Harry Bates (author)
Encyclopedia
Harry Bates was an American
science fiction
editor and writer. His 1940 short story
"Farewell to the Master
" was the basis of the well-known 1951 science fiction movie The Day the Earth Stood Still.
s. When Clayton proposed a period adventure magazine, Bates suggested several alternatives that he said would be easier to edit, and Astounding Science Fiction was the result. Bates, who was not a fan of science fiction, edited the magazine from its inception in January 1930 until March 1933, when Clayton went bankrupt and the magazine was sold to Street and Smith. During that time, he edited other magazines for Clayton, including Strange Tales
, intended to compete with Weird Tales
.
Bates believed the science fiction stories of the time were poorly written: "Amazing Stories! Once I had bought a copy. What awful stuff I'd found it! Cluttered with trivia! Packed with puerilities. Written by unimaginables! But now at the memory I wondered if there might be a market for a well-written magazine on the Amazing themes." Bates wrote that the "science fiction of the early writers had little relation to science of the scientists." What science fiction writers did was to "extrapolate" and not "relate" because "almost all of what is called science fiction is fantasy and nothing else but."
In 1964, Bates recalled his editorship of Astounding: "Long ago I was a party to the genesis of a magazine which persisted through thirty years and thirty millions of words. ... Astounding was a living being. I served it in its infancy and childhood, Orlin Tremaine brought it through youth and adolescence, John Campbell guided it through adulthood and maturity."
Clayton was willing to pay four times the rates offered by Hugo Gernsback's
rival Amazing Stories
. Bates had a different opinion of science fiction than Gernsback. Bates felt that the science needed to be exciting but not necessarily accurate and that story and pacing were more important.
Using the pseudonym
s Anthony Gilmore and H.G. Winter, Bates and his assistant editor Desmond Winter Hall collaborated on the "Hawk Carse" series and other stories. In 1952, the Hawk Carse stories were collected in Space Hawk: The Greatest of Interplanetary Adventurers. Bates's most famous story is "Farewell to the Master
" (Astounding, October 1940), which was the basis for the well-known science fiction movie of 1951, The Day the Earth Stood Still, as well as the 2008 remake and the 1973 Marvel Comics Worlds Unknown series adaptation.
Bates recalled the creation of the Hawk Carse science fiction series in Requiem for Astounding (1964): "From the beginning I had been bothered by the seeming inability of my writers to mix convincing character with our not-too-convincing science; so after nearly two years, with the double hope of furnishing the writers an example of a vivid hero and villain and my readers a whopping hero versus villain, I generated the first Hawk Carse story."
Two novellas by Bates appeared in Gernsback's Science-Fiction Plus
, edited by Sam Moskowitz
. "The Death of a Sensitive" (May, 1953) was ranked by Moskowitz as the best story he ever published in the magazine. Both Gernsback and Moskowitz, however, wanted changes in "The Triggered Dimension" (December 1953). Bates agreed to make the changes and arrived at the magazine's offices at 25 West Broadway to do the revisions.
That same year Moskowitz began teaching what is believed to be the first college course on science fiction at City College. Bates had agreed to speak as a guest lecturer for the first class. As retaliation for the revision of his story, however, Bates intentionally did not go to the class, resulting in considerable awkwardness for Moskowitz.
Moskowitz recalled later:
In 1964, Bates contributed an introductory essay, Editorial Number One, "To Begin", along with John W. Campbell, to A Requiem for Astounding by Alva Rogers, which examined the history of the science fiction magazine Astounding.
Harry Bates died in September, 1981, at the age of 80.
". The science fiction movie featured Michael Rennie as Klaatu, Patricia Neal, Sam Jaffe, and Hugh Marlowe, and Lock Martin as the giant alien robot Gort, called Gnut in the Bates' short story. The movie was directed by Robert Wise and produced by Julian Blaustein. Screenwriter Edmund H. North adapted Bates' short story for the screen. The movie is rated consistently by critics as one of the greatest science fiction movies ever made.
In 2008, The Day the Earth Stood Still was remade by director Scott Derrickson. The movie starred Keanu Reeves as the alien Klaatu and Jennifer Connelly as Dr. Helen Benson. David Scarpa wrote the screenplay based on the Edmund H. North 1951 screenplay.
The critical and commercial success of the 1951 movie relied on the novel themes introduced by Bates in his short story. Ever since The War of the Worlds (1898) by H.G. Wells, aliens were often described as menacing, aggressive and murderous, with a degraded moral and ethical sense. In Bates' story, aliens are the opposite, possessing a good moral character. The alien Klatuu's face "radiated kindness, wisdom, the purest nobility. In his delicately tinted robe he looked like a benign god." The giant alien robot, Gnut in the short story, Gort in the film, is immensely powerful, but can exhibit sadness and gentleness. The surprise ending, where Gnut tells the journalist, who is relating the story, "You misunderstand, ... I am the master," prompts some interesting speculation about relationships between mankind and technology of the future.
