I first read science fiction in the old British Chum annual when I was about 12 years old. Chum was a British boy's weekly which, at the end of the year was bound into a single huge book; and the following Christmas parents bought it as Christmas presents for male children. The science fiction in these stories was simple. Somebody built a spaceship in his toolshop (in his backyard) and when he left earth he took along all the neighborhood twelve-year-olds without the parents seeming to object.

Later, at age 14, I saw the November 1926 Amazing and promptly purchased it, read it avidly until Hugo Gernsbach lost control and it got awful under the next editor, T. O'Connor Sloane. So I had my background when I picked up the July, 1938 issue of Astounding and read "Who Goes There?" It was one of the great SF stories; and it stimulated me to send Campbell, the editor, a one paragraph outline of what later became "Vault of the Beast." If he hadn't answered, that would probably have been the end of my SF career. But I learned later he answered all query letters either favorably or with helpful advice. The helpful advice he gave me was to suggest that I write with a lot of atmosphere. To me that meant a lot of imagery, and verbs other than "to be" or "to have."

I think Campbell held up "Vault" because, since it had been stimulated by the reading of "Who Goes There?," there were some similarities; and he wanted a little time to go by between two stories about shape-changing creatures.

The encouragement I got from Campbell was a quick check and praise. Once the Space Beagle was launched on its mission, it seemed natural for it to breed additional thoughts. "Discord" was my idea, without special encouragement.

As you may recall, "Repetition" was already the beginning of a switch. The monster was not on the level of Coeurl and Ixtl, but more of a beast. The idea came from reading that northern trappers occasionally got a wolf by having the animal lick a sharp blade which had been suitably smeared with blood, or something. As for being worried about how readers might label me, no, it never crossed my mind. However, although it is disguised, Slan was, to me, a monster story. I consciously thought of Jommy, the super-boy and the later super-man as a variant on my monster idea.

In those days I was new to covers; merely felt pleased that a story of mine had been honored. I later met Rogers who did some of my early covers and I was impressed with him. You have to remember that I was a bright but simple fellow from Canada who seldom, if ever, met another writer, and then only a so-called literary type that occasionally sold a story and meanwhile worked in an office for a living. As a craftsman, I made my living at writing from the moment I crossed the line at age 20, and sold my first story to True Story Magazine.

WW II began for Canada in 1939. I married E. Mayne Hull in May. By November we were in Ottawa and I was working daytimes for the Department of National Defense and writing evenings. I wrote Slan there, sent in most of it by May, 1940, and the balance shortly after. It was printed starting in the September issue. By this time I was already feeling the weight of the war in terms of extra hours that I had to work. First, a couple of evenings and then finally four evenings a week, all day Saturday, and every other Sunday. All this on a salary that never increased, and, after deductions came to $81 a month — those were the days right after the Depression. I had casually rented an apartment that cost $75 a month because I expected my writing to pay my way.

By may, 1941, I realized my doom, and I resigned — just about a month before people were frozen into their jobs. Meanwhile, the two stories I had managed to finish after Slan were printed (in 1941). But, starting in late May, I began a vigorous writing program in a cottage in the Gatineau Hills outside of Ottawa. And there I wrote all the stories that were published in 1942. It was summer. I sat on a verandah overlooking the swift Gatineau River far below, and I worked all day every day. When fall came, we moved to Toronto; and there, in a narrow hallway of a duplex I continued my writing regimen.

"The Seesaw" was not consciously planned to be the first of a series. Ideas came to me in the night when I would wake up, anxiously thinking about a story problem that was not resolving. Often, in the morning after several such awakenings I would suddenly have an insight of an original nature. I was — so I thought later — unnoticingly tapping my subconscious mind. Presumably, once I had the weapon shop background it was easy to jump to another idea about it as, for example, "The Weapon Shop."

Recruiting Station was a story that came as the result of many anxious awakenings during many nights. So much so that, later, in 1943 — in Toronto — I suddenly noticed the process. And that night I took an alarm clock, moved into the second bedroom; and that night I awakened myself every 1 & 1/2 hours, thought about my story problem, and went back to sleep. I'm sure that this enriched many of my stories with unusual new ideas.

I don't recall having any self-awareness about the intricacy of my stories. I wrote what interested me; and my method of working out my story through the dream process probably underlay the wheels within wheels aspect. I was merely pleased with some of the ideas — but never thought of them as especially intricate.

The presence of women was influenced by Mayne. She read science fiction to see what it was; and of course, she read all my stories. And she was an early supporter of women's rights — I even went to some meetings with her before we got married. She pointed out the male stereotype you mention; and I thought about it, and it seemed fitting and proper that something be done about it.

