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scottedelman
scottedelman
13 December 2007 @ 07:38 pm
Sci-Fly  
I just ran across a 2005 post which appeared at The Comics Reporter site in which comic-book personalities were asked to share famous industry events at which they wish they'd been flies on the wall, such as "Sit in on a Lee/Kirby or Lee/Ditko plotting session, circa 1963" and "Joe and Jerry signing the contract to give Superman to DC."

Which got me thinking—what science-fiction events would I have wanted to witness as a fly on the wall? Here are the first five that came to mind:

The discussion in which Astounding editor John W. Campbell, Jr. inspired Isaac Asimov to create his classic story "Nightfall."

Jack Williamson's face at the newsstand that day in 1928 upon seeing his creature from "The Metal Man" illustrated on the cover of Amazing and realizing that he must have made his first fiction sale—only no one had bothered to tell him!

The screening George Lucas held for friends such as Steven Spielberg and Brian De Palma of a rough cut of Star Wars before the special effects were laid in.

Don Wollheim, Frederik Pohl, Cyril Kornbluth and others as they were being ejected from the first World Science Fiction Convention in 1939 by Sam Moskowitz and Will Sykora as part of one of the earliest fan feuds.

Daniel Keyes bringing the manuscript of "Flowers for Algernon" over to the apartment of Horace Gold, and listening as the agoraphobic editor of Galaxy told him that he needed to change the ending to make it more upbeat.


I can think of many other moments I'd like to have witnessed. How about you?
 
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Rose Foxrosefox on December 14th, 2007 02:55 am (UTC)
The Platt/Datlow/beer incident only came to mind because I've heard of it twice: once while reading through back issues of Ansible, and then when I first met Ellen, who immediately shook my hand warmly and said, "It's great to meet you! Did you know your father poured a beer on me once?" Clearly this was an event of great import, to have stayed in her mind for nearly 25 years!

I also don't really know of any non-assault-related notable incidents in the history of SF. My history and literature classes in high school and college were sadly lacking in information on that front. The moments I want to know about are smaller and subtler: for example, I wonder which parts of Inwood Hill Park (my back yard) were on C.M. Kornbluth's mind when he wrote about people summoning demons there, and I would have liked to see Terry Carr or Judith Merrill going about the business of sorting through the year's stories and deciding which to anthologize.
scottedelmanscottedelman on December 14th, 2007 03:06 am (UTC)
If I could go back in time to share a moment with Cyril Kornbluth, it would be to tell him to stop shoveling the damn snow!

See, right after he finished clearing his driveway, he drove to the train station and died of a heart attack on the platform while on the way to talk to the publisher of F&SF about taking over as editor.

Now, there's an alternate universe I would have liked to have seen!
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