Monday, August 15, 2016
The Lost Interview: Notes from Analog Science Fiction Editor Ben Bova, July 15, 1975
Going through stacks of files is a joy for some, but troublesome for others. I have always enjoyed clipping newspaper and magazine articles on films, actors, writers, directors, and reviews and placing them in alphabetical order within individual folders . I one time had a box full of articles from the TV Guide by Anthony Burgess and Isaac Asimov, among others, but it was wiped out in a basement flood.
Not too long ago, I came across my original transcript of an interview I did when I was a skinny, seventeen year old high school student at Bergenfield High School in New Jersey. Luckily, I also had the cassette tape saved, dated July 15, 1975. How did I interview Ben Bova? Well, I loved taking the bus into Manhattan and just walking around and seeing the sights of the Big Apple. One day, I walked past the Conde Nast building, then located at 350 Madison Avenue, and realised that this is where the science fiction and fact magazine Analog was published. Ben Bova had been the editor since 1972, and I decided to walk upstairs and see if I could arrange and interview with him for our high school science fiction magazine Scientus.
Mr. Bova kindly saw me walk in wearing cut-off dungaree shorts, a buttoned short sleeve shirt outside of my shorts, and sneakers. We arranged a time and date for my return, and eventually, allowed my fellow students and teacher to attend a meeting in his office. Now, here is something unique for readers and editors alike. Notes from a science fiction editor.
Phillips: When did you first become associated with Analog and how did you become editor?
Bova: I was writing for Analog, and I think my first story appeared in Analog in 1962. When John Campbell died, his assistant, Kay Tarrant, was asked by the Conde Nast management to draw up a list of people who might qualify as editor. Kay, in turn asked various writers who had contributed over many years to the magazine. They each sent in suggested names. My name appeared on a couple of those lists.
Kay called up one afternoon, and I was living in Boston then, and asked if I would consider being in the running. I said sure, so I sent in a resume, and then got called down to New York to interview for the job, and after a couple of interviews, I was flabbergasted to find that they picked me. I lifted a finger, but that's about all I did.
Phillips:What would you say are the reasons for you producing a very successful magazine?
Bova: I think it's mainly John Campbell's success. John made science fiction what it is today, and I think that he worked out a very smooth running operation here, and to a large extent, we've just kept up his policies.
Certainly the policy of having the editor read all the incoming manuscripts, so that there is no first reader, no slush pile reader, gives the writers, I think, the feeling that they're getting the best judgement that they could possibly get. They're not being rejected by some anonymous slush pile reader. They're getting the judgement of the editor. The same way Heinlein or Gordy Dickson, or anybody else would get. So I think that this gives us a very strong relationship with the writers. On the other hand, we get as many letters from our readers as we do manuscripts from the writers. And again, the editor responds to all of them. Either by putting them in Brass Tacks, or by sending the reader a personal letter. So a very, very close relationship. That's why I think the magazine's been so successful. First with John, and I'm just carrying on the same policy.
Phillips: Are more people reading science fiction magazines now, than twenty to twenty-five years ago?
Bova: Not the science fiction magazines. I think the readership of the magazines is about the same as it was, as far as percentage of the population is concerned The numbers are up; the absolute number of people is up. But on the other hand, there are fewer magazines now, then there were twenty to twenty-five years ago. But lots more people are reading paperback books, and looking at science fiction on television, and in the movies. So I think the total science fiction audience has expanded enormously, but the magazine audience has not gone up that much.
Phillips: When did you first become interested in science fiction and who were your early influences?
Bova: Superman, basically. In fact, the first issue of Action Comics had the opening installment, and I was barely old enough to read at that time, but that first picture of the planet Krypton exploding, and Superman, the infant, leaving on a rocket heading for earth go me interested in science fiction, astronomy, and rocketry all in one shot.
Phillips: Who do you consider to be the top new writers that Analog has published recently?
Bova: We've installed an award at the World Science Fiction Convention called the John W. Campbell Award for the best new writer of the year. Conde Nast puts up the award, but the science fiction fans at the convention do the voting and they pick the writers. In the two years that the award have been given, two years ago, it went to Jerry Pournelle, last year it was a tie between Lisa Tuttle and Spider Robinson. I think it's unfortunate that guys like George Martin, and well, Jesse Miller is still eligible, but George Martin is one of the top new writers in the field, and will never be able to get that award because he began writing too soon.
