Read Online The Way the Future Was: A Memoir by Frederik Pohl - Free Book Online
Authors: Frederik Pohl
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myself; before I became a Pro I had a few years of fandom to get through, and things had happened in my personal life, too.
My parents separated when I was thirteen years old, not amicably. My plunging father took one shortcut too many and wound up in trouble with the law, not just creditor trouble but grand jury trouble. I was never told the details. One day he was gone, and my mother told me he would not be coming back to live with us any more; it was three or four years before I saw him again, but, in all candor, I didn't much mind. He had seemed a guest in the house all along. He traveled a lot, and even when he was technically at home he was away most of the days, and a lot of the nights.
Looking back at it objectively, it must not have been a tranquil time for me. Yet I don't know where the scars are. Like all writers, I spend a lot of time exploring the inside of my own head, and once or twice I've had professional help in the rummaging around. Like all human beings, I have childhood pains or worries or yearnings unmet that still show up in a barroom or on a couch; how strange that any of the race survives, when we are all so vulnerable in childhood. But I did not feel very bad about my parents at the time. The focus of my life had moved out of the home long before then, perhaps when I learned to live vicariously through books, certainly when I found the world of science fiction to explore. In school and at home I was still a child, the passive object of what the authority figures chose to do; but in science fiction I could be a maker and shaker on my own. Well, no. Not entirely on my own. Don Wollheim was the leader of our junta and the planner of our coups, but we were at the least his kitchen cabinet, Johnny Michel, and a little later Bob Lowndes, and I, and we four marched from Brooklyn to the sea, leaving a wide scar of burned-out clubs behind us. We changed clubs the way Detroit changes tailfins, every year had a new one and last year's was junk.
1934 was the year of the BSFL. 1955 was the year of the ENYSFL, later the ILSF. 1936 was the year of the ICSC, later the NYB-ISA. By 1937 we had got tired of initials, and of laying our cuckoos' eggs in other people's nests, and we formed The Futurians. *
The Brooklyn SFL lasted barely a year, just barely long enough for us to find each other. It did not survive the invasion of the barbarians.
* BSFL: The Brooklyn Chapter of the Science Fiction League, formed by George Gordon Clark. ENYSFL: The East New York (another part of Brooklyn) chapter of the same. ILSF; The same group, gone public and renamed the Independent League for Science Fiction. ICSC: International Cosmos-Science Club. NYB-ISA: The New York Branch of the same, now retitled the International Scientific Association, but still a pure sf fan club regardless.
The Brooklyn SFL lasted barely a year, just barely long enough for us to find each other. It did not long survive the invasion of the barbarians. G. G. Clark did not care for Donald and Johnny, and must have resented being shoved off the seat of power. ("Am I not Member One? Was I not chartered to possess Chapter One by Hugo himself?") But Hugo had chartered chapters everywhere he could, on whatever flimsy pretext any member had the gall to offer him. Dave Kyle even started a chapter in Monticello, New York, of which the entire membership was pseudonyms of his own. There was already another chapter in Brooklyn, the ENYSFL, and we birds of passage flew on.
The East New York SFL was the fiefdom of a high-schooler named Harold W. Kirshenblit ("KB"), who also had a big cellar his parents allowed him to use for meetings. You took the BMT as far as it went, and then walked. KB was a livelier, sharper article than Clark, willing to make and shake with us, and in no time Donald talked him into seceding from Wonder Stories and creating a new worldwide competitor to the SFL. Donald was not alone—Johnny and I helped in every way we could—but it was
My parents separated when I was thirteen years old, not amicably. My plunging father took one shortcut too many and wound up in trouble with the law, not just creditor trouble but grand jury trouble. I was never told the details. One day he was gone, and my mother told me he would not be coming back to live with us any more; it was three or four years before I saw him again, but, in all candor, I didn't much mind. He had seemed a guest in the house all along. He traveled a lot, and even when he was technically at home he was away most of the days, and a lot of the nights.
Looking back at it objectively, it must not have been a tranquil time for me. Yet I don't know where the scars are. Like all writers, I spend a lot of time exploring the inside of my own head, and once or twice I've had professional help in the rummaging around. Like all human beings, I have childhood pains or worries or yearnings unmet that still show up in a barroom or on a couch; how strange that any of the race survives, when we are all so vulnerable in childhood. But I did not feel very bad about my parents at the time. The focus of my life had moved out of the home long before then, perhaps when I learned to live vicariously through books, certainly when I found the world of science fiction to explore. In school and at home I was still a child, the passive object of what the authority figures chose to do; but in science fiction I could be a maker and shaker on my own. Well, no. Not entirely on my own. Don Wollheim was the leader of our junta and the planner of our coups, but we were at the least his kitchen cabinet, Johnny Michel, and a little later Bob Lowndes, and I, and we four marched from Brooklyn to the sea, leaving a wide scar of burned-out clubs behind us. We changed clubs the way Detroit changes tailfins, every year had a new one and last year's was junk.
1934 was the year of the BSFL. 1955 was the year of the ENYSFL, later the ILSF. 1936 was the year of the ICSC, later the NYB-ISA. By 1937 we had got tired of initials, and of laying our cuckoos' eggs in other people's nests, and we formed The Futurians. *
The Brooklyn SFL lasted barely a year, just barely long enough for us to find each other. It did not survive the invasion of the barbarians.
* BSFL: The Brooklyn Chapter of the Science Fiction League, formed by George Gordon Clark. ENYSFL: The East New York (another part of Brooklyn) chapter of the same. ILSF; The same group, gone public and renamed the Independent League for Science Fiction. ICSC: International Cosmos-Science Club. NYB-ISA: The New York Branch of the same, now retitled the International Scientific Association, but still a pure sf fan club regardless.
The Brooklyn SFL lasted barely a year, just barely long enough for us to find each other. It did not long survive the invasion of the barbarians. G. G. Clark did not care for Donald and Johnny, and must have resented being shoved off the seat of power. ("Am I not Member One? Was I not chartered to possess Chapter One by Hugo himself?") But Hugo had chartered chapters everywhere he could, on whatever flimsy pretext any member had the gall to offer him. Dave Kyle even started a chapter in Monticello, New York, of which the entire membership was pseudonyms of his own. There was already another chapter in Brooklyn, the ENYSFL, and we birds of passage flew on.
The East New York SFL was the fiefdom of a high-schooler named Harold W. Kirshenblit ("KB"), who also had a big cellar his parents allowed him to use for meetings. You took the BMT as far as it went, and then walked. KB was a livelier, sharper article than Clark, willing to make and shake with us, and in no time Donald talked him into seceding from Wonder Stories and creating a new worldwide competitor to the SFL. Donald was not alone—Johnny and I helped in every way we could—but it was
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