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61-433: The term "Finagle's law" was first used by John W. Campbell Jr. , the influential editor of Astounding Science Fiction (later Analog ). He used it frequently in his editorials for many years in the 1940s to 1960s, but it never came into general usage the way Murphy's law has. One variant (known as O'Toole's corollary of Finagle's law) favored among hackers is a takeoff on the second law of thermodynamics (related to

122-461: A Campbell editorial and keep my temper). Damon Knight described Campbell as a "portly, bristled-haired blond man with a challenging stare". "Six-foot-one, with hawklike features, he presented a formidable appearance," said Sam Moskowitz . "He was a tall, large man with light hair, a beaky nose, a wide face with thin lips, and with a cigarette in a holder forever clamped between his teeth", wrote Asimov. Algis Budrys wrote that "John W. Campbell

183-519: A button hook. You've never stopped hating her for it." Bester commented: "It reinforced my private opinion that a majority of the science-fiction crowd, despite their brilliance, were missing their marbles." Asimov remained grateful for Campbell's early friendship and support. He dedicated The Early Asimov (1972) to him, and concluded it by stating that "There is no way at all to express how much he meant to me and how much he did for me except, perhaps, to write this book evoking, once more, those days of

244-537: A century sooner, with vastly less human misery, and with almost no bloodshed ... The only way slavery has ever been ended, anywhere, is by introducing industry ... If a man is a skilled and competent machinist – if the lathes work well under his hands – the industrial management will be forced, to remain in business, to accept that fact, whether the man be black, white, purple, or polka-dotted. According to Michael Moorcock , Campbell suggested that some people preferred slavery. He also, when faced with

305-412: A different tone using the pseudonym Don A. Stuart, which was derived from his wife's maiden name. He published several stories under this pseudonym, including Twilight ( Astounding , November 1934), Night ( Astounding , October 1935), and Who Goes There? ( Astounding , August 1938). Who Goes There? , about a group of Antarctic researchers who discover a crashed alien vessel, formerly inhabited by

366-482: A fascist, the publishers of Analog magazine announced that the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer would immediately be renamed to "The Astounding Award for Best New Writer ". The Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame inducted Campbell in 1996, in its inaugural class of two deceased and two living persons. Campbell and Astounding shared one of the inaugural Hugo Awards with H. L. Gold and Galaxy at

427-534: A frontier culture of asteroid miners; this " Belter " culture professed a religion or running joke involving the worship of the dread god Finagle and his mad prophet Murphy. "Finagle's law" can also be the related belief "Inanimate objects are out to get us", also known as Resistentialism . Similar to Finagle's law is the verbless phrase of the German novelist Friedrich Theodor Vischer : " die Tücke des Objekts " (the perfidy of inanimate objects). A related concept,

488-732: A galactic federation) in January 1940, which was published later that year in the September edition of Astounding Science Fiction . Similarly, Arthur C. Clarke 's " Rescue Party " and Fredric Brown 's " Arena " (basis of the Star Trek episode of the same name ) and " Letter to a Phoenix " (all first appeared in Astounding ) also depicts humans favorably above aliens. Campbell was a critic of government regulation of health and safety, excoriating numerous public health initiatives and regulations. Campbell

549-461: A group of new writers for the in the July 1939 issue of Astounding . The July issue contained A. E. van Vogt 's first story, "Black Destroyer", and Asimov's early story, "Trends"; August brought Robert A. Heinlein 's first story, " Life-Line ", and the next month Theodore Sturgeon 's first story appeared. Also in 1939, Campbell started the fantasy magazine Unknown (later Unknown Worlds ). Unknown

610-405: A malevolent shape-changing occupant, was published in Astounding almost a year after Campbell became its editor and it was his last significant piece of fiction, at age 28. It was filmed as The Thing from Another World (1951), The Thing (1982), and again as The Thing (2011). Tremaine hired Campbell to succeed him as the editor of Astounding from its October 1937 issue. Campbell

