The Winnipeg worldcon, at about 3,500 in attendance, was quite a bit smaller than
some of the other annual Labor Day sf gatherings we've been to. The resulting
coziness of the event was actually quite refreshing, but we missed seeing some of
our friends this year who ordinarily turn up at worldcons. One person who was
not absent, however, was Forry Ackerman, who holds the record for number of
worldcons attended (the only one he's missed, due to extenuating circumstances, was
the first NolaCon, in 1951). Here is his first article for us...
If I had to pick a time when I could
have declared, "I am a science fiction fan!", it would have been in 1929. I was 14
years old. I had the first letter in the first letter column of Science Wonder
Quarterly. That letter was seen by a young boy about my age named Linus
Hogenmiller, of Farmington, Missouri. And it so happened that I was feeling a
little under the weather and was staying home from high school, when I received his
letter.
I was so thrilled to hear from a
fellow science fiction fan! I had time on my hands, just sitting up in bed, so my
mother got me some stationery, and I hand-wrote three letters to Linus that same
day. As soon as I finished a six or seven page letter, I'd think of other things
to tell him.
At that time, science fiction was
still called 'scientifiction'. In correspondence with Linus, he was the first one
to get a little weary of writing 'scientifiction' all the time, so he wrote 'stf'.
In the beginning, we pronounced it 'ess-tee-eff', and that got a little tiresome so
he cut it down to 'stef', and then merged it with 'fan'; we had 'stef-fans' for a
while, then 'stfans'.
Well, about that time I created a
correspondence club called 'The Boys Scientifiction Club'. (I had nothing against
girls, but they were as rare as a unicorn's horn in the fandom of 1930.) I
personally was writing to 116 science fiction fans around the world, and had a
correspondent in Russia, as well as several in England and Canada. Well, the way
the Boys Scientifiction Club operated was that you sent in a little snapshot of
yourself. You also sent in either three issues, consecutive, of one of the
magazines that had a serial in it, or a hardcover book, of which there weren't too
many at the time. In return, you got to keep either three magazines or a book for
a month. Pretty soon, it got to where I was staggering five or six blocks to the
mailbox, just to send off the books or magazines to the members.
Anyway, this little correspondence
club that I created had given me a thirst for writing. About that time, Francis
Flagg, who was a well-known science fiction author of the day, was running out of
ideas. I, however, had more ideas than I knew what to do with, but at age 15, I
didn't have professional ability yet. So I would send him an idea and he wrote it
up. In the last issue of Wonder Stories, April 1936, I had my first
professional story published, together with Francis Flagg, called "Earth's Lucky
Day". And that kind of convinced me that I was going to be an author when I grew
up. I hoped to be another H. G. Wells, Olaf Stapledon, or somebody else of
considerable consequence, but when I grew up and looked around in my mind, there
weren't these great book ideas -- instead, everything seemed to trend more toward
the O Henry type of super-short story.
I'm getting ahead of myself a little
bit, but some years later, I finally wrote I guess what must be the world's
shortest science fiction story -- one letter of the alphabet, for which I got paid
a hundred dollars. After its initial sale, I sold it four more times, so I got
paid five hundred dollars for a single letter of the alphabet. Since a natural
word, I think, is considered generally to have about five letters in it, I got paid
at the rate of $2,500 per word. Later, I sold it in eight translations, and of
course, I retained the serialization rights... Then I confess that I did a very
sneaky thing, I copyrighted the remaining letters of the alphabet, so nobody can
use them but me for one-letter stories... I will reveal for posterity that letter
of the alphabet. The story was called "Cosmic Report Card: Earth", suggesting that
flying saucer aliens were going around checking out Mars, Venus, Jupiter, and so
on. I'm afraid the Earth got an 'F'.
The 1930s was the era when Hugo,
Gernsback started the Science Fiction League. In Los Angeles, the fourth chapter
was created, and one day in 1934, in the garage of an adult fan, there was a
preliminary little meeting, but nothing happened until a year later when we finally
got going. I was at the charter meeting of that club, which eventually came to be
known as the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society, or LASFS. By that time,
Thrilling Wonder Stories was sponsoring the League, I believe. A young fan
named Roy Test came to the club, together with his mother Wanda Test. She became
our first secretary, and the minutes were called 'Thrilling Wanda Stories'...
At that time, Charles D. Hornig was
a young fellow who put out a very fine professional-looking printed magazine called
The Fantasy Fan. Gernsback, who was looking around for an associate editor,
saw this publication and he asked Hornig to come and see about getting the job.
