{"id":56387,"date":"2022-09-07T02:50:21","date_gmt":"2022-09-07T02:50:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/?p=56387"},"modified":"2024-04-29T19:03:33","modified_gmt":"2024-04-29T19:03:33","slug":"on-kipling-as-an-influence-on-20th-century-sf-writers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/2022\/09\/07\/on-kipling-as-an-influence-on-20th-century-sf-writers\/","title":{"rendered":"On Kipling as an influence on 20th century SF writers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kipling was\u2026 \u201cthe first modern science fiction writer\u201d \u2014 John W. Campbell, editor of the seminal Astounding<\/em> magazine and pioneer of hard science-fiction.<\/p>\n

What Kipling was doing in \u201cWith the Night Mail\u201d<\/a>\u2026 \u201chad never been done before. There is no such subtlety in the contemporary proto-SF of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne. I think we may safely credit him with inventing the style of exposition that was to become modern SF\u2019s most important device for managing and conveying information about imaginary futures\u201d. \u2014 \u201cRudyard Kipling Invented SF!\u201d, by Eric S. Raymond.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith The Night Mail\u201d\u2026 \u201canticipated the style and expository mechanics of Campbellian hard science fiction fourteen years before Hugo Gernsback\u2019s invention of the \u2018scientifiction\u2019 genre and twenty-seven years before Heinlein\u2019s first publication.\u201d Eric S. Raymond, A Political History of SF<\/em> (2000).<\/p>\n

\u201cWith The Night Mail\u201d is\u2026 \u201can amazing tour-de-force of inspired genius [\u2026] the sort of thing that Verne or Wells would never have dreamed of doing [\u2026] Kipling, in 1905, is doing things that science fiction as a genre wouldn\u2019t achieve until Robert Heinlein arrived in the late 1940s.\u201d \u2014 Bruce Sterling.<\/p>\n

Kipling\u2026 \u201cis for everyone who responds to vividness, word magic, sheer storytelling.\u201d \u2014 Poul Anderson.<\/p>\n

Kipling was\u2026 \u201ca master of our art.\u201d \u2014 Gordon R. Dickson.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a superb and painstaking craftsman, the most completely well-equipped writer of short stories ever to tackle that form in the richest of languages.\u201d \u2026 “”With the Night Mail\u201d is an astounding vision \u2026 his influence on 20th century SF writers was probably greater than anyone else\u2019s, except Wells \u2026 he was a master at making the fantastic seem credible\u201d. \u2014 John Brunner.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you read Kipling, you\u2019re there<\/em>, [he] builds a total sensory impression that surpasses the language\u201d [which is partly why he will never be taught in schools] \u2014 C.J. Cherryh.<\/p>\n

\u201cwhat a good writer he was \u2026 the work is superb and he could make words sing. [On looking into the leftist political claims that had dissuaded me from reading him,] I found that most of his supposed sins had been vastly overstated.\u201d \u2014 George R.R. Martin.<\/p>\n

At SF conventions\u2026 \u201cI found that so many SF writers could see his sterling merit that I felt vindicated\u201d [in my early love of Kipling, despite my mundane Eng. Lit. teachers who ignored him] \u2014 Anne McCaffrey.<\/p>\n

Heinlein was also strongly influenced by the “Night Mail” style and viewpoint, but I can as yet find no quote from him on this point.<\/p>\n

\n

The 1980s anthology Heads to the Storm<\/em> (ed. David Drake) features stories by later SF and fantasy authors, all inspired by Kipling, along with many tributes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kipling was\u2026 \u201cthe first modern science fiction writer\u201d \u2014 John W. Campbell, editor of the seminal Astounding magazine and pioneer …<\/p>\n

Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kipling","category-odd-scratchings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56387"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63977,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56387\/revisions\/63977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}