Joe Halderman is certainly head-and-shoulders above most new writers of the field although Joe's been around now almost ten years. He's a veteran. P.J. Plauger might win the Best New Writer award this year, and there are a few others. You know, the longer the list, the more names I'll forget, so I'll just stop it there.
Phillips: What other fields outside of SF do you write about?
Bova: Basically, I've written about science and its influence on human beings, whether it's in factual
books or in fiction. That's my basic angle.
Phillips: Why hasn't science fiction become more popular with the advent of new inventions and space expoloration?
Bova: Basically because most people don't like to think. Science fiction is the kind of entertainment that appeals to your mind; cerebral entertainment. Most people don't want to think. Most people want to be entertained, more or less, pacifically. They do not accept the exercise, the mental exercise that's necessary to enjoy and understand science fiction.
Phillips Why can't there be better science fiction on television?
Bova: Because television doesn't want better science fiction, or indeed better anything. I have a novel coming out in November called The Starcrossed, which is a tongue-in-check review of what happened to me as science adviser on the television series called The Starlost. The basic drive of television is to keep the viewer mildly hypnotized long enough to see the commercials. If you think about it for a minute, you realize that a television commercial, maybe thirty seconds duration, there is more money spent on it than on a television show of a half-hour duration. There is more money, ingenuity, and talent lavished on the commercials than there is on the shows. That is where the heart of television is. There is no attempt to get quality of realism into television. Except in documentaries, or special shows. Almost all of television is an attempt to entertain you mildly without taxing your brain, and to get you to buy the product.
Phillips: Are there any main themes that you try to get across in your works in general?
Bova: Gee, I don't think so. Maybe a critic would if he examined them all and pondered over it. All I've ever tried to do is write interesting stories that basically deal with how science affects people. I don't know if that's what you would call a theme or not.
Phillips: What major points would you give teachers who are going to teach science fiction?
Bova: Learn what the subject is about. I think 99% of the teachers dealing in science fiction, or giving science fiction courses today, don't know any science, don't know any fiction, and don't know anything at all about science fiction. Partly through my instigation, James Gunn, who is not only one of the top science fiction writers around, but professor of English at the University of Kansas, has started a course at the university for the teachers of science fiction, so that perhaps they teach science fiction rather intelligently.
I think science fiction should be taught be a team of people. Science fiction has its roots in mythology, technology, science, religion, sociology, politics, English literature, and it would be difficult for a teacher of English to understand the technological nuances of a science fiction story. It might be difficult for a professor of philosophy to understand some of the political attitudes expressed in science fiction stories. I think science fiction is a subject ready made for team-teaching by people in different specialties.
Phillips: What would you consider your greatest accomplishment in the science fiction field?
Bova: Paying my rent.
Phillips: What is your favorite work by a fellow SF writer?
Bova: I'm not going to answer that. Everyone I mention will get four hundred others mad at me.
Phillips: Then, who is your favorite writer?
Bova: Same problem. I'll tell you, my favorite writer is Gordon R. Dickson, not that I like his writing better than thousands of other people, but he is my favorite person who is a writer.
Phillips: What reasons would you give why science fiction predicted so many inventions?
Bova: Fred Pohl answered that one. He said science fiction predictions is like a broken clock; a broken clock is correct twice a day. There have been so many predictions, in so many science fiction stories, that some of them were bound to be right. Think of all the predictions that have not come true. We don't have invisible men, we don't have people going around like in Slan, or any of the van Vogt things, just thinking telepathy or telekinesis. We don't have interstellar flight, we haven't been visited by extraterrestrials, and the world has not been broken into little-bitty pieces.
Phillips: What is your opinion of fandom and science fiction conventions?
Bova: Well, I love them. Analog is in a peculiar position because our readership is about two-thirds of magnitude larger than the total number of science fiction fans in the world. Yet, these fans do form the nucleus of our readership, and the climate of opinion that makes science fiction what it is. I enjoy going to science fiction conventions, and wish I could attend more of them. On the other hand, if I did, I would fall apart physically.
Phillips: How could you help a young writer break into the field?
Bova: I've written a book which will come out this fall published by Scribner's called Notes to a Science Fiction Writer. It's an attempt to show the young, and new writers the simple mistakes in craftsmanship they make that prevent their stories from being commercially salable.
I get lots of stories in the slush pile every week that have interesting ideas, or stretches of very good writing, but the writer doesn't know how to build a commercial story. It's like a carpenter who doesn't know how to build a house. He may know how to nail together some beautiful pieces of wood, but the house won't stand. It will fall every time the wind blows.
