REVIEW - The Issue at Hand by William Atheling, Jr. (1964)

The Issue at Hand by William Atheling Jr. (Edited and with an Introduction by James Blish)

Paperback, 164 pages, Out of Print, Nesfa Press

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reviewed by Duncan Lawie

The Issue at Hand  is a book dense with the lore of science fiction – a 1960s collection of (mostly) 1950s reviews last reprinted in the 1970s.  There is a pun in the title, too, as William Atheling, Jr is reviewing SF magazines – fresh issues of pulps we can only imagine as we look at the yellowed copies in the back corners of bookshops or secreted away in the Liverpool University Library.  The lack of access to Atheling's sources makes it difficult to argue with his assessments but it doesn't significantly reduce the pleasure to be had here.  Atheling is a pithy reviewer.  The stories he discusses are generally used as an opportunity to delve into the technical details of writing, reviewing and publishing.  The result is a set of essays which act as a model for reviewers, as guidance for writers and as source material for historians of the field.

Atheling sets out his position immediately – “if science fiction is really growing up ... it is going to need a lot more criticism than it's been getting” [Page 5] – and launches into an attack on the kinds of reviews which judge the field only against other work in the field.  Instead, Atheling states, SF needs to “be conscious of the minimum standards of competence which apply in the writing of all fiction” [Page 7].  His true passion is for the craft of writing;  technical competence is the “one completely indispensable ingredient” [Page 7].  Even so, Atheling covers a variety of other fronts – he is soon complaining that a science fiction author ought to know the difference between cyanogen and potassium cyanide [Page 21]. Throughout, he is speaking as much to editors as he is to writers.  Whilst dissecting a particularly poor piece of writing, Atheling takes time to make it clear that the editor is as much at fault as the writer, for accepting the work and, having done so, not working with the author to at least remove its most obvious faults.  It is notable, though, that most of the authors for whom he does have a kind word are still read today. 


At first, Atheling's focus on the failings of the field is concrete.  He provides precise examples of where stories have gone wrong – from poor grammar to inconsistent points of view – and, like a writing master, offers suggestions for improvement.  His own writing is tight and tough, managing to be informal in a tidy  way which now marks it out as a period work.  I could almost see the square-jawed author in the neat suit of the 1950s TV Detective.  Atheling has a tendency to hammer home the failings of poor works by now forgotten authors, but he is full of the tough love for his field.  It is also obvious that he is talking to an inside audience, as fanzines always have done; an audience who he knows will react strongly to his criticality but who he hopes will also listen to his criticism.  Even so, it's not hard to see why Atheling refers to himself as “Sour Bill” later in the volume.  Perhaps the need to keep his reader's attention leads to the greater snark later in the book.  He never descends to simply lambasting any work in question, though, and even his snark is delightfully precise.  The sharp line “they look like rabbits, but if you call them smeerps, that makes it science fiction” [Page 104] has entered the canon of SF criticism, even though it hasn't lead to the death of the “call a rabbit a smeerp” type story.


In this, we are reminded of both the impact and the limits of criticism.  Whether Atheling's commentary had a direct effect on the quality of SF writing is difficult to determine, but the criticism collected in this volume first appeared at a time when reader's expectations were rising.  Half a century later, it is rare that a reviewer or critic finds the need to argue with a writer's grammar in any of the professional publications.  Perhaps this is a sign of laxity on the part of critics rather than improvement in authorial standard.  Even so, many other aspects which concerned Atheling are still problems that writers and readers grapple with.  He worries that the “incestuous science-fiction story – that is, a yarn which depends for its effect on overt references to science-fiction itself” [Page 106] will turn SF into a closed circle and “lead readers to a jargon comprehensible only to themselves" [Page 106].  This is clearly an ancestor of eruptions of discussion on 'gateway SF' today.  By contrast, he also clearly recognises that the “ 'new' gimmick that the young writer plans to wow us with will turn out, nine chances to one, to have appeared at least five times before”[Page 37] and that it is only the uses the writer puts an idea to which make for good reading.


William Atheling, Jr was, of course,  actually James Blish.  The introduction by Blish, describing the reasons for, and origin of, his nom de plume immediately offers an insight into 1950s SF fandom.  Although Blish says he has been careful “not to change Atheling's mind on any major point, even where I now disagree with him” [Page 4], he cannot help conversing with that prior self in footnotes, afterwords and sundry interjections.  He usually does this for the purpose of setting the historical record straight, but sometimes he just can't help qualifying.  The footnote on page 34 begins “True in general, but too sweeping”, for example.  That Atheling went on to review Blish's work is thoroughly entertaining, even if “impossible to free from suspicions of disingeniousness” [Page 62].  Nevertheless, knowledge that the man behind the pen was an SF pro enriches Atheling's discussion of the industry, his statements about publishers and his commentary on authors and editors.  Atheling's comments on reprints and novelisations, for example, are rich in detail.  It is a telling reminder that the size of a novel was determined by technology just as was the length of an LP ( “75,000 words ... being the largest book that Ballantine could then bind in the paperback format” [Page 74] ). 


As I flip back and forth through the book, I find I want to talk about every page.  I was rather disbelieving of the cover blurb – “affording many hours of pleasant and informative reading and re-reading” – but it is absolutely true.  There is an idea, an argument, a sharp comment, leaping from each paragraph and footnote and every one of them will tell you something about critical thinking when we read and write both within and beyond science fiction.

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Duncan Lawie was given HG Wells for his eighth birthday - and got around to reading it about twenty years later.  Occasionally capable of less procrastination, his reviews currently also appear at The Zone and Strange Horizons.

Comments

[Karen Burnham]

Lovely review, Duncan. I'm glad you enjoyed it as much as I did; it's one of my all-time favorite works of criticism.

Have you read "More Issues at Hand" yet? I read it recently and found it to be a little less focused.

[Duncan Lawie]

Thanks Karen - it was the strong recommendation on your blog which made me keen to read this. I'm sure you can tell I'm glad I did.

I haven't found "More Issues at Hand", but I understand it is mostly covers novels, so can see why it might be looser.

[Alvaro Zinos-Amaro]

Duncan, great job on the review. This is one of my favorite books of criticism, and I'm glad more people will be exposed to it.

"In this, we are reminded of both the impact and the limits of criticism. Whether Atheling's commentary had a direct effect on the quality of SF writing is difficult to determine..." I think this is spot on. Blish's reviews were read by many authors of the day -- but how many were able to take what they read and make use of it in their own technique? Perhaps the few that were intrinsically worried about technique in the first place...