Memoirs of an Amazing Storyteller

[beamjockey]

I've just learned that Hugo Gernsback (1884-1967) left behind an autobiography he never published.

Hugo Gernsback: A Man Well Ahead of His Time has just been published by Booksurge. Read the editor's introduction here.

Although "gifted prose stylist" gets 1040 hits on Google, not one of them is on the same page as "Gernsback." On the other hand, here's Amazon's list of "statistically improbable" key phrases from the book:

electronic razor, gyro car, radio pen, atomic battery, space flyer, electronic bed, electrical experimenter, radio vacuum tube, sex ignorance, spark coil, electronic brain

Intriguing, no? It might be worth a read to learn Hugo's views on the century he helped shape.

On shsilver's recommendation, I read Gary Westfahl's The Mechanics of Wonder last year. Westfahl attempts to restore Hugo's disputed status as the true creator of science fiction, and, to my mind, succeeds. Not that there weren't plenty of stories, before Gernsback, we'd identify as SF, but he was the first to carve out an enduring category in which to include them. And in addition to coining terms like "science fiction" and "scientifiction," he was the leader in identifying what SF should be and what made a story a good science fiction story. He set the standards. Others improved on them, later.

Comments

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

The downside is that he's the preferred whipping boy of almost every What's Wrong With Science Fiction essay, except for the ones that focus on Campbell. It's with some justification.

Useless Hugo Gernsback trivia

[bigbumble.livejournal.com]

In my childhood (1960's) our paperboy was Gernsback's grandson. At least that's what my father told me at the time.