It's an attempt to help people over some of the simple problems. The basic thing that it takes to be a commercial writer is, talent aside, because I think most people have enough talent to do it, is strictly drive and perseverance. Every successful writer I know has moved his whole life towards the goal of being a successful writer, and everything else that he does becomes secondary.
Phillips: What do you think of the way publishing companies market science fiction?
Bova: Lousy. Especially when you stop to think that n England, the average science fiction novel sells as many copies as it does in the United States. What is it? One quarter of the population in England? In the first place, our educational system turns our people who are largely illiterate, and more and more illiterates every year. People do not like to read, and those who do read, don't like to think, and science fiction comes out way down on people's priorities. I think the book publishers have the general attitude that there are a certain number of science fiction buyers out there, and it they work very, very hard and push, and promote, and advertise a science fiction book, it will sell "x" number of copies. If they don't do anything at all about a science fiction book, it will still sell the same number, so they don't do anything at all. I think that attitude is dead wrong and maybe some publishers will begin to change their marketing ways. But, at the moment, most publishers do not invest any effort in science fiction.
They print science fiction books like a sausage store makes sausages, and just puts them out on the stands, and they sell a certain number. Enough to be profitable, but nowhere near the number they could sell with some intelligence.
Phillips: There is a continuing controversy between scientists and religious fundamentalists over genetic research, and of man playing God. How do you feel?
Bova: I think when we stop doing that we start playing monkey, rather than God. It is man's duty to play God. After all, we invented God, and we better do a good job of running our lives and futures. When we stop engaging in scientific research, we essentially stop being human.
Phillips: Why do the New Wave of speculative fiction writers do not want to be known as science fiction writers?
Bova: I don't think it's a New Wave phenomenon in particular. In the first place, the Old/New Wave controversy died off a couple of years ago. The two separate fields have come together once again. There are a number of writers ranging from Robert Heinlein to Norman Spinrad who don't like to have the word science fiction on their books because they sell more books if it doesn't say science fiction. The average American reader knows that science fiction is difficult and weird and gets upset and doesn't buy science fiction. They buy a book by Robert Heinlein because they know he's a damn entertaining writer, with fantastic ideas. The buy books by Kurt Vonnegut because he's a black humorist.
They'll even buy books by Ray Bradbury, although they know that guys like Bradbury and Asimov have been associated with science fiction. They think of them as being writers who have gone beyond science fiction, and can talk to to the general masses, which is true.
Not too long ago, I came across my original transcript of an interview I did when I was a skinny, seventeen year old high school student at Bergenfield High School in New Jersey. Luckily, I also had the cassette tape saved, dated July 15, 1975. How did I interview Ben Bova? Well, I loved taking the bus into Manhattan and just walking around and seeing the sights of the Big Apple. One day, I walked past the Conde Nast building, then located at 350 Madison Avenue, and realised that this is where the science fiction and fact magazine Analog was published. Ben Bova had been the editor since 1972, and I decided to walk upstairs and see if I could arrange and interview with him for our high school science fiction magazine Scientus.
Mr. Bova kindly saw me walk in wearing cut-off dungaree shorts, a buttoned short sleeve shirt outside of my shorts, and sneakers. We arranged a time and date for my return, and eventually, allowed my fellow students and teacher to attend a meeting in his office. Now, here is something unique for readers and editors alike. Notes from a science fiction editor.
Phillips: When did you first become associated with Analog and how did you become editor?
Bova: I was writing for Analog, and I think my first story appeared in Analog in 1962. When John Campbell died, his assistant, Kay Tarrant, was asked by the Conde Nast management to draw up a list of people who might qualify as editor. Kay, in turn asked various writers who had contributed over many years to the magazine. They each sent in suggested names. My name appeared on a couple of those lists.
Kay called up one afternoon, and I was living in Boston then, and asked if I would consider being in the running. I said sure, so I sent in a resume, and then got called down to New York to interview for the job, and after a couple of interviews, I was flabbergasted to find that they picked me. I lifted a finger, but that's about all I did.
Phillips:What would you say are the reasons for you producing a very successful magazine?
Bova: I think it's mainly John Campbell's success. John made science fiction what it is today, and I think that he worked out a very smooth running operation here, and to a large extent, we've just kept up his policies.