While The Day the Earth Stood Still is inspired by Bates' short story, in the 1951 context of the Cold War the film changes the story's themes somewhat. In the movie Klaatu seeks to promote peace and to warn mankind of the dangers of science and technology when they are exploited and corrupted. The alien explains that Gort is a member of a race of all-powerful robots who were created to eliminate any civilizations which promoted warfare in space.
During 1983, The Day the Earth Stood Still was inducted into the Science Fiction Film Hall of Fame as part of the Balrog Awards, which were given from 1979-1985.
The 2008 version of The Day the Earth Stood Still, represents a major issue of its own day: the alien's concern is the destruction of the environment by mankind's activities. Earth is believed by alien civilizations to be of a very few precious planets that are capable of supporting intelligent life, and should therefore be protected from mankind's predations.
Boucher
and McComas
described the 1952 collection as "strongly commended to all connoisseurs of prose so outrageously bad as to reach its own kind of greatness.". P. Schuyler Miller
described the stories as "space opera of the old, raw, gloves-off school [including] every cliche of the period," concluding "Hawk Carse was so bad that he was almost good." Everett F. Bleiler
characterized the series as "traditional pulp Western stories transplanted into space, with the addition of an Oriental villain in the mode of Sax Rohmer
's Dr. Fu-Manchu."
Ten years later, Amazing Stories printed the final Hawk Carse novel, written by Bates alone. This story has never been collected or reprinted.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
editor and writer. His 1940 short story
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
"Farewell to the Master
Farewell to the Master
"Farewell to the Master" is a science fiction short story written by Harry Bates. It was first published in the October 1940 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. It provided the basis of the noted 1951 film The Day the Earth Stood Still and its 2008 remake...
" was the basis of the well-known 1951 science fiction movie The Day the Earth Stood Still.
Biography
Harry Bates was born Hiram Gilmore Bates III on October 9, 1900 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He began working for William Clayton in the 1920s as the editor of adventure pulp magazinePulp magazine
Pulp magazines , also collectively known as pulp fiction, refers to inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s. The typical pulp magazine was seven inches wide by ten inches high, half an inch thick, and 128 pages long...
s. When Clayton proposed a period adventure magazine, Bates suggested several alternatives that he said would be easier to edit, and Astounding Science Fiction was the result. Bates, who was not a fan of science fiction, edited the magazine from its inception in January 1930 until March 1933, when Clayton went bankrupt and the magazine was sold to Street and Smith. During that time, he edited other magazines for Clayton, including Strange Tales
Strange Tales
Strange Tales is the name of several comic book anthology series published by Marvel Comics. It introduced the features "Doctor Strange" and "Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.", and was a showcase for the science fiction/suspense stories of artists Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, and for the...
, intended to compete with Weird Tales
Weird Tales
Weird Tales is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine first published in March 1923. It ceased its original run in September 1954, after 279 issues, but has since been revived. The magazine was set up in Chicago by J. C. Henneberger, an ex-journalist with a taste for the macabre....
.
Bates believed the science fiction stories of the time were poorly written: "Amazing Stories! Once I had bought a copy. What awful stuff I'd found it! Cluttered with trivia! Packed with puerilities. Written by unimaginables! But now at the memory I wondered if there might be a market for a well-written magazine on the Amazing themes." Bates wrote that the "science fiction of the early writers had little relation to science of the scientists." What science fiction writers did was to "extrapolate" and not "relate" because "almost all of what is called science fiction is fantasy and nothing else but."
In 1964, Bates recalled his editorship of Astounding: "Long ago I was a party to the genesis of a magazine which persisted through thirty years and thirty millions of words. ... Astounding was a living being. I served it in its infancy and childhood, Orlin Tremaine brought it through youth and adolescence, John Campbell guided it through adulthood and maturity."
Clayton was willing to pay four times the rates offered by Hugo Gernsback's
Hugo Gernsback
Hugo Gernsback , born Hugo Gernsbacher, was a Luxembourgian American inventor, writer, editor, and magazine publisher, best remembered for publications that included the first science fiction magazine. His contributions to the genre as publisher were so significant that, along with H. G...
rival Amazing Stories
Amazing Stories
Amazing Stories was an American science fiction magazine launched in April 1926 by Hugo Gernsback's Experimenter Publishing. It was the first magazine devoted solely to science fiction...
. Bates had a different opinion of science fiction than Gernsback. Bates felt that the science needed to be exciting but not necessarily accurate and that story and pacing were more important.