Well, he was staggered when a 17-year-old boy walked into his office. I still
remember that letter I got from Charlie Hornig: "Forry, can you imagine
what's happened?!? I've become the editor of Wonder Stories!!"
(When he was given the offer, he had said, "I'll have to go home and ask my mother
and dad whether they will let me.")
Well, in 1939 I heard, through the
pages, I guess, of Thrilling Wonder, there was going to be the first World
Science Fiction Convention. Well, boy oh boy, gosh wow, I sure intended to be
there! I trembled with every clickety-clack of the railroad track, from L.A. to
New York, and when I got off the train, there was Don Wollheim and five or six fans
to greet me. One of them, fifteen years old with a bit of a paunch and dribbling
cigarette ashes, looked me up and down disdainfully, and said, "So you're
the Forrest Ackerman who has been writing those ridiculous letters to the
science fiction magazines." He introduced himself to me as Cyril Kornbluth. And
then he punched me in the stomach! I thought, "Well, welcome to Fun City! For
this I came three thousand miles??"
Both Wollheim and Kornbluth were
among the fans who were excluded from that very first Worldcon. {{ed. note: The others were Jack Gillespie, Robert Lowndes,
John Michel, and Fred Pohl. }} I still have sort of a sick feeling in the
pit of my stomach about it. When the gavel fell, and the first World Science
Fiction Convention became reality, six fans were left standing outside. I couldn't
believe it!
Ray Bradbury was a member of that
first Worldcon; back in 1939, he was busy getting autographs rather than giving
them. My recollection to this day is that I lent him fifty bucks so he could spend
three and a half days and nights on a Greyhound bus to get there. I am told that
every time that Ray Bradbury tells this story, the loan keeps going up and up in
value in his memory -- it's gotten up to ninety-five dollars now! It took him a
year or two, but he finally managed to pay it back. Ray had deliberately gone to
the convention carrying a portfolio of work by Hannes Bok. I remember accompanying
him later to the office of Weird Tales, meeting Farnsworth Wright, who was a
rather emaciated-looking individual. At that time he had Parkinson's Disease -- he
could just barely sign an autograph for us, but he took one look at Hannes Bok's
work and immediately accepted it.
Ray Cummings, the legendary author,
attended the convention. We had hoped that A. Merritt might attend also, but he
was busy being the Sunday section editor of The American Weekly. So the day
after the convention, a little group of us -- 6 or 8 fans -- got together and
visited him. Someone had phoned, and he was waiting to meet us in his office. The
now-deceased fan Dale Hart was so excited he was going to meet A. Merritt that he
got up and he brushed his teeth with shaving cream! He was really foaming
at the mouth! While we were in the anteroom, waiting for Merritt, along came
Virgil Finlay, who was doing work for American Weekly and Merritt. He had a
marvelous portfolio of these originals, and our eyes were popping out of our heads
to see his incredible classy work. Well, about ten minutes later, we were ushered
into Merritt's office -- he was a little on the deaf side, so we all clustered
around. He was extremely cordial to us, and made us fans feel quite welcome.
Another event at that convention was
my costume, which was based on Things to Come and Frank R. Paul's artwork.
Many people have asked me over the years, "Forry, where did you get the nerve to
wear that futuristic costume on the streets of New York?" But I think it was sort
of like being mild-mannered Clark Kent, going into the telephone booth and coming
out as Superman. When I wore that outfit in public, little children were running
in the streets of New York crying, "It's Flash Gordon! It's Buck Rogers!" I even
got the nerve to go out to the Worlds Fair in it; they had a platform with a
microphone, and if you were from Spain, or from Sweden or France or Germany or
wherever, you could come up and greet the world in your native language. So I got
this quixotic notion to go up and speak in Esperanto to the world, and say that I
was a time traveler from the future, where we all spoke this language.
One other memory I have of that
first Worldcon is that the banquet was so expensive that only 29 people could
afford it. It was one dollar a plate! I had the good fortune to sit with
Willy Ley, the great rocket expert, on the left of me, and L. Sprague de Camp on
the right. One hundred and eighty-five of us were at that first World Science
Fiction Convention! Several years ago, my wife entertained one hundred and
eighty-six science fiction personalities in our home, including two
astronauts -- one more than that whole first World Science Fiction
Convention!
NEXT: The 1940s and 50s, Asimov,
Heinlein, and more...
All illustrations by Teddy Harvia
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