Certainly the policy of having the editor read all the incoming manuscripts, so that there is no first reader, no slush pile reader, gives the writers, I think, the feeling that they're getting the best judgement that they could possibly get. They're not being rejected by some anonymous slush pile reader. They're getting the judgement of the editor. The same way Heinlein or Gordy Dickson, or anybody else would get. So I think that this gives us a very strong relationship with the writers. On the other hand, we get as many letters from our readers as we do manuscripts from the writers. And again, the editor responds to all of them. Either by putting them in Brass Tacks, or by sending the reader a personal letter. So a very, very close relationship. That's why I think the magazine's been so successful. First with John, and I'm just carrying on the same policy.
Phillips: Are more people reading science fiction magazines now, than twenty to twenty-five years ago?
Bova: Not the science fiction magazines. I think the readership of the magazines is about the same as it was, as far as percentage of the population is concerned The numbers are up; the absolute number of people is up. But on the other hand, there are fewer magazines now, then there were twenty to twenty-five years ago. But lots more people are reading paperback books, and looking at science fiction on television, and in the movies. So I think the total science fiction audience has expanded enormously, but the magazine audience has not gone up that much.
Phillips: When did you first become interested in science fiction and who were your early influences?
Bova: Superman, basically. In fact, the first issue of Action Comics had the opening installment, and I was barely old enough to read at that time, but that first picture of the planet Krypton exploding, and Superman, the infant, leaving on a rocket heading for earth go me interested in science fiction, astronomy, and rocketry all in one shot.
Phillips: Who do you consider to be the top new writers that Analog has published recently?
Bova: We've installed an award at the World Science Fiction Convention called the John W. Campbell Award for the best new writer of the year. Conde Nast puts up the award, but the science fiction fans at the convention do the voting and they pick the writers. In the two years that the award have been given, two years ago, it went to Jerry Pournelle, last year it was a tie between Lisa Tuttle and Spider Robinson. I think it's unfortunate that guys like George Martin, and well, Jesse Miller is still eligible, but George Martin is one of the top new writers in the field, and will never be able to get that award because he began writing too soon.
Joe Halderman is certainly head-and-shoulders above most new writers of the field although Joe's been around now almost ten years. He's a veteran. P.J. Plauger might win the Best New Writer award this year, and there are a few others. You know, the longer the list, the more names I'll forget, so I'll just stop it there.
Phillips: What other fields outside of SF do you write about?
Bova: Basically, I've written about science and its influence on human beings, whether it's in factual
books or in fiction. That's my basic angle.
Phillips: Why hasn't science fiction become more popular with the advent of new inventions and space expoloration?
Bova: Basically because most people don't like to think. Science fiction is the kind of entertainment that appeals to your mind; cerebral entertainment. Most people don't want to think. Most people want to be entertained, more or less, pacifically. They do not accept the exercise, the mental exercise that's necessary to enjoy and understand science fiction.
Phillips Why can't there be better science fiction on television?
Bova: Because television doesn't want better science fiction, or indeed better anything. I have a novel coming out in November called The Starcrossed, which is a tongue-in-check review of what happened to me as science adviser on the television series called The Starlost. The basic drive of television is to keep the viewer mildly hypnotized long enough to see the commercials. If you think about it for a minute, you realize that a television commercial, maybe thirty seconds duration, there is more money spent on it than on a television show of a half-hour duration. There is more money, ingenuity, and talent lavished on the commercials than there is on the shows. That is where the heart of television is. There is no attempt to get quality of realism into television. Except in documentaries, or special shows. Almost all of television is an attempt to entertain you mildly without taxing your brain, and to get you to buy the product.
Phillips: Are there any main themes that you try to get across in your works in general?
Bova: Gee, I don't think so. Maybe a critic would if he examined them all and pondered over it. All I've ever tried to do is write interesting stories that basically deal with how science affects people. I don't know if that's what you would call a theme or not.
Phillips: What major points would you give teachers who are going to teach science fiction?
Bova: Learn what the subject is about. I think 99% of the teachers dealing in science fiction, or giving science fiction courses today, don't know any science, don't know any fiction, and don't know anything at all about science fiction. Partly through my instigation, James Gunn, who is not only one of the top science fiction writers around, but professor of English at the University of Kansas, has started a course at the university for the teachers of science fiction, so that perhaps they teach science fiction rather intelligently.
I think science fiction should be taught be a team of people. Science fiction has its roots in mythology, technology, science, religion, sociology, politics, English literature, and it would be difficult for a teacher of English to understand the technological nuances of a science fiction story. It might be difficult for a professor of philosophy to understand some of the political attitudes expressed in science fiction stories. I think science fiction is a subject ready made for team-teaching by people in different specialties.