671-488: A man, but not like a man") and sometimes asked for stories to match cover paintings he had already bought. Campbell had a strong formative influence on Asimov and eventually became a friend. Asimov credited Campbell with encouraging developments within the field of science fiction field by forgoing conventional plot points and requiring its writers to "understand science and understand people." He also called Campbell "the most powerful force in science fiction ever" and said

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732-542: A novel due to the black main character, and Joe Haldeman in the dedication of Forever Peace , for rejecting a novel due to a female soldier protagonist. British science-fiction novelist Michael Moorcock , as part of his "Starship Stormtroopers" editorial, said Campbell's Astounding and its writers were "wild-eyed paternalists to a man, fierce anti-socialists " with "[stories] full of crew-cut wisecracking, cigar-chewing, competent guys (like Campbell's image of himself)"; they sold magazines because their "work reflected

793-453: A project existed and was aimed at developing nuclear weapons" and the demand was dropped. Campbell was also responsible for the grim and controversial ending of Tom Godwin 's short story " The Cold Equations ". Writer Joe Green recounted that Campbell had rejected Godwin's 'Cold Equations' on three different occasions due to disagreements over the fate of the female protagonist. Between December 11, 1957, and June 13, 1958, Campbell hosted

854-454: A quarter century ago". His final word on Campbell was that "in the last twenty years of his life, he was only a diminishing shadow of what he had once been." Even Heinlein, perhaps Campbell's most important discovery and a "fast friend", tired of him. Poul Anderson wrote that Campbell "had saved and regenerated science fiction", which had become "the product of hack pulpsters " when he took over Astounding . "By his editorial policies and

915-572: A sophisticated Manhattanite , recounted at some length his "one demented meeting" with Campbell, a man he imagined from afar to be "a combination of Bertrand Russell and Ernest Rutherford ". The first thing Campbell said to him was that Freud was dead, destroyed by the new discovery of Dianetics , which, he predicted, would win L. Ron Hubbard the Nobel Peace Prize . Campbell ordered the bemused Bester to "think back. Clear yourself. Remember! You can remember when your mother tried to abort you with

976-505: A trophy which records all of the winners on engraved plaques affixed to the sides, and since 2004 winners received a smaller personalized trophy as well. In 2019, McKitterick (the award's chair) announced plans to rename both the conference and the award. Both the conference and the award were cancelled in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic . The Center for the Study of Science Fiction itself

1037-469: A weekly science fiction radio program called Exploring Tomorrow . Green wrote that Campbell "enjoyed taking the 'devil's advocate' position in almost any area, willing to defend even viewpoints with which he disagreed if that led to a livelier debate". As an example, he wrote: [Campbell] pointed out that the much-maligned 'peculiar institution' of slavery in the American South had in fact provided

1098-599: A writer of space adventure. When in 1934 he began to write stories with a different tone, he wrote as Don A. Stuart. From 1930 until 1937, Campbell was prolific and successful under both names; he stopped writing fiction shortly after he became editor of Astounding in 1937. In his capacity as an editor, Campbell published some of the very earliest work, and helped shape the careers of virtually every important science-fiction author to debut between 1938 and 1946, including Isaac Asimov , Robert A. Heinlein , Theodore Sturgeon , and Arthur C. Clarke . Shortly after his death in 1971,

1159-571: Is also used in a 1960 wildlife management article. John W. Campbell Jr. John Wood Campbell Jr. (June 8, 1910 – July 11, 1971) was an American science fiction writer and editor. He was editor of Astounding Science Fiction (later called Analog Science Fiction and Fact ) from late 1937 until his death and was part of the Golden Age of Science Fiction . Campbell wrote super-science space opera under his own name and stories under his primary pseudonym, Don A. Stuart. Campbell also used

1220-583: The Hugo Award for Best Professional Magazine four times. Campbell and Analog won the Hugo Award for Best Professional Magazine yet another four times and Campbell's novella Who Goes There? also won a Hugo Award for Best Novella , bringing his total award count to seventeen. Shortly after Campbell's death, the University of Kansas science fiction program—now the Center for the Study of Science Fiction—established

