If war had indeed broken out in 1939...

[jophan]

...perhaps today John W. Campbell had been thought of as the most influential 20th C editor of the field of science fiction.

Just back from a very interesting talk by fjm, which wasn't any the worse for being a bit rambling, on the need for some real fact-based literary research on the early sf magazines, challenging all the unspoken community

Comments

[joelrosenberg]

Am I missing something, or isn't JWC, indeed, thought of as the most influential 20th C editor of the field of sf?

[jophan]

He is in the alternate universe that we live in, where war did indeed break out in 1939. But one of the things that fjm suggested was that hadn't so many young Americans gone into the war effort in 1942-45, perhaps - or even probably - he would never have become so dominant; competition would have been fiercer.