CONVENTION REPORT
TED CARNELL
SCIENCE FICTION NEWS LETTER Number 21, July 1951, edited by Bob Tucker
London, England: Over May 11th to the 14th, between 200 and
300 professional and amateur enthusiasts of science-fiction, representing eight
countries, met in the ballroom of the Royal Hotel (London), to celebrate the
first International Science-Fiction Convention ever held. Highlight of this
largest-ever British gathering was a
surprise award promulgated by the London Circle for the best fiction
book and best technical book of 1950. The panel of critics chose George R.
Stewart’s EARTH ABIDES (Random House) for fiction, and Willy Ley & Chesley
Bonestell’s CONQUEST OF SPACE (Viking Press) for the technical award. Forrest
Ackerman accepted the two awards on behalf of his countrymen.
The awards, conceived only two weeks prior to the
convention, went on the drawing board immediately and a twelve-inch spaceship
taken from the Bonestell design on the February 1951 GALAXY cover has been
approved; it will be mounted on an oak base complete with ornate lighter.
Actual awards will be fashioned of heavy chrome for the fiction class, and
bronze for the technical. Owing to the shortage of time, exact replicas were
used in place of the models - not expected to be ready for some weeks. It is intended
that these awards will be made annually, and planned to embrace other fields if
science-fiction, including the films. A special Fantasy Fund Award has been
opened whereby anyone may donate. At present, the Award Fund Committee are
using the Nova Publications address.
The Sunday afternoon (13th) session included a three-hour
coverage of the Sf fields by all overseas guests: Crane, Canada; Ackerman and
Jacobs the States; Gallet, France; Abas, Holland; Ostlund, Sweden; Willis,
Ireland; Paynter, Australia; and Arnold for Britain. (Cpl. Jacobs flew in from
his station in Versailles, France.) In addition, Frank Arnold reported on the
Italian and Russian fields, while Wendayne Ackerman spoke on the German. A
proposal was made by LyelI Crane to set up an international S-F movement outside the United States and
the United Kingdom.
The convention followed similar lines to American affairs in
that two auctions proved it a moneymaker. There were debates and discussions by
prominent professionals, and Milton Rothman’s two soap-operas "Life Can be
Horrible” and “Who Goes Where?” were re-scripted for British consumption with
outstanding success. These and other major items were wire-recorded. Wendayne
Ackerman gave an outline of dianetics to a packed hall.
Film shows each evening included Doyle’s feature, “The Lost World”, Tucker’s cutting-room floor epic "Monsters of the Moon”, three short films brought over by Ackerman, and a technicolor rocket film supplied by Arthur C. Clarke. Science-fiction “art” vied with Victorian paintings adorning the walls.
)
Upper photograph - FJ Ackerman accepting an IFA award on behalf of a winner.
INTERNATIONAL FANTASY AWARD COMMITTEE
LESLIE FLOOD
SCIENCE FICTION NEWS LETTER Number 21, July 1951, edited by Bob Tucker
The objects of the Fantasy award are to encourage original work in the artistic creative branches of imaginative literature and the expression of fantasy by visual or audible methods. While primarily directed at the encouragement of higher standards in the written word, especially in fiction, departments of the Award may in the future be allocated to such expressions as Poetry, the Film, Music, Visual Art, and othcr work considered suitable.
Great care was taken in the selection of the works
qualifying for the 1951 Fantasy Award, and the two works adjudged the best of a
meritorious selection were (for fiction), EARTH ABIDES, by George R. Stewart,
and for non-fiction THE CONQUEST OF SPACE by Willy Ley and Chesley Bonestell.
The principle award, that for EARTH ABIDES, was accepted by Mr. Ackerman for
Dr. Stewart, Professor of English at the University of California in Berkeley.
The Award mementos on this occasion consisted of desk ornaments in the form of
a silvered spaceship mounted on an inscribed plinth of polished oak, which also
supports a table lighter, the ensemble forming a handsome example of the
highest form of the model-maker’s art.