1281-619: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he was befriended by the mathematician Norbert Wiener (who coined the term cybernetics ) – but he failed German. MIT dismissed him in his junior year in 1931. After two years at Duke University , he graduated with a Bachelor of Science in physics in 1934. Campbell began writing science fiction at age 18 while attending MIT and sold his first stories quickly. From January 1930 to June 1931, Amazing Stories published six of his short stories, one novel, and six letters. Campbell

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1342-548: The Watts riots of the mid-sixties, seriously proposed and went on to proposing that there were 'natural' slaves who were unhappy if freed. I sat on a panel with him in 1965, as he pointed out that the worker bee when unable to work dies of misery, that the moujiks when freed went to their masters and begged to be enslaved again, that the ideals of the anti-slavers who fought in the Civil War were merely expressions of self-interest and that

1403-570: The " Dean drive ", a device that supposedly produced thrust in violation of Newton's third law , and the " Hieronymus machine ", which could supposedly amplify psi powers. In 1949, Campbell worked closely with L. Ron Hubbard on the techniques that Hubbard later turned into Dianetics . When Hubbard's therapy failed to find support from the medical community, Campbell published the earliest forms of Dianetics in Astounding . He wrote of L. Ron Hubbard's initial article in Astounding that "[i]t is, I assure you in full and absolute sincerity, one of

1464-507: The "Finagle factor", is an ad hoc multiplicative or additive term in an equation, which can be justified only by the fact that it gives more correct results. Also known as Finagle's variable constant, it is sometimes defined as the correct answer divided by your answer. One of the first records of "Finagle factor" is probably a December 1962 article in The Michigan Technic , credited to Campbell, but bylined "I Finaglin" The term

1525-430: The "first ten years of his editorship he dominated the field completely." Campbell encouraged Cleve Cartmill to write " Deadline ", a short story by that appeared during the wartime year of 1944, a year before the detonation of the first atomic bomb . As Ben Bova , Campbell's successor as editor at Analog , wrote, it "described the basic facts of how to build an atomic bomb. Cartmill and Campbell worked together on

1586-420: The "major awards" of written science fiction. The winning novel was selected by a panel of science fiction experts, intended to be "small enough to discuss among its members all of the nominated novels". Among members of the panel have been Gregory Benford , Paul A. Carter, James Gunn , Elizabeth Anne Hull , Christopher McKitterick , Farah Mendlesohn , Pamela Sargent , and Tom Shippey . In 2008 Mendlesohn

1647-680: The 1930s, Campbell became interested in Joseph Rhine's theories about ESP (Rhine had already founded the Parapsychology Laboratory at Duke University when Campbell was a student there), and over the following years his growing interest in parapsychology would be reflected in the stories he published when he encouraged the writers to include these topics in their tales, leading to the publication of numerous works about telepathy and other " psionic " abilities. This post-war "psi-boom" has been dated by science fiction scholars to roughly

1708-423: The 1953 World Science Fiction Convention . Subsequently, he won the Hugo Award for Best Professional Magazine seven times to 1965. In 2018, he won a retrospective Hugo Award for Best Editor, Short Form (1943). John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel The John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel , or Campbell Memorial Award, was an annual award presented to

1769-678: The Negro 'Civil Rights' groups". On February 10, 1967, Campbell rejected Samuel R. Delany 's Nova a month before it was ultimately published, with a note and phone call to his agent explaining that he did not feel his readership "would be able to relate to a black main character". All these views were reflected in the depiction of aliens in Astounding / Analog . Throughout his editorship, Campbell demanded that depiction of contact between aliens and humans must favor humans. For example, Campbell accepted Isaac Asimov 's proposal for what would become " Homo Sol " (where humans rejected an invitation to join

1830-658: The Spring 1931 Quarterly . During 1934–35 a serial novel, The Mightiest Machine , ran in Astounding Stories , edited by F. Orlin Tremaine , and several stories featuring lead characters Penton and Blake appeared from late 1936 in Thrilling Wonder Stories , edited by Mort Weisinger . The early work for Amazing established Campbell's reputation as a writer of space adventure. In 1934, he began to publish stories with

