Astounding

Starred review from April 30, 2018
The golden age of science fiction, spanning the years 1939 to 1950, gets an authoritative examination in this fascinating appraisal of its key players. The primary focus is John W. Campbell, editor of Astounding Science Fiction magazine, and the three very different writers who served him best: Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, and L. Ron Hubbard. The author credits Campbell with turning science fiction “from a literature of escapism into a machine for generating analogies” and using his magazine as “a laboratory in which his writers could work out scenarios for the future.” That helped to conjure countless works of groundbreaking fiction, but after the dropping of the atomic bomb seemed to validate science fiction as prophecy, it drove Campbell into embracing dubious fringe beliefs, including dowsing and astrology, in his search for new intellectual breakthroughs. Nevala-Lee gives abundant insight into the authors’ careers, revealing how Asimov first acquired his love of fiction as a lonely child working at his family’s Brooklyn candy store, while Heinlein chanced into writing as a fallback career after a period of passionate involvement in Upton Sinclair’s failed 1934 California gubernatorial campaign. This book is a major work of popular culture scholarship that science fiction fans will devour.

Nevala-Lee explores how science fiction became a mainstream genre by looking at the men who launched its golden age and how they interacted. Narrator Sean Runnette's deep and languid voice aligns well with a story that looks back at a world of yesteryear and a realm that held tight to being a boys' club. Nevala-Lee covers how the authors rose to prominence and how they eventually passed from both their fame and lives. It's here that Runnette does some of his best work, giving emphasis and emotional depth to their words and their passings. Nevala-Lee's rich history captures both the promises and problems that science fiction has to offer. L.E. � AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

June 1, 2018
A laser-sharp study of science fiction's golden age, the product of a small circle of writers and their guiding editor.Many classic-era science-fiction biographies and memoirs, such as Isaac Asimov's three-volume memoir and William H. Patterson Jr.'s two-volume life of Robert Heinlein, make generous mention of the pioneering editor and publisher John W. Campbell, whose Astounding Science Fiction was the flagship magazine of the genre for decades. Sci-fi practitioner Nevala-Lee (Eternal Empire, 2013, etc.) does a solid job of situating Campbell at the head of modern science fiction, a vanguard figure who, though himself a spinner of robots-and-aliens stories, "never became as famous as many of the writers he published." However, Nevala-Lee adds, "he influenced the dreamlife of millions." Generous with dollars and advice--Asimov worriedly informed him that he'd paid too much for an early story, but Campbell had awarded him a bonus--Campbell also was an early champion of Heinlein, Frederik Pohl, and L. Ron Hubbard, becoming involved in Dianetics, the forerunner of Hubbard's Scientology. Nevala-Lee shrewdly writes that after a long absence, Hubbard returned to sci-fi in the 1970s after the release of Star Wars, "even if it owed more to Joseph Campbell than to John." The author's history of science fiction as it developed under Campbell's aegis is first-rate. Campbell himself is problematic, since he was a notorious racist who rejected Samuel Delany's early work, with its African-American lead characters, and who said of Harlan Ellison, who was Jewish, "he's one of the type that earned the appellation 'kike.' " Those views, as Nevala-Lee observes, eventually "began to infect the magazine," worrying even the far-right leaning of his authors, especially Heinlein. That politics caused a schism in the community as profound as the magazine's transition from Astounding to Analog, of which Asimov wrote, "I have never quite managed to forgive Campbell for the change."Nevala-Lee's warts-and-all look is a welcome contribution to the study of popular literature.

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September 15, 2018
Nevala-Lee (Eternal Empire, 2013) presents a necessary addition to the history of science fiction: a critical look at the life and work of John W. Campbell, legendary editor of Astounding magazine and the central architect of science fiction's golden age. This period, and the men most central to it, defined the path that still dominates the genre today. Part biography, part history, Astounding covers Campbell's relationships with his most important writers (Asimov, Heinlein, and Hubbard); their tumultuous personal lives; the role their wives played in their careers; and the effect WWII and the atomic bomb had on the genre. Campbell and others truly believed science fiction could save the world. Nevala-Lee delves into the development of dianetics and Campbell's split with Hubbard over Scientology. He also addresses the many biases, prejudices, and personal failings of these eminent men. At times, it feels like Nevala-Lee attempts to accomplish too much, and the mix of history with biography isn't always comfortable, but it's all necessary to understand how science fiction became what it is today.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)