Recently, doing an interview for Publishers Weekly on my old friend and hero, Robert Heinlein (he prefers "Robert" to "Bob"), I asked him how he got started in science fiction.
"In '39. I started writing and I was hooked. I wrote everything I learned anywhere; navy, army, anywhere. My first science fiction story was 'Lifeline.' I saw an ad in Thrilling Wonder offering a prize of $50 for the best amateur story, but then I found out that Astounding was paying a cent a word and my story ran to 7,000 words. So I submitted it to them first and they bought it."
"You sonofabitch," I said between my teeth. "I won that Thrilling Wonder contest, and you beat me by twenty dollars.
We both laughed but despite our mutual admiration I suspect that we both knew that twenty dollars wasn't the only way Robert has always bettered me in science fiction.
I think I wrote perhaps a dozen acceptable science fiction stories in the next two years, all of them rotten, for I was without craft and experience and had to learn by trial and error. I've never been one to save things, I don't even save my mss., but I did hold on to the first four magazine covers on which my name appeared. Thrilling Wonder Stories (15ȼ). On the lower left-hand comer is printed "Slaves of the Life Ray, a startling novelet by Alfred Bester." The feature story was "Trouble on Titan, A Gerry Carlyle Novel by Arthur K. Barnes." Another issue had me down in the same bullpen, "The Voyage to Nowhere by Alfred Bester." The most delightful item is my first cover story in Astonishing Stories (104), "The Pet Nebula by Alfred Bester." The cover shows an amazed young scientist in his laboratory being confronted by a sort of gigantic radioactive seahorse. Damned if I can remember what the story was about.
Some other authors on the covers were Neil R. Jones, J. Harvey Haggard, Ray Cummings (I remember that name), Harry Bates (his, too), Kelvin Kent (sounds like a house name to me), E. E. Smith, Ph.D. (but of course) and Henry Kuttner with better billing than mine. He was in the left-hand upper comer.
Mort Weisinger introduced me to the informal luncheon gatherings of the working science fiction authors of the late thirties. I met Henry Kuttner, who later became Lewis Padgett, Ed Hamilton, and Otto Binder, the writing half of Eando Binder. Eando was a sort of acronym of the brothers Ed and Otto Binder. E and O. Ed was a self-taught science fiction illustrator and not very good. Malcolm Jameson, author of navy-oriented space stories, was there, tall, gaunt, prematurely grey, speaking in slow, heavy tones. Now and then he brought along his pretty daughter, who turned everybody's head.
The vivacious compere of those luncheons was Manley Wade Wellman, a professional Southerner full of regional anecdotes. It's my recollection that one of his hands was slightly shriveled, which may have been why he came on so strong for the Confederate cause. We were all very patient with that; after all, our side won the war. Wellman was quite the man-of-the-world for the innocent thirties; he always ordered wine with his lunch.
Henry Kuttner and Otto Binder were medium-sized young men, very quiet and courteous, and entirely without outstanding features. Once I broke Kuttner up quite unintentionally. I said to Weisinger, "I've just finished a wild story that takes place in a spaceless, timeless locale where there's no objective reality. It's awfully long, 20,000 words, but I can cut the first 5,000." Kuttner burst out laughing. I do, too, when I think of the dumb kid I was. Once I said most earnestly to Jameson, "I've discovered a remarkable thing. If you combine two story-lines into one, the result can be tremendously exciting." He stared at me with incredulity. "Haven't you ever heard of plot and counterplot?" he growled. I hadn't. I discovered it all by myself.
Being brash and the worst kind of intellectual snob, I said privately to Weisinger that I wasn't much impressed by these writers who were supplying most of the science fiction for the magazines, and asked him why they received so many assignments. He explained, "They may never write a great story, but they never write a bad one. We know we can depend on them." Having recently served my time as a magazine editor, I now understand exactly what he meant.
When the comic book explosion burst, my two magi were lured away from Standard Magazines by the Superman Group. There was a desperate need for writers to provide scenarios (Wellman nicknamed them "Squinkas") for the artists, so Weisinger and Schiff drafted me as one of their writers. I hadn't the faintest idea of how to write a comic book script, but one rainy Saturday afternoon Bill Finger, the star comics writer of the time, took me in hand and gave me, a potential rival, an incisive, illuminating lecture on the craft. I still regard that as a high point in the generosity of one colleague to another.
I wrote comics for three or four years with increasing expertise and success. Those were wonderful days for a novice. Squinkas were expanding and there was a constant demand for stories. You could write three and four a week and experiment while learning your craft. The scripts were usually an odd combination of science fiction and "Gangbusters." To give you some idea of what they were like, here's a typical script conference with an editor I'll call Chuck Migg, dealing with a feature I'll call "Captain Hero." Naturally, both are fictitious. The dialogue isn't.
"Now, listen," Migg says, "I called you down because we got to do something about Captain Hero."
"What's your problem?"
"The book is closing next week, and we're thirteen pages short. That's a whole lead story. We got to work one out now."
"Any particular slant?"
"Nothing special, except maybe two things. We got to be original and we got to be realistic. No more fantasy."
"Right."
"So give."
"Wait a minute, for Christ's sake. Who d'you think I am, Saroyan?"
Two minutes of intense concentration. Then Migg says, "How about this? A mad scientist invents a machine for making people go fast. So crooks steal it and hop themselves up. Get it? They move so fast they can rob a bank in a split second."
"No."
"We open with a splash panel showing money and jewelry disappearing with wiggly lines and---Why no?"
"It's a steal from H. G. Wells."
"But it's still original."
"Anyway, it's too fantastic. I thought you said we were going to be realistic."
"Sure I said realistic, but that don't mean we can't be imaginative. What we have to---"
"Wait a minute. Hold the phone."
"Got a flash?"
"Maybe. Suppose we begin with a guy making some kind of experiment. He's a scientist, but not mad. This is a straight, sincere guy."
"Gotcha. He's making an experiment for the good of humanity. Different narrative hook."
"We'll have to use some kind of rare earth metal; cerium, maybe, or---"
"No, let's go back to radium. We ain't used it in the last three issues."
"All right, radium. The experiment is a success. He brings a dead dog back to life with his radium serum."
"I'm waiting for the twist."
"The serum gets into his blood. From a lovable scientist, he turns into a fiend."
At this point Migg takes fire. "I got it! I got it! We'll make like King Midas. This doc is a sweet guy. He's just finished an experiment that's gonna bring eternal life to mankind. So he takes a walk in his garden and smells a rose. Blooie! The rose dies. He feeds the birds. Wham! The birds plotz. So how does Captain Hero come in?"
"Well, maybe we can make it Jekyll and Hyde here. The doctor doesn't want to be a walking killer. He knows there's a rare medicine that'll neutralize the radium in him. He has to steal it from hospitals, and that brings Captain Hero around to investigate."