1891-567: The USA to endure it a few more years than suffer the truly horrendous costs of the Civil War." In a June 1961 editorial called "Civil War Centennial", Campbell argued that slavery had been a dominant form of human relationships for most of history and that the present was unusual in that anti-slavery cultures dominated the planet. He wrote It's my bet that the South would have been integrated by 1910. The job would have been done – and done right – half

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1952-567: The University of Kansas science fiction program established the annual John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel and also renamed its annual Campbell Conference after him. The World Science Fiction Society established the annual John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, since renamed the Astounding Award for Best New Writer . The Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame inducted Campbell in 1996, in its inaugural class of two deceased and two living persons. John Campbell

2013-459: The annual John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel and also renamed after him its annual Campbell Conference. The World Science Fiction Society established the annual John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. All three memorials became effective in 1973. However, following Jeannette Ng 's August 2019 acceptance speech of the award for Best New Writer at Worldcon 77 , in which she criticized Campbell's politics and called him

2074-562: The antitobacco alarmists were completely right..." In 1963, Campbell published an angry editorial about Frances Oldham Kelsey who, while at the FDA, refused to permit thalidomide to be sold in the United States. In other essays, Campbell supported crank medicine, arguing that government regulation was more harmful than beneficial and that regulating quackery prevented the use of many possible beneficial medicines ( e.g. , krebiozen ). In

2135-612: The augmentation of entropy ): The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum. In the Star Trek episode " Amok Time " (written by Theodore Sturgeon in 1967), Captain Kirk tells Spock, "As one of Finagle's laws puts it: 'Any home port the ship makes will be somebody else's, not mine. ' " The term "Finagle's law" was popularized by science fiction author Larry Niven in several stories (for example, Protector [Ballantine Books paperback edition, 4th printing, p. 23]), depicting

2196-710: The author of the best science fiction novel published in English in the preceding calendar year. It was given by several organizations from 1973 to 1979 and then by the Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas until 2019. It was the novel counterpart of the Theodore Sturgeon Award for best short story, awarded at the same conference by the Theodore Sturgeon Literary Trust. The award

2257-491: The blacks brought there with a higher standard of living than they had in Africa ;... I suspected, from comments by Asimov, among others – and some Analog editorials I had read – that John held some racist views, at least in regard to blacks. Finally, however, Green agreed with Campbell that "rapidly increasing mechanization after 1850 would have soon rendered slavery obsolete anyhow. It would have been better for

2318-622: The blacks were 'against' emancipation, which was fundamentally why they were indulging in 'leaderless' riots in the suburbs of Los Angeles. By the 1960s, Campbell began to publish controversial essays supporting segregation and other remarks and writings surrounding slavery and race, which distance him from many in the science fiction community. In 1963, Campbell published an essay supporting segregated schools and arguing that "the Negro race" had failed to "produce super-high-geniuses". In 1965, he continued his defense of segregation and related practices, critiquing "the arrogant defiance of law by many of

2379-456: The connection to lung cancer was "esoteric" and referred to "a barely determinable possible correlation between cigarette smoking and cancer". He said that tobacco's calming effects led to more effective thinking. In a one-page piece about automobile safety in Analog dated May 1967, Campbell wrote of "people suddenly becoming conscious of the fact that cars kill more people than cigarettes do, even if

2440-473: The deep-seated conservatism of the majority of their readers, who saw a Bolshevik menace in every union meeting". He viewed Campbell as turning the magazine into a vessel for right-wing politics , "by the early 1950s ... a crypto-fascist deeply philistine magazine pretending to intellectualism and offering idealistic kids an 'alternative' that was, of course, no alternative at all". SF writer Alfred Bester , an editor of Holiday Magazine and

2501-405: The following table, the years correspond to the date of the ceremony, rather than when the novel was first published. Each year links to the corresponding "year in literature". Entries with a blue background and an asterisk (*) next to the writer's name have won the award; those with a white background are the other nominees on the shortlist. Entries with a gray background and a plus sign (+) indicate