Funds to advance the provision of the Award, to promote interest
in and secure publicity for the Award, have been forthcoming from various individuals
and organizations, with the preliminary responsibility underwrittn by this
Committee. We will welcome all contributions, and it is hoped that publishing
houses and individuals will become patrons. The Award will of course be non-profit making, is now in the process of being registered appropriately, and
will submit a copy of its annual accounts to all donors - whose suggestions and
criticisms will be welcomed.
Finally, may I solicit your goodwill in publicizing the
Award to the best of your ability, especially as regards editors of literary journals
of all kinds. Donations should be drawn to Leslie Flood, and endorsed “Fantasy
Award Account”. Please mail to me, in care of the Fantasy Book Center, 25 Stoke
Newington Road, London Nl6, England.
(Flood is secretary of the International Fantasy Award
Committee. Donations should be made by International Money Order obtainable
from any postoffice. No letter is necessary, as the postoffice itself mails all
money orders to foreign recipients.)
FANTASY AWARD
C. HARRIS
SLANT 7, WINTER 1951
(Followed by a response by Walt Willis, from same issue)
The last '’New Worlds” carried an interesting post mortem on
the International Fantasy Award. The cognoscenti of fandom end the vile pros
and hucksters who deliberated over the ’51 hard-cover output had all their
individual selections published for the fannish hordes to gaze on with awe and
reverence.
They should be ashamed. True, that FANCIES AND GOODNIGHTS
deserved the award, and that DAY OF THE T.RIFFIDS was a competent runner-up,
but these results seem to have been achieved almost by accident. Of the 14
part-time savants on the panel only five could agree that FANCIES was the best
book of ‘51. The others plunged for mindshaking thought variants like SANDS OF
MARS, FOUNDATION, and TOMORROW SOMETIMES COMES. Between them they chose no less
than 28 books in their selection of the best five.
Frankly, I doubt whether some of the judges read 28 books in
‘51. How else can one explain Ted Carnell’s omission of FANCIES end hie
inclusion of the corny CITY IN THE SEA? Or Judy Merrill' s placing of THS DREAMING
JEWELS as her second choice? Surely somebody told her that only books published
in '51 wore eligible? JEWELS was of course published in 1950 and had been
considered for that year.
Willis voted for SANDS OF MARS because ’..nobody but Clarks
is writing true science fiction these days es opposed to futurist fantasies,
and very few people except him and
Russell ara producing any work at all that isn’t tainted with Bradburyish
defeatism or Hubbardish paranoia.”
Rubbish.
Ted Dikty’s front-man, Everett Bleiler, does his best to
sabotage the whole layout. Everett just CANNOT decide whether THE ILLUSTRATED
MAN was better than DAY OF THE THIFFIDS or vice versa. After weighing every
comma, he has to give up. He brackets them both as first choice, gets them
allocated five points each, and then lists another four selections ------thus
having a larger vote proportionately then any other judge. If this establishes
a precedent next year’s awards will really be fun... Imagine what will happen
if Merrill discovers ERB end can’t decide which of the Tarzan books she
prefers.
I am not trying to ridicule the judges. This is a serious
constructive article. Besides if I disagree with almost all the judges’ choices
it’s possible that I’m wrong. Most of these people ere In The Trade and should
be reasonably proficient at reviewing. Me, I'm just a faaan. If Gallet thinks TOMORROW
SOMETIMES COMES was The Book Of The Year, that’s his business. He may even be right
about TYPEWRITER IN THE SKY being the second best. If Ostlund chooses
FOUNDATION because ’’there's no space opera there” all I can do is shake my
head in silent admiration.
However I would like to make a few suggestions for the IFA
panel to ignore. To my mind this award is one of the best ideas yet and, as Les
Flood says, it may take its place alongside the Tait Memorial Prize and similar
literary Oscars.
