If people demand bio (life and life like effects) the technician and radio-electronic engineer will furnish them!

Hugo Gernsback's "Forecast" site, with back issues! Gernsback is, of course, the Hugo - of award fame. He coined the word 'scientifiction'. (Ah, if I had a nickel for every time ...) He got American SF publishing started with "Amazing Stories" [more informative site if you can read Russian, I suppose. Here's the main site.] This cover is especially nice for the 'scientifiction' badge of certifauthenticacity you see in the lower left corner. Fact, theory! Two-fisted tales, indeed! If I recall, Brian Aldiss has a good, fond, only mildly condescending chapter on Gernsback's virtues and limitations in Billion Year Spree . The history sort of escapes me. But let history lie in its own dust! It is of the future I speak!

My title comes from the essay on 'telebiovision', in the 1951 issue. The essay on 'electronic mating' is also charming: "We know today through biological electronic research that all humans have a certain (if varying) electric norm, which can be classified into various groups. There is a definite electric relationship between compatible and incompatible subjects, particularly between male and female individuals." So you and your date, you take the test. "The State Marriage Authority may refuse to issue a marriage license to applicants who rate 50% or less. That means that such candidates should find themselves more suitable partners." I think this might settle the whole same-sex marriage kerfuffle to a nicety. You would have the self-satisfaction of forbidding people to marry, but instead of saying things like 'these people don't have the capacity to raise children', you would say things like, 'these people don't have the capacitance to raise children." The sign-off peroration is nice, too. "We may expect, as throughout man's history, that "love will find a way." Just as Cupid always laughed at locksmiths, so will he also laugh at the electronic Cerberus. The lovers may still elope and get married in some other country and live wretchedly ever after!"

Please use the comment box to register your favorite Gernsbackisms, or aphorgernsings, or epibackigraphs, as they were known. And reflect about the early years of American SF, if you are in the mood.

To be fair, the man also invented the term 'science fiction', which has gotten some good mileage. Here he explains. "In the 1930's everybody knew precisely what science fiction was and what the term meant. Today science fiction means pseudo science, fantasy fairy tales, gobbledygook or just plain nonsense laced with scientific absurdities."

Oh, I can't resist. A little badge to certifauthentify your site:
 

Comments

[foo]

Just thought I'd point out that line from one of the Trackbacks, "The well-married Holbo." What a strange (and excellent, and appropriate, of course) phrasing.

"Well-met sir. And well-married."

[jholbo]

Indeed.

[jholbo]

'Game, set, matched and married!' my motto, that is.

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