Neither story had any original connection with the Rull stories. In my usual fashion of working on one idea, and then later seeing another possibility in that idea, my stories accumulated on me without having any basic, or planned, order. But no doubt on the subconscious level relationships were presently noted.

"Secret" was written in Toronto, and was the result of my daily reading in the Toronto Globe a daily report by a man who seemed to understand, or have enormous knowledge, of both the German and allied part of the war. There was so much detailed information that one day I woke up and had the thought. That was the beginning of "Secret," but of course I then got Hitler's autobiography from the library, Mein Kampf, and other related material.

The Weapon series grew one story at a time; and as you may be aware the development of The Weapon Makers in its magazine form paralleled Slan in that there were two viewpoints — apparently, I had no other way of writing a novel except to repeat what I had already been successful at. I seem to remember that Campbell was not too happy with the two viewpoints. However, after it was published he wrote that one of the heads of Street and Smith, the publishers, had chosen the three issues containing this serial to see what was going on in Astounding; and that he commented very favorably on the story.

"Engine" was one idea; and "Beast," and subsequently The Changeling, were written without any subsequent joining in mind.

Separately.

Starting as a 20-year-old I learned slowly about the writing business and about publishers. All those early stories were bought outright — all rights — many of them for 1 cent a word — because no one in those days thought of the subsequent book and paperback market. In 1950, when Horace Gold was first editor of Galaxy, he bought only serial rights. Naturally, writers flocked to this favorable market — and I received a letter from Campbell stating that Street and Smith would release all except serial rights to my stories on request. I put in the request at once.

Fortunately, it was possible for me to do this because Campbell's letter came to me at an address that he had. Several other writers, who had moved — and stopped writing — did not receive the letter. Hence, they did not write to ask for their rights, and did not get them. So that when Condé Nast bought out Street and Smith, it was too late to recover rights — so these authors discovered after they belatedly found out what had happened. Now — as a consequence I had all my best stories on hand. And occasionally someone would write and ask for a shorter length story for an anthology. But, starting in 1948, I was given special permission to have World of Null-A published by Simon and Schuster — Street and Smith's secretary wrote me a personal letter saying that under special circumstances they would release such rights, on request.

In the early fifties the paperback publishing business began; and they wanted novels primarily. And so I began to look over my work to see what I could fit together. It was strictly commercial. The pay was low, but it was pay. The contracts were awful; but slowly I learned what to sign and what not to sign. Let's put it very simply: a novel would sell whereas the individual stories seldom did. Hence, the great thought came; and the fix-up novels began. It was a strictly commercial idea in a period when incomes were tiny, and pulp writers all across the land were starving. It was only later that I learned the fix-ups had their critics. I could only shake my head over these people; to me, they were obviously dilettantes who didn't understand the economics of writing science fiction.

I was fascinated by General Semantics; and, as far as I was concerned, I dramatized its main points within the frame of my dream development of story ideas in it. For example, the death of Gosseyn at the end Installment One of the serialized version was designed to dramatize that no two objects in the universe are alike — although when he appears again at the beginning of Installment Two it looks as if maybe they are. Etc.

By my view SF writers have from the beginning explored options. In the Null-A stories my question was, can man be improved by a system of mental training? Improved, that is, so that he can live without police, without government, and without any technology to keep him that way by the method I used in, for example, The Anarchistic Colossus. In the Weapon Shop series I assumed that man's basic nature was unchangeable. So I devised a permanent party in power: the imperial house of Isher, and a permanent opposition: the weapon makers. From an indestructible weapon shop an aggrieved citizen could buy a defensive weapon, whereby he could defend himself from an attack. In The Anarchistic Colossus, freedom from government and police was maintained by a computer system that permitted no double parking, no harassing, no mugging — you name the typical basic human offense; if you did it, you got yours right there.

Yes, they were resolved in thought — although at the time I had no intention of writing another novel; that came later. The reason they were resolved in thought is because, essentially, the principal problem of Players was already on stage in World: that is, the attack by entities of the Greatest Empire. When Fred Pohl was editor of Galaxy, he urged me to write a third Null-A novel; and I actually started it — and will finish it one of these days. The "loose ends" of Players imply what the third novel should be about. I have found, in writing a novel, that when I'm about halfway through, if I go back and examine the implications of the first 10,000 words, the necessary ending is right there. Basically, the necessary wind-up of the Null-A stories is in World and Players.