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2562-483: The help and encouragement he gave his writers (always behind the scenes), he raised both the literary and the intellectual standard anew. Whatever progress has been made stems from that renaissance". Campbell and Astounding shared one of the inaugural Hugo Awards with H. L. Gold and Galaxy at the 1953 World Science Fiction Convention . Subsequently, Campbell and Astounding won the Hugo Award for Best Professional Editor seven additional times as well as winning

2623-474: The men he had trained (including me) in doing so, but felt it was his duty to stir up the minds of his readers and force curiosity right out to the border lines. He began a series of editorials ... in which he championed a social point of view that could sometimes be described as far right (he expressed sympathy for George Wallace in the 1968 national election, for instance). There was bitter opposition to this from many (including me – I could hardly ever read

2684-536: The mid-1950s to the early 1960s, and continues to influence many popular culture tropes and motifs. Campbell rejected the Shaver Mystery in which the author claimed to have had a personal experience with a sinister ancient civilization that harbored fantastic technology in caverns under the earth. His increasing beliefs in pseudoscience would eventually start to isolate and alienate him from some of his writers, including Asimov. He wrote favorably about such things as

2745-492: The most important articles ever published." Campbell continued to promote Hubbard's theories until 1952, when the pair split acrimoniously over the direction of the movement. Asimov wrote: "A number of writers wrote pseudoscientific stuff to ensure sales to Campbell, but the best writers retreated, I among them. ..." Elsewhere Asimov went on to further explain Campbell championed far-out ideas ... He pained very many of

2806-578: The only authors to do so, out of four and two nominations, respectively. Kim Stanley Robinson and Paul J. McAuley won once out of seven nominations, and Jack McDevitt , Ian McDonald , Adam Roberts , and Robert J. Sawyer won once out of five nominations, while Nancy Kress , Bruce Sterling , and Robert Charles Wilson won once out of four nominations. Greg Bear had the most nominations without winning at nine, followed by Sheri S. Tepper at six, James K. Morrow at five, and William Gibson , Ken MacLeod , Charles Stross , and Peter Watts at four. In

2867-448: The pen names Karl Van Kampen and Arthur McCann. His novella Who Goes There? was adapted as the films The Thing from Another World (1951), The Thing (1982), and The Thing (2011). Campbell began writing science fiction at age 18 while attending MIT . He published six short stories, one novel, and eight letters in the science fiction magazine Amazing Stories from 1930 to 1931. This work established Campbell's reputation as

2928-409: The pulp mire and start writing intelligently, for adults". After 1950, new magazines such as Galaxy Science Fiction and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction moved in different directions and developed talented new writers who were not directly influenced by him. Campbell often suggested story ideas to writers (including "Write me a creature that thinks as well as a man, or better than

2989-485: The story, drawing their scientific information from papers published in the technical journals before the war. To them, the mechanics of constructing a uranium-fission bomb seemed perfectly obvious." The FBI descended on Campbell's office after the story appeared in print and demanded that the issue be removed from the newsstands. Campbell convinced them that by removing the magazine "the FBI would be advertising to everyone that such

3050-501: Was a heavy smoker throughout his life and was seldom seen without his customary cigarette holder. In the Analog of September 1964, nine months after the Surgeon General 's first major warning about the dangers of cigarette smoking had been issued (January 11, 1964) Campbell ran an editorial, "A Counterblaste to Tobacco" that took its title from the anti-smoking book of the same name by King James I of England . In it, he stated that

3111-511: Was an atheist. Editor T. O'Conor Sloane lost Campbell's first manuscript that he accepted for Amazing Stories , entitled "Invaders of the Infinite". "When the Atoms Failed" appeared in January 1930, followed by five more during 1930. Three were part of a space opera series featuring the characters Arcot, Morey, and Wade. A complete novel in the series, Islands of Space , was the cover story in