Using the pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
s Anthony Gilmore and H.G. Winter, Bates and his assistant editor Desmond Winter Hall collaborated on the "Hawk Carse" series and other stories. In 1952, the Hawk Carse stories were collected in Space Hawk: The Greatest of Interplanetary Adventurers. Bates's most famous story is "Farewell to the Master
Farewell to the Master
"Farewell to the Master" is a science fiction short story written by Harry Bates. It was first published in the October 1940 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. It provided the basis of the noted 1951 film The Day the Earth Stood Still and its 2008 remake...
" (Astounding, October 1940), which was the basis for the well-known science fiction movie of 1951, The Day the Earth Stood Still, as well as the 2008 remake and the 1973 Marvel Comics Worlds Unknown series adaptation.
Bates recalled the creation of the Hawk Carse science fiction series in Requiem for Astounding (1964): "From the beginning I had been bothered by the seeming inability of my writers to mix convincing character with our not-too-convincing science; so after nearly two years, with the double hope of furnishing the writers an example of a vivid hero and villain and my readers a whopping hero versus villain, I generated the first Hawk Carse story."
Two novellas by Bates appeared in Gernsback's Science-Fiction Plus
Science-Fiction Plus
Science-Fiction Plus was a science fiction magazine published from Philadelphia by Gernsback Publications, Inc. in 1952-53...
, edited by Sam Moskowitz
Sam Moskowitz
Sam Moskowitz was an early fan and organizer of interest in science fiction and, later, a writer, critic, and historian of the field.-Biography:...
. "The Death of a Sensitive" (May, 1953) was ranked by Moskowitz as the best story he ever published in the magazine. Both Gernsback and Moskowitz, however, wanted changes in "The Triggered Dimension" (December 1953). Bates agreed to make the changes and arrived at the magazine's offices at 25 West Broadway to do the revisions.
That same year Moskowitz began teaching what is believed to be the first college course on science fiction at City College. Bates had agreed to speak as a guest lecturer for the first class. As retaliation for the revision of his story, however, Bates intentionally did not go to the class, resulting in considerable awkwardness for Moskowitz.
Moskowitz recalled later:
- Seven years later, I received a letter from Harry Bates dated October 2, 1960. In essence, it revealed that Bates was now totally disabled due to progressive arthritis and was trying to get early Social Security at 60. He had a doctor's statement that he was suffering from that condition at present, but they wanted proof that it was progressive and prevented him from writing stories for income. He asked if I would be willing to supply a statement that he had written stories for me with the greatest difficulty. He didn't know if he had ever mentioned it to me, but any validation would help. It so happened that he had shown me his swollen knuckles in 1953, but beyond that, I had a letter from him describing the difficulty, written earlier that year. I mailed him back the letter, for which I still had the dated envelope, and he got his Social Security—- his only income for the next 20 years! Christmas of 1962 I received a card from him on which he scrawled: "I ain't mad at you no more."
In 1964, Bates contributed an introductory essay, Editorial Number One, "To Begin", along with John W. Campbell, to A Requiem for Astounding by Alva Rogers, which examined the history of the science fiction magazine Astounding.
Harry Bates died in September, 1981, at the age of 80.
The Day the Earth Stood Still
In 1951, Twentieth Century Fox released the movie The Day the Earth Stood Still, which was based on the Harry Bates' 1940 short story "Farewell to the MasterFarewell to the Master
"Farewell to the Master" is a science fiction short story written by Harry Bates. It was first published in the October 1940 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. It provided the basis of the noted 1951 film The Day the Earth Stood Still and its 2008 remake...
". The science fiction movie featured Michael Rennie as Klaatu, Patricia Neal, Sam Jaffe, and Hugh Marlowe, and Lock Martin as the giant alien robot Gort, called Gnut in the Bates' short story. The movie was directed by Robert Wise and produced by Julian Blaustein. Screenwriter Edmund H. North adapted Bates' short story for the screen. The movie is rated consistently by critics as one of the greatest science fiction movies ever made.
In 2008, The Day the Earth Stood Still was remade by director Scott Derrickson. The movie starred Keanu Reeves as the alien Klaatu and Jennifer Connelly as Dr. Helen Benson. David Scarpa wrote the screenplay based on the Edmund H. North 1951 screenplay.
The critical and commercial success of the 1951 movie relied on the novel themes introduced by Bates in his short story. Ever since The War of the Worlds (1898) by H.G. Wells, aliens were often described as menacing, aggressive and murderous, with a degraded moral and ethical sense. In Bates' story, aliens are the opposite, possessing a good moral character. The alien Klatuu's face "radiated kindness, wisdom, the purest nobility. In his delicately tinted robe he looked like a benign god." The giant alien robot, Gnut in the short story, Gort in the film, is immensely powerful, but can exhibit sadness and gentleness. The surprise ending, where Gnut tells the journalist, who is relating