On a cool
autumn day, I say in New York’s Madison Square Park, the prow of the
Flatiron Building jutting out to the west and the shadow of the Metropolitan
Tower falling across the park. It
was the perfect place to read Bud Webster’s Past
Masters, a series of essays focusing on the forgotten authors of the
science fiction genre. To the
west, on the fourteenth floor of the Flatiron Building, the editors of Tor
were busy charting the future of the genre. To the East, the clock tower
represented Murray Leinster’s 1919 classic “The Runaway Skyscraper.”
Webster’s articles originally appeared in a
variety of venues, ranging from Helix
to Baen’s Universe and briefly
in Black Gate. Beginning with
looks at aspects of science fiction’s history, Webster quickly settled on
biographical articles examining the works, influence, and lives of some of
the great science fiction authors who seem to be forgotten by modern day
readers. Fortunately for the reader
whose interest is piqued by Webster's chatty discussions of these authors,
many of them have their works in print from NESFA Press, such as Zenna
Henderson, Murray Leinster, C. M. Kornbluth, Judith Merril, Phil Klass, and
Hal Clement. Others, including Nelson Bond, Henry Kuttner, and
Clifford D. Simak may be a little harder to track down, although Webster
does provide a lengthy bibliography of authors' works at the end of each
article.
Each
article discusses both the author's work and career and their life. In
some cases, as with Stanley G. Weinbaum, who died in 1935 at the age of 33,
both their lives careers were short. Others, like C. L. Moore, had
longer lives, but their careers were cut short by their circumstances.
Some of the authors Webster covers don't really seem "forgotten,"
such as Hal Clement, who only died in 2003 and was a fan-favorite up until
his death, publishing and attending conventions. Nevertheless, all of
the authors Webster covers, and several he doesn't, are worthy of
remembrance and with luck, Webster will find another venue to continue
publishing these biographical and bibliographical love letters.
Although the nearly three hundred pages of Past Master articles are
certainly enough for the book, Webster includes other articles as
well. The last page of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
often includes a brief column called "Curiosities," and Webster
has contributed several columns to it. These columns document strange
books and ideas which may be of interest to the magazine's readers, but have
been lost to general awareness. These short pieces fit the theme of Past
Masters quite well.
The next section of the book contains three dialogues between Webster
and Jerry Pournelle. Originally published in the SFWA Bulletin,
they offer opposing views, and sometimes seem to be between a master and a
student, on e-books, research, and history. At times they seem a
little dated, particularly when discussing technology, which is more an
indication of how quickly technological change is occurring. They do,
however, lead nicely into the final historical piece in the collection, a
history of the Bulletin itself, which puts the magazine's purpose,
both initially and currently, into perspective.
For
a genre that purportedly is about the future, since its earliest days when
fan Jack Speer wrote Up to Now in 1939, science fiction has had a
tendency to look back at its history. Past Masters is an
excellent addition to this tradition with its look back at the individuals
who helped build the genre and its culture. The biblio-biographies
Webster has written belong on any science fiction fan's reference shelf,
right next to the collections by NESFA Press which collect so many of the
works Webster has covered.
