James Gunn
(1923-2020)
Eric Leif Davin
One way people are kept alive in memory is by having biographical entries in print or online encyclopedias, such as Wikipedia. One way of making sure those entries get written is to write them yourself, and then badger the encyclopedia editor into including them. This is what I did to James Gunn back in 1986 when he was preparing his New Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, published by Penguin in 1988. I’m sure, however, that no one will have to badger any future encyclopedia editor into including an entry on SFWA Grand Master James Gunn himself, who died on December 23, 2020, of natural causes, at the age of 97.
James Gunn, professor emeritus at the University of Kansas, was a prolific critic, editor, scholar, and writer of science fiction. Further, as was noted in 2015 when he was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame (an institution he helped create), he was “the last of the Golden Age [of science fiction] writers still writing.” At that time, for instance, Analog had just accepted a new story from him entitled, “Saving the World.”
James Gunn actually began his career at the tail end of the Golden Age when he sold his first story, “Paradox,” to Thrilling Wonder Stories in 1948. The magazine then published it in 1949 as by “Edwin James” (Gunn’s middle name was “Edwin”). He soon published two more stories in Startling Stories in 1949 and one in Astounding in 1950, just making it under the wire into the Golden Age. Gunn published these four stories, as well as six more, under this pen name, which he stopped using in 1952, the same year he earned his Master’s in English Literature from the University of Kansas. He went on to publish more than 100 short stories, as well as novels, reference works, and edited anthologies.
Short stories were Gunn’s forte, and four of them were dramatized in the 1950s on the pioneering NBC radio science fiction program, X Minus One. He also soon began writing novels. His first such was 1955’s Star Bridge, a collaboration with Jack Williamson, who also taught literature at the college level. His first novel that garnered much attention, however, was The Immortals, in 1962. This led to a 1969 made-for-TV movie entitled, The Immortal, starring Christopher George, who had previously starred in The Rat Patrol (1966-68). And this, in turn, led to a 1970-71 (two season) TV series of the same name, starring the same actor. It was essentially an adventure “chase” series similar to the better-known series, The Fugitive, in which the handsome young race car driver, Christopher George, immortal due to some antibody mutation, fled across America while being pursued by a billionaire’s minion who wanted his antibodies. Better known, at least within the SF field, was Gunn’s Nebula-nominated 1969 novelette, “The Listeners,” which he expanded into the 1972 novel of the same title.
But Gunn was just as important, if not more so, as a scholar in the field. His work in this direction began when he published excerpts from his M.A. thesis in Dynamic Science Fiction from 1953-54. He followed this with many other reference works, including 1975’s Alternate Worlds: The Illustrated History of Science Fiction, for which the Science Fiction Research Association (an organization he helped found in 1970) presented him with its Pilgrim Award in 1976. His 1982 study of Isaac Asimov’s oeuvre, Isaac Asimov: The Foundation of Science Fiction, won the 1983 Hugo Award for best reference work. He also edited many anthologies, such as Nebula Award Stories 10 in 1975 and the multi-volume history of science fiction series, The Road to Science Fiction (1977-82). Gunn also served as president of the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) from 1971-72 and as president of the Science Fiction Research Association from 1978-80.
All of this brought him many honors, including the Clareson Award, the Moskowitz Award, and the Eaton Award for Lifetime Achievement, in addition to his Pilgrim and Hugo Awards. In 2007 the SFWA named him a Grand Master, the Science Fiction Hall of Fame (an institution he helped launch) inducted him in 2015 (he was also a member of the First Fandom Hall of Fame), and in 2016 he was the Guest of Honor at MidAmeriCon II, the World Science Fiction Convention.
In 1969 he began teaching in the English Department at the University of Kansas, where he remained until his retirement. There he launched and became Director of the Center for the Study of Science Fiction (now renamed the Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction, in his honor), which, under his direction, began presenting the John W. Campbell, Jr. Award in 1972. All of this added up to an impressive life, which he chronicled in his 2017 autobiography, Star-Begotten: A Life Lived in Science Fiction, which he published at the age of 94.
Which, finally, brings us back to his 1988 New Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Prior to this I was conducting a series of interviews with pioneering science fiction writers and editors that would finally result in my 1999 book, Pioneers of Wonder: Conversations With the Founders of Science Fiction. In March, 1986, I wrote to Gunn offering to write an entry for his encyclopedia on David Lasser, the field’s very first magazine editor (of Gernsback’s Amazing Stories) and the author of the first book in the English language that seriously discussed the possibility of space flight via rockets.
In July of that year, Stephen Goldman, Gunn’s associate editor on the project, replied, telling me, “Sorry, we have no plans to include an entry on Lasser.” He included a list of the encyclopedia’s projected subjects, and suggested I write an entry on someone from the list.
I was appalled, the immediately wrote back to Goldman, protesting Lasser’s exclusion. I also protested the exclusion of several other early SF writers and editors, all the subjects of my book, including Sam Moskowitz, Charles Hornig (who replaced Lasser at Amazing), Raymond Z. Gallun, and Laurence Manning – while the encyclopedia included such one-shot authors as Gore Vidal and Carl Sagan.
Then, on August 1st, I followed up with a phone call directly to James Gunn, pressing my case for the inclusion of the above-named authors and editors. On August 7th, Gunn dropped me a postcard saying, “All right, you’ve convinced me.” He then assigned me the task of writing short entries on all of my proposed authors and editors, from a low of just 50 words on Hornig, Gallun, and Manning, to 75 on Lasser and 200 on Moskowitz.
I wrote all the entries and submitted them by the end of December, 1986. At the end of 1987 I received my payment for the entries. At two-and-a-half cents per word, it came to $5.62. Penguin published the encyclopedia in the fall of 1988 and it became a Hugo Award finalist. I did not receive a free contributor’s copy of the encyclopedia.
But, then, neither money nor a free copy was ever the point. The point was keeping the names of these early science fiction pioneers alive and preserving the knowledge of their contributions. And sometimes that means you have to badger encyclopedia editors and write the entries yourself.
In the end, James Gunn thanked me for badgering him and, of my book, Pioneers of Wonder, said, “Pieces like these are real contributions to scholarship in science fiction, and to real understanding of what actually went on.”
Coming from a Grand Master of the field like James Gunn, his words meant a lot to me.
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