Murray Leinster - the Life and Works

 

Billee J. Stallings & Jo-An J. Evans
Murray Leinster - the Life and Works (2011)
Murray Leinster was a giant in terms of science-fiction for at least half a century, specifically the half a century when science-fiction meant the written word, novels, short stories, and digest magazines. He was your favourite author's favourite author; he predicted the internet in a short story written in 1946, and not just something which sounded vaguely like a similar sort of deal, but something which now seems astonishingly familiar but for the names being different; and yet he's now only loosely remembered, depending on where you're looking. Gollancz SF Masterworks are supposedly going to reprint Leinster's Sidewise in Time - the novel which kickstarted the entire alternate history genre - which is nice, but also kind of shabby given that the imprint has been going two decades and this will be their first Leinster.

I think the problem is a PR issue. For a while, the term science-fiction author conjured images of a certain generic and usually conservative type belonging to a world of women with pointy breasts and cars with extravagant tailfins. He wore a tweed jacket, he smoked a pipe, he churned out story after story for the pulp magazines like a human conveyor belt, and there was absolutely nothing remotely Bohemian about him; and that man, it could be argued, was Murray Leinster. Except as always, the legend bears an only superficial resemblance to the person stood behind, and so it was with Leinster. He made no bones about his writing being a job like any other job and so produced thousands of short stories inhabiting all marketable genres during his lifetime - western, romance, detective, adventure, and of course science-fiction, all hammered out on his trusty Remington as he puffed away on his pipe, smartly turned out in a shirt and tie regardless of the Virginia heat. His writing was tight, efficient, and free of the eccentric flourishes which made the reputations of other, better remembered authors.

Yet, because he treated it as a job, at least in terms of its daily production, he became exceptionally good at what he did. His stories are lively, expressive, always witty, and for all that certain dramatic conventions have subsequently dated, his tales very rarely go where you might expect them to go, and the sometimes homely atmosphere often ends up providing dramatic contrast to some truly weird and peculiar revelation - like a slightly less ponderous Simak.

Similarly, the man himself - as described in this wonderful biography by two of his daughters - bears little resemblance to the image which usually forms as an inevitable interference pattern at the confluence of typewriters and pipe smoking. He was self taught, but properly self-taught, widely read, a jobbing inventor with working and even profitable patents to his name, and in some ways a genuine renaissance man. It's also pretty obvious that he was both principled - someone we won't ever need to excuse as being of his time - and a genuinely lovely guy.

I don't know if his work will ever come back into favour but I'm glad to see that he is at least remembered so well and in such detail by those who knew him; and the fact of this extended portrait being so warmly and eloquently captured is itself probably a testimony to Leinster's influence and generous spirit. This book actually feels like it's doing you good as you read it, and - for what it may be worth - Leinster's own writing advice, as quoted extensively, is illuminating stuff both in terms of his own books and in contrast to all the story arcs and character development bollocks you'll get from other authors.

More people should read Murray Leinster.