Phillips: What would you consider your greatest accomplishment in the science fiction field?
Bova: Paying my rent.
Phillips: What is your favorite work by a fellow SF writer?
Bova: I'm not going to answer that. Everyone I mention will get four hundred others mad at me.
Phillips: Then, who is your favorite writer?
Bova: Same problem. I'll tell you, my favorite writer is Gordon R. Dickson, not that I like his writing better than thousands of other people, but he is my favorite person who is a writer.
Phillips: What reasons would you give why science fiction predicted so many inventions?
Bova: Fred Pohl answered that one. He said science fiction predictions is like a broken clock; a broken clock is correct twice a day. There have been so many predictions, in so many science fiction stories, that some of them were bound to be right. Think of all the predictions that have not come true. We don't have invisible men, we don't have people going around like in Slan, or any of the van Vogt things, just thinking telepathy or telekinesis. We don't have interstellar flight, we haven't been visited by extraterrestrials, and the world has not been broken into little-bitty pieces.
Phillips: What is your opinion of fandom and science fiction conventions?
Bova: Well, I love them. Analog is in a peculiar position because our readership is about two-thirds of magnitude larger than the total number of science fiction fans in the world. Yet, these fans do form the nucleus of our readership, and the climate of opinion that makes science fiction what it is. I enjoy going to science fiction conventions, and wish I could attend more of them. On the other hand, if I did, I would fall apart physically.
Phillips: How could you help a young writer break into the field?
Bova: I've written a book which will come out this fall published by Scribner's called Notes to a Science Fiction Writer. It's an attempt to show the young, and new writers the simple mistakes in craftsmanship they make that prevent their stories from being commercially salable.
I get lots of stories in the slush pile every week that have interesting ideas, or stretches of very good writing, but the writer doesn't know how to build a commercial story. It's like a carpenter who doesn't know how to build a house. He may know how to nail together some beautiful pieces of wood, but the house won't stand. It will fall every time the wind blows.
It's an attempt to help people over some of the simple problems. The basic thing that it takes to be a commercial writer is, talent aside, because I think most people have enough talent to do it, is strictly drive and perseverance. Every successful writer I know has moved his whole life towards the goal of being a successful writer, and everything else that he does becomes secondary.
Phillips: What do you think of the way publishing companies market science fiction?
Bova: Lousy. Especially when you stop to think that n England, the average science fiction novel sells as many copies as it does in the United States. What is it? One quarter of the population in England? In the first place, our educational system turns our people who are largely illiterate, and more and more illiterates every year. People do not like to read, and those who do read, don't like to think, and science fiction comes out way down on people's priorities. I think the book publishers have the general attitude that there are a certain number of science fiction buyers out there, and it they work very, very hard and push, and promote, and advertise a science fiction book, it will sell "x" number of copies. If they don't do anything at all about a science fiction book, it will still sell the same number, so they don't do anything at all. I think that attitude is dead wrong and maybe some publishers will begin to change their marketing ways. But, at the moment, most publishers do not invest any effort in science fiction.
They print science fiction books like a sausage store makes sausages, and just puts them out on the stands, and they sell a certain number. Enough to be profitable, but nowhere near the number they could sell with some intelligence.
Phillips: There is a continuing controversy between scientists and religious fundamentalists over genetic research, and of man playing God. How do you feel?
Bova: I think when we stop doing that we start playing monkey, rather than God. It is man's duty to play God. After all, we invented God, and we better do a good job of running our lives and futures. When we stop engaging in scientific research, we essentially stop being human.
Phillips: Why do the New Wave of speculative fiction writers do not want to be known as science fiction writers?
Bova: I don't think it's a New Wave phenomenon in particular. In the first place, the Old/New Wave controversy died off a couple of years ago. The two separate fields have come together once again. There are a number of writers ranging from Robert Heinlein to Norman Spinrad who don't like to have the word science fiction on their books because they sell more books if it doesn't say science fiction. The average American reader knows that science fiction is difficult and weird and gets upset and doesn't buy science fiction. They buy a book by Robert Heinlein because they know he's a damn entertaining writer, with fantastic ideas. The buy books by Kurt Vonnegut because he's a black humorist.
They'll even buy books by Ray Bradbury, although they know that guys like Bradbury and Asimov have been associated with science fiction. They think of them as being writers who have gone beyond science fiction, and can talk to to the general masses, which is true.
- END -
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