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3172-620: Was born in Newark, New Jersey , in 1910. His father, John Wood Campbell Sr., was an electrical engineer. His mother, Dorothy (née Strahern) had an identical twin who visited them often. John was unable to tell them apart and said he was frequently rebuffed by the person he took to be his mother. Campbell attended the Blair Academy , a boarding school in rural Warren County , New Jersey, but did not graduate because of lack of credits for French and trigonometry . He also attended, without graduating,

3233-779: Was canceled after four years due to wartime paper shortages. Campbell died in 1971 at the age of 61 in Mountainside, New Jersey . At the time of his sudden death after 34 years at the helm of Analog, Campbell's personality and editorial demands had alienated some of his writers to the point that they no longer submitted works to him. One of his writers, Theodore Sturgeon, opted to publish most of his works after 1950 and only submitted one story with Astounding during that same timeframe. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction wrote: "More than any other individual, he helped to shape modern sf", and Darrell Schweitzer credits him with having "decreed that SF writers should pull themselves up out of

3294-691: Was editor of Astounding Science Fiction (later called Analog Science Fiction and Fact ) from late 1937 until his death. He stopped writing fiction after he became the editor of Astounding . Between December 11, 1957, and June 13, 1958, he hosted a weekly science fiction radio program called Exploring Tomorrow . The scripts were written by authors such as Gordon R. Dickson and Robert Silverberg . Campbell and Doña Stewart married in 1931. They divorced in 1949, and he married Margaret (Peg) Winter in 1950. He spent most of his life in New Jersey and died of heart failure at his home in Mountainside, New Jersey . He

3355-651: Was for a number of years presented during the Campbell Conference awards banquet in Lawrence as part of the centerpiece of the conference along with the Sturgeon Award. The award was given at this conference since 1979; prior to then it was awarded at various locations around the world, starting at the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1973. Winners were invited to attend the ceremony. James Gunn had maintained

3416-456: Was named in honor of John W. Campbell (1910–1971), whose science fiction writing and role as editor of Analog Science Fiction and Fact made him one of the most influential editors in the early history of science fiction. The award was established in 1973 by writers and critics Harry Harrison and Brian Aldiss "as a way of continuing his efforts to encourage writers to produce their best possible work." Locus magazine listed it as one of

3477-461: Was not given full authority for Astounding until May 1938, but had been responsible for buying stories earlier. He began to make changes almost immediately, instigating a "mutant" label for unusual stories, and in March 1938, changing the title from Astounding Stories to Astounding Science-Fiction . Lester del Rey 's first story in March 1938 was an early find for Campbell. In 1939, he published

3538-416: Was replaced with Paul Kincaid , in 2009 Carter left the panel while Paul Di Filippo and Sheila Finch joined, and Lisa Yaszek replaced Di Filippo in 2016. Nominations were submitted by publishers and jurors, and collated by the panel into a list of finalists to be voted on. The minimum eligible length that a work may be is not formally defined by the center. The winner was selected by May of each year, and

3599-517: Was so unpleasant to me that I was unwilling to face it. Campbell talked a good deal more than he listened, and he liked to say outrageous things." British novelist and critic Kingsley Amis dismissed Campbell brusquely: "I might just add as a sociological note that the editor of Astounding, himself a deviant figure of marked ferocity, seems to think he has invented a psi machine." Several science-fiction novelists have criticized Campbell as prejudiced – Samuel R. Delany for Campbell's rejection of

3660-466: Was taken over by the English department of the University of Kansas in 2022, which subsequently ended the conference and award. During the 47 years the award was active, 183 authors had works nominated; 47 of these authors won. In two years, 1976 and 1994, the panel selected none of the nominees as a winner, while in 1974, 2002, 2009, and 2012 the panel selected two winners rather than one. Frederik Pohl and Joan Slonczewski each won twice,

3721-415: Was the greatest editor SF has seen or is likely to see, and is in fact one of the major editors in all English-language literature in the middle years of the twentieth century. All about you is the heritage of what he built". Asimov said that Campbell was "talkative, opinionated, quicksilver-minded, overbearing. Talking to him meant listening to a monologue..." Knight agreed: "Campbell's lecture-room manner

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