as Damon Knight’s uproarious account of the Futurians.
There are dozens of names in the book. People who were important in the community, who were movers and shakers in a cauldron that shaped modern science fiction. I consider myself fairly well read on the subject, but the vast majority of them were unknown to me.
Names, faces, writing. People long dead, forgotten. What chance at immortality do I have? Or any of the desperate influencers who ceaselessly promote themselves. All but the very, very few will be buried to the sands of time, as if they never lived.
I still have romantic feelings toward the SF conventions of yesteryear. The ones I’ve been to in the last couple decades are horrendous. You see lots of cosplayers, but few readers. They like to point out that Forrest J Ackerman wore a costume at the first SF con, but that was a lark. Forry was a reader first and foremost.
Anime art, geegaws, crafts, and fortune tellers. Fortune tellers! They’d be run out of town at an old convention. Yes, there are loads of indie writers, but how many are worth reading?
Wilson Tucker, an old pro writer you probably don’t know of, wrote the introduction. He calls Harry Warner the Hermit of Hagerstown. Harry wasn’t a conventioneer, preferring to conduct his fannish activities from afar. That’s probably why so much of this book is dry as dust. The stories he tells are second or third hand accounts. Harry knows, or knew (RIP), his subject, but it’s remote knowledge. All Our Yesterdays almost reads like the Bible with all those mind-numbing begats that go on for pages and pages.
It’s a world long gone, even if there are traces of it still alive today. I've met a handful of fans who worship the printed word, but they are relics of another time, another place, another space.
It seems like horror is becoming the same way. I encounter fewer genuine readers and more fans acting like pros. Why be a reader when you can be a real author? Yes, you can be a talk show host, a publisher, a critic. Why not jump the line and be a real pro without learning the trade from the ground up?
I am a published writer and a somewhat respected critic, but at heart I am a fan. Proudly, unflinchingly, honestly. Perhaps a few will remember me as someone who loved the genre more than I love myself.
All Our Yesterdays is a fascinating book, but I only recommend it to the staunchest fans who are interested in the underbelly of science fiction history. It’s nearly a reference book, and I admit that I skimmed parts of it. This one only covers the nineteen forties! Warner did another one that focuses on the fifties. Yes, I ordered a used copy of A Wealth of Fable and I plan to read it fairly soon. If you happen to be curious about the subject, dig up Knight’s The Futurians. If you like that one and thirst for more, look for Frederik Pohl’s The Way the Future Was and Isaac Asimov’s In Memory Yet Green. All Our Yesterdays is strictly for obsessives like me.
Maybe someday there will be a book about horror fandom. Brian Keene is the logical choice to write it. My work in the message board era and my nonfiction writing might qualify me to be a small part of it.
Written by Mark Sieber
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