 |
|
|
||||||||||||
 · · · · · · · · · · · · · | ||||||||||||||
C. M. Kornbluth
|
 C(yril) M. Kornbluth died suddenly at the age of 35 in 1958, a bit more than a month after the death
of Henry Kuttner. He had begun publishing science fiction as a 14 year-old fan in the 1930s, a member of
the same club, The Futurians, that included Isaac Asimov, James Blish, Frederik Pohl, Damon Knight and a
number of other young fans who went on to become major figures in the genre in succeeding decades. He
was certainly not the least of these talents. His early work was widely published (he is said to have used 18 or
19 pseudonyms in the late 1930s and early 1940s), but he first became prominent in the 1950s, both for his
short stories, many collected in Thirteen
O'Clock (1970), The Explorers (1954),
A Mile Beyond the Moon (1958), and The Best of C. M.
Kornbluth (1976), and for his novels:
Takeoff (1952), The Syndic (1953) and
Not This August (1955). He also collaborated with Judith Merril
(Outpost Mars [1952] and Gunner
Cade [1952]); and most prominently with Frederik Pohl
(The Space Merchants [1953] and several others). His metier in science
fiction was acerbic social criticism. Preeminently a satirist, with a dark vision of future worlds openly at
odds with the bright visions of Campbell's Astounding, his work was devoted to examining the assumptions
of Modern sf. He had a deeply embedded belief in scientific knowledge and an even deeper pessimism
that individual humans, or whole societies, would misuse it; his universe is ruthless. He was the Ambrose
Bierce of Modern sf.
Kornbluth's portrayal of science and scientists is at the core of "Gomez." It contrasts the joy of
doing science with the threat of what the world does with the knowledge thus gained. It has the enormous respect
for individualism and the individual talent at the core of hard sf wedded to the bleak suspicion (just short of
pure pessimism) that politics and especially the military is the enemy of science. "Gomez" is a fascinating work
to compare and contrast to Cordwainer Smith's "No, No, Not Rogov!" as an expression of the Cold War's
dominance of science. Ironically, the position of the scientist in the "Free World" is eerily close to Rogov's.
Taken together, these two stories represent sf's loss of faith in the ability of social institutions to relate properly
to science in the atomic age that followed World War II, together with the recognition that big science was
now achievable only through huge government/military funding. The age of the entrepreneurial inventor
seemed over. And to top it off, Kornbluth's is the more optimistic tale of loss. The underlying faith in knowledge
is reaffirmed in both Kornbluth and Smith -- in the long run.
|
The Ascent of Wonder copyright © 1994 by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer. |
Cramer: On Science & Science Fiction || Hartwell: Hard Science Fiction
David G. Hartwell || Kathryn Cramer || About Tor Books || Ordering Info
Interactive Intoduction to THE ASCENT OF WONDER copyright © 1995-1997 by Kathryn Cramer.