Author James Blish complains about pirated fiction — back in 1951

The digital age has spawned an ongoing literary argument between authors who fear their works are too easily being pirated and authors like Cory Doctorow who believe current copyright laws are failing to serve artists (along with a million different views on the issue.) While I personally align more with Doctorow's position, I totally understand the concern of authors who fear that the free distribution of their creative works will undercut how they earn their living.

But with that said, it's silly to be believe this is in any way a new issue for authors. For example, in the 19th century pirating was a major problem, with American publishers being notorious for the practice. This is seen easily with Uncle Tom's Cabin, which was not only the best-selling novel of the 19th century but likely also the most pirated one.

In the 20th century more rigidly enforced and standarized copyright laws helped make pirated works more rare, but it still happened. As proof of this, witness this letter from SF author James Blish to William L. Hamling, editor of Imagination: Stories of Science Fiction. The letter was published in the September 1951 edition of the magazine and is part of my continuing effort to scan and highlight forgotten correspondence of interest to genre history.

The letter is transcribed below. Readers can also download the letter as a PDF.

And I'm curious about this well-known fan who assisted with this pirating. Wonder if anyone knows who this was?

 

AN AUTHOR PROTESTS

Dear Bill :

While reading the June issue of IMAGINATION I ran across the reference to Spanish-language fantasy magazines in FANDORA'S BOX. To quote: "Even if you never see these magazines and never want to, its interesting to know that your favorite authors and stories are being enjoyed by fans who can't read English.”

To which, I'm afraid, it's necessary to add: For which privilege none of the authors represented are receiving one red cent. Evidently Miss Wolf is not aware of the fact that some of these Spanish magazines print by out and out piracy. The stories which go into them are selected, it seems, by an American, an extremely well known fan who apparently is proud of his participation in this kind of literary thievery.

There seems to be little that the pirated authors can do about this condition at the moment; however, you, as editor of an American science fiction magazine which will probably be pirated by Los Cuentos Fantasticos sooner or later should at least refrain from printing what amounts to tacit approval of the practice.

Incidentally, none of my own stories have ever proven popular enough to our friends South-of-the-border to be pirated in this fashion, so I have no personal axe to grind.

James Blish
171 Pelton Ave.
Staten Island 10, N. Y.

The literary piracy practices of the Мехісат таgazine you тепtion are no secret to your editor, Jim. While I edited FANTASTIC ADVENTURES at Ziff-Davis we found that not only were some of owr stories stolen by this questionable Mexican outfit, but they also used our covers, blocking out the logo. The matter was taken up with the attorneys of AS & FA, but it seemed as if there was no legal hold we could get on this magazine. As to our personal feelings on the mαtter you can imagine how angry we were—and are that a cheap fly-by-night Mexican firm would do such a dastardly thing under some technicality of a copyright being invalid insofar as they're cоncerned. And we'll go on record right now and say that in all likelihood we won't be able to stop them from pirating stories, illustrations and covers from IMAGINATION if they choose to do so, but if we ever meet anybody cоnnected with the project well have a few choice things to say.

As to the mention in FANDORA'S BOX, we don't censor fan news. We try and be as fair as possible even to a nauseating magazine like the one mentioned. Anything in science fiction is fan news and the fans have the right to know and express their views in any manner in the proper departments of this book. And along these lines wed like to mention one other thing. Mari Wolf's husband is Rog Phillips. And I believe Rog has had some of his work pirated by this same publication you mention. Which shows that Mari is reporting the news fairly, even though she may have an axe to grind personally.

As to an American having a hand in this literary piracy, we dont know anything about that … wlh

On the Hugo Awards and dysfunctional politics

I've received a number of messages and comments since my post about the pending sweep of the Hugo Awards final ballot by the Sad Puppies campaign. Many of these messages say that I simply want my political side to dominate the award, and that conservatives had to band together to save the science fiction and fantasy genre and/or destroy their opponents.

What's funny about this — aside from anyone assuming to know my political views or even where I stand on different issues — is it means some people now view the Hugo Awards through the prism of the United States' dysfunctional political system. For those outside the USA, this basically means that there are people who want to split our genre into two parties which continually attack each other and want nothing more than to destroy the other. Compromise and understanding and communication and simple human decency are out because the other side is so evil they must be wiped from the genre.

This is disturbing on many levels. First, it's a extremely wrong approach to life. Second, I don't want our genre to be split like this. Third, it assumes that all authors and fans are motivated primarily by politics, which is totally asinine. For example, Lois McMaster Bujold, who won the 2004 Hugo Award for Best Novel, freely admits "her writing is not political or ideological." I'd say many if not most SF/F authors and fans fall into this category.

In addition, such an "us or them" approach to issues in our genre assumes that even those authors and fans who are politically motivated can be aligned on a simplistic USA-centric political model. There's a reason the World Science Fiction Convention is called Worldcon — one can find SF/F authors and fans around the globe and in every culture and country. Because of this, a large number of authors and fans can't be placed within the spectrum of our dysfunctional political system.

To understand what I'm getting at here, I'd dare anyone to place Scottish author Charles Stross, who has been nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel seven times over the last decade, on a simplistic USA-based left-right/liberal-conservative divide. For a glimpse at Stross' complicated political views, check out his statement about last year's Scottish independence vote.

All that said, there have long been strong political viewpoints in the American SF/F genre and it would be silly to ignore this. As Stross once said, "The history of American SF is of a genre that was profoundly infused by political ideology." Very true. The SF/F field in the United States has always been made up of people from across the political spectrum — libertarians, communists, radical right, radical left, socialists, Republicans, Democrats and every political viewpoint you can imagine. Since genre fans are rather outspoken, arguments and disagreements have flowed through our genre since its formation.

However, to my knowledge no side every talked about totally destroying the other, or risked splitting the genre and possibly inflicting permanent harm on either Worldcon or the Hugos. Instead, different sides debated and argued using the written word. For example, when Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1960, many people were outraged about the novel's politics and view of war. But these people didn't try to game the Hugo nominating process to keep Heinlein off the ballot or place their own novels there.

Instead, these authors and fans responded to Starship Troopers with their own fiction and critiques. Harry Harrison wrote his famous 1965 satirical novel Bill, the Galactic Hero in direct response to Heinlein. Joe Haldeman also disagreed with the view of war in Starship Troopers and was influenced by both Heinlein's novel and Haldeman's own experiences in Vietnam to write The Forever War, which won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards.

Instead of Heinlein being angry about Haldeman's novel and starting a campaign to force the genre to see things his way, the famously libertarian author approached Haldeman after the Nebula Award ceremony and said The Forever War "may be the best future war story I've ever read!"

I've disagreed with many people in the genre over the years. For example, I've critiqued several statements that Mike Resnick has made. But that doesn't mean I don't like him or can't enjoy his stories. And if he writes a great new story, I'll vote for it. The fact that he's received an amazing 36 Hugo Award nominations, and won five of those Hugos, means I'm not the only one who thinks this way.

I bring up Resnick because he recently said something very interesting about the Sad Puppies campaign. In response to supporters of the campaign saying on Facebook that recent Hugo Award winners had made the awards worthless and "defaced the legacy of Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke," Resnick said the following:

"I have voted against at least as many Hugo winners as for them. I have thought better books and stories lost. But I have never felt that the fact that I didn't like a book that some editor paid money for and a majority of my peers voted for made it a bad book or story, just one that didn't appeal to me personally. I understand why you want a certain author or publisher to win; I do not understand why you, and so many like you, feel the awards of the past quarter century are worthless."

I'm in total agreement with Resnick on this.

In addition, Resnick later added in the Facebook thread that "A lot of prior Hugo winners were not liberals. I'm one of them ... When someone says, as so many have said here on Facebook, that they can't stand the award winners, that translates as their being unable to stand Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, and Niven, all multiple Hugo winners."

Well said, Mike Resnick. Well said indeed.

The Hugo Awards belong to all of us. And that should never change.

When Marion Zimmer Bradley decried sex in SF stories

I've been wading through my grandfather's old science fiction magazines and have decided to do occasional scans of this content to illustrate forgotten aspects of the genre's history. In particular, I want to illustrate the letters to the editor which were a major way people in fandom communicated with each other before the start of the digital revolution.

My first scan is a letter to the editor from Marion Zimmer Bradley. Long before she became famous as a fiction writer — and then infamous for both ignoring her husband's child molestation activities and engaging in the same herself — Bradley wrote a number of letters which were published in Thrilling Wonder Stories.

The letter below comes from the June 1953 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories. In it, Bradley says that her complaint about sex in a recent story in the magazine isn't the "shrieking of an outraged prude." Instead, she complains about using poor science to set up what is essential a "sex fiction" story. Bradley adds she is okay with sex in SF stories when it's integral to the story's plot, as in Philip Jose Farmer's famous story "The Lovers." Otherwise, she doesn't want it in her SF.

In light of Bradley's later abusive and criminal acts, the letter can't help but be read today in an extremely disturbing manner. That said, the letter also opens a window into her mindset at the start of her writing career while also demonstrating a good bit of insight into the gender-norms and beliefs which saturated the SF/F genre in the early 1950s.

To open the letter as a PDF, go here.

Yes, the Sad Puppies campaign swept the Hugo Awards

The Hugo Award nominees won't be announced until April 4, but you don't need to be Nostradamus to see what's coming. The Sad Puppies slate of nominees essentially swept all the Hugo Award categories with the exception of Best Novel.

Don't believe me? Then wait until Saturday and find out. Or you can examine the evidence. Brad R. Torgersen and Larry Correia, who organized the campaign, have both written posts claiming a pending victory without actually stating that their slate won (since the nominations are technically sealed until the 4th). I'm sure they've received the same private messages I've had from people who either made the final ballot or know of people who made the list. Add in that some of the nominees from the Sad Puppies slate have outed themselves, and that Kate Paulk is already gearing up to run a Sad Puppies 4 campaign — and yeah, it's obvious where all this is going.

While the fact that the Hugo Awards can be gamed may shock some people, it's actually somewhat easy to do in the categories with lower voter participation, such as the short fiction categories. For example, if a few dozen people organize to vote for the same short story they can land that story on the final ballot. The reason this hasn’t been a major issue before is no one organized a large enough voting campaign like Sad Puppies 3. Basically, people had too much respect for the Hugo Awards to try and land only particular stories on the final ballot for political reasons. Most Hugo voters also took their nominating ability serious and voted for what they considered to be the best stories — and not for certain slates of stories and authors merely to make a larger cultural point.

Last year I wrote about how the Hugo Award rules needed to be changed so the awards weren't so easy to game. Otherwise the end result would be competing voting campaigns, which would result in the destruction of the entire Hugo Awards. It now appears this is where the Hugos are going. I'm also hearing that the people who help run Worldcon are outraged that this gaming of the awards succeeded. As a result, a number of proposed rule changes are already being considered. But such actions won't change this year's final ballot, which will be dominated by Sad Puppy stories, authors, and editors.

I guess congratulations are in order to Brad and Larry and the entire Sad Puppies campaign. You successfully gamed the Hugo Award nomination system. So go ahead and crow and jump around and do your little happy dance.

That said, I hope you realize that most people in fandom do not care for or support political games like this. Just as the vast majority of people in most countries only pay attention to politics when they have to (such as around election time), so does most of fandom ignore the political controversies which pop up in our genre from time to time. But this vast cross-section of fandom, while apolitical, also will not enjoy seeing their cherished Hugo Awards manipulated to score political points.

I predict a backlash is about to wash over the Sad Puppies. And when it does, it'll be interesting to see what happens next in our genre.

The 300th issue of the Czech magazine XB-1

Fun fact: There's an entire world of science fiction and fantasy existing beyond the horizons of what most English-language genre fans know. As proof of this, the Czech SF magazine XB-1 is celebrating their 300th issue with their upcoming April 2015 edition.

Followers of my website and social media account have often heard me talking about XB-1 because the magazine publishes a monthly column by me, along with regular translations of my stories. I greatly enjoy working with the XB-1 editors and love the interactions I have with Czech readers and fans.

XB-1 was founded in 1990 as the magazine Ikarie. Named after the classic Czech SF film Ikarie XB-1, Ikarie quickly became one of the most important European genre magazines. Published as a 8.25 x 11.5 inch, 64 page monthly (changed to 80 pages in the last volume of 2010) with full-color covers and black and white interiors, Ikarie contained between five or six stories in each issue in addition to reviews and nonfiction articles. Over the years Ikarie published countless Czech authors along with translated stories from the biggest names in world SF. 

Unfortunately, the publisher of Ikarie decided to close the magazine after the November 2010 issue. What made this decision even more painful was the closure didn't reflect poor sales but instead the publisher's desire to focus on lifestyle magazines.

Like the world truly needs another lifestyle magazine.

But as anyone familiar with SF/F fandom knows, the true power in our genre rests with the people who make up the genre. Ikarie editor in chief Vlado Ríša, foreign rights editor Martin Šust,  editor of Czech and Slovak fiction Jaroslav Jiran, and the rest of the magazine's staff pulled together and found a new publisher. Because of legal issues they couldn't use the old name, so the reborn magazine became XB-1.

Nearly 5 years later the combined run of XB-1/Ikarie has reached the magical 300, something few genre magazines in the world have ever accomplished.

Above is the cover of the 300th issue, which features the people who helped create and run XB-1/Ikarie. Martin Sust sent me the information below identifying the people who made the magazine possible over the years. 

Congratulations to XB-1 on this milestone. And I hope their SF future is as glorious as their SF past.
 

People on the cover of XB-1's 300th issue
by Martin Sust

First row – green bubble – Jaroslav Jiran – current editor of Czech and Slovak works, has been with the magazine since August 1992. He is also a fantasy author.  

Second row – yellow bubble – Pavel Kosatík – Worked on Ikarie for the first two issues, in eighties he edited three fanzine anthologies of foreign fiction. Now he is also an author of historical stories and biography books.  

Second row – pink bubble - Jaroslav Olša Jr. – he was the editor of the fanzines Ikarie XB-1, Ikarie XB-2 and Ikarie XB-3 in the eighties (three issues). At the beginning of nineties he edited a couple of anthologies with foreign fiction. He worked on the first five issues of the magazine. After that he was an author of the SF Encyclopedia. He is currently an ambassador for the Czech Republic.  

Second row – yellow bubble – Ondřej Neff – one of the most respected Czech SF authors from eighties to the present time. He was the first editor-in-chief of Ikarie, serving from the first issue to August 1993 (39 issues).  

Second row – blue bubble – Eva Hauserová – she was first editor of Czech and Slovak fiction in Ikarie for first 26 issues (to July 1992). Today she is a respected author of novels and a well-known feminist.  

Second row – brown bubble – me (or Eminem maybe). I was an editor of Ikarie from Sept 2005 to March 2007 and from August 2008 to the current XB-1 issues. BTW, at one time I was an editor of foreign fiction in three Czech SF magazines (Ikarie, Pevnost and Czech edition of F&SF magazine).  

Third row – red bubble – Alena Bytomská – secretary from fifth issue in 1990 to June 1999 issue. A good soul of the stuff. She was a political dissident during the eighties under the Communist government.  

Third row in the middle – Vlado Ríša – author of many SF/F books and a member of the staff from third issue (1990) until now. Editor in chief from Sept 1993.  

Third row – purple bubble – Ivan Adamovič – he was an editor of fanzine in the eighties, and a member of the staff from the first issue (editor of foreign fiction) to Aug 2005 and from April 2005 to July 2008. He is now a respected journalist, editor of anthologies and genre theorist (including being the author of a dictionary of Czech SF/F writers).