When I came to Hollywood, I met a number of screenplay writers. And so I discovered that "original" screenplays were actually parallels of published novels. Later, when television came into full power, paralleling was a way of life. Probably, all the stories of history have been taken by a TV writer and brought up to date in some way, and paralleled on the story line. Still later, I discovered that some university writing courses teach paralleling.

Anyway, when I learned of it, I was reminded that Slan was a paralleling of Ernest Thomson Seton's The Biography of a Grizzly: the pattern of Grizzly was: his mother is killed at the beginning, and the cub is on his own. He doesn't find an old lady to help him, but he manages to find a place where he can hide for his first year or so. By then he is the equivalent of Jommy at nine — stronger than all the lesser animals of the forest; but he'd better stay away from full-grown black bears, etc. Finally, he comes to what Seton called in his heading: "The Days of His Strength." He is a full-grown grizzly bear, king of the forest and mountains. For the most part I didn't need parallels like that, but that one struck me as being interesting, and I used it automatically. The reason I didn't need such things is that I know story structure, and how it should go — within my frame, that is.

Anyway, the early period of the Caesars in ancient Rome has always been, along with the Florentine Medici family period of Italian history, among the two most interesting times of our past. I read extensively in both periods, and know them well. So when I read Graves novel I did not immediately think of how-could-Ancient-Rome-with-a-mix-of-Middle-Ages-Florence be futurized, but when I did it was at the height of my discovery of the paralleling that is the meat of Hollywood writing; so it was automatically a good idea to parallel I, Claudius.

Subsequently, James Blish wrote a very severe criticism of the work. I was a little amazed, and, in fact, he showed no such outrage when John Brunner utilized a John Dos Passos story pattern in Stand on Zanzibar and other writers took dozens of famous stories, including Shakespeare's plays as their patterns. But nonetheless that was the end of my own paralleling career. Damon Knight, a friend of Blish, praised Empire though he was critical of most of my other work.

About mid-1941 Campbell wrote me that I had shown the same ability as Heinlein to produce outstanding science fiction, and therefore he asked me to produce for him as much as $300 worth of stories a month — meaning that any story of mine and, presumably, Heinlein's would take precedence over the work of stories submitted by other authors. I didn't think of it in those terms at that time; but that's when I was up in the Gatineau north of Ottawa writing for one cent a word at a time when government salaries were $81 a month. It was Heinlein he mentioned; so presumably Heinlein and I were his favorite authors for a period at that time. Heinlein, as you probably know, went on to much greater book and paperback success than I ever did; but I cannot complain: my readers kept me going also.

Campbell offered me an occasional idea. But the fact is that it takes me a long time to organize someone else's story thought into my own system. He suggested the concept of a wizened old witch, which I eventually evolved into "The Witch" for Unknown Worlds. What I principally utilized Campbell for was information. When I was writing "The Storm" I wrote him and asked him if there was a possibility that some equivalent of a storm could exist in space. He wrote R.S. Richardson, and the result was what appears in the story. Campbell wrote me long letters loaded with information whenever I queried him, or if he had some thought stimulated by a story of mine.

Apparently, he kept no copies because, as it turns out, when Perry Chapdelaine — who will publish Campbell's letters in conjunction with George Hay, of England — contacted Condé Naste, no copies were found prior to 1951. However, I have furnished Perry with copies of all the correspondence; and it was so voluminous — each letter being about 4 pages, single space — that I didn't even take the time to reread them. So I'll have to do that one of these days in case there is anything personal in them that should not be printed for one reason or another.

I keep saying that my personal favorite is The World of Null-A, and I seem to have convinced myself. Of my short stories I think I prefer "The Monster" (aka "Resurrection"). The SFWA voted the novelette, "The Weapon Shop" my best shorter length story.

My fix-up novels are:

• Quest for the Future
• The Voyage of the Space Beagle
• The Weapon Shops of Isher
• The Mixed Men (later called Mission to the Stars)
• Empire of the Atom
• The War Against the Rull
• The Beast
• Rogue Ship
• The Silkie
• Supermind

Total of 10.

And I novelized — that is, lengthened or expanded — Mayne's Artur Blord stories and her short novel, titled as follows:

• Planets for Sale (Blord)
• The Winged Man (from 35 to 60 thousand words)

Out of all of these I wouldn't be surprised if the total income did not amount to a couple of hundred thousand dollars, compared to the few thousand they might have earned from anthologists as separate stories.

When I consider the alternative in a field where I have always considered myself a craftsman and not as an artist, I have not a single regret. Every story I wrote was interesting to me at the time, for reason that psychologists might be able to explain but I'm not even trying.