The first thing I’d suggest is that the non-fiction award be
drooped. The field is too large and too nebulous, the judges are fantasy
bookmen and they have quite sufficient to read in the fiction department . The
non-fiction that they do reed is usually hinged to their fantasy collections.
To illustrate this, I could point out that both of the non-fiction Awards have
been to science fiction authors.
And I think the panel could be enlarged. If the field is so
big, another half a dozen judges would male the vote ‘popular’. This year DAY
OF THE TRIFFIDS came within an ace of winning the award without obtaining a
single first place vote. A larger panel, with perhaps a revised voting system,
would give the better book a better chance. At present, two third-place votes outweigh
a vote for first. If the first selection were awarded seven points this trouble
would be obviated.
After the IFA committee make all these changes, I'll come up with a few more suggestions, but
one really simple solution does occur to me now.
The whole panel could be scrapped. In its place we could
have one single judge whose decisions would be final. This fsnnish Solomon
would have to be a stalwart honest bibliophile with razor keen sense of judgement,
and preferably some experience in the Mene Tekel Upharsin racket of reviewing.
He would have to be intelligent diligent and well read, but retaining that
common touch that would make him loved and respected by fans and pros alike. He
must have keen perception, mature outlook, and a sense of understanding.
Somebody like me for instance.
========
JUDGMENT OF HARRIS
Walter Willis
In the February 1953 STARTLING Kan Crossen bemoans the fact
that the much-heralded boom in sf has turned out to be nothing more than a dull
pop, and suggests ss a remedy for this sad state of affairs that we “throw the
science out of science fiction.” Well,
of course this is one solution, just as one way to make your girl happy is to marrv
her off to another man. But assuming for the moment that we all want sf to
become popular with the masses, a better way is to make the public like it as
we like it. I take it that this is the general idea behind the International Fantasy
Award, not mere egoboo for authors. As I see it, every year we pundits are to
select one book and brandish it before the multitude shouting “Look, now THIS
is science fiction! Try just this one, pretty please?” Now if this is going to
do any good we’d better pick a book the man in the street is going to like.
It’s no use giving him one full of taken for granted time paradoxes, semantics,
space warps, parapsychology, psychohistory, ftl spaceships, and similar
third-order flights of fancy, This is the sort of thing I meant by ‘futurist
fantasies’. I love them myself, but let’s face it, they aren’t extrapolations
of current science – which indeed declares most of them to be impossible – but extrapolations
of the science fiction we’ve been reading for the last 25 years. Just us, mind
you. The man in the street still thinks that a flight to the moon is pretty
fantastic. We’ve got to start him on the ground floor…and that isn’t
necessarily the top story.
Not that SANDS OF MARS needs any apology. It was a good
story with the warmth, humanity, and optimism that is the very spirit of
science fiction. It may not have been as great a literary masterpiece as
FANCIES AND GODNIGHTS, but then...pardon me if I’m wrong…isn’t this primarily a
*science fiction* award? If not, just exactly what is a ‘nonfiction’ fantasy?
And since when has fantasy needed our encouragement? Are we going to exhibit
our silver spaceship in London shop windows on top of a new edition of The Odyssey
or a collection of ghost stories?
THE HARP IN ENGLAND - THE FIRST INTERNATION SF CONVENTION MAY 1951 - extract
WALT WILLIS
There followed one of the most important events of the Convention, the presentation of the International Fantasy Award for the best work in the field during 1950.This is the first of a series of annual awards sponsored by the London Circle, and consists of a desk ornament in the form of a silvered spaceship on an inscribed plinth with a globular cigarette lighter. The lighter works, too, though through some slip up or other it is not atomic. The awards for 1950 went to George Stewart for "Earth Abides" and to Ley and Bonestell for "Conquest of Space". The actual presentation was made to Forry Ackerman on their behalf. He made a short and graceful speech of acceptance, and mentioned that he felt very jealous. American fandom had been talking about this sort of thing for years, and British fandom had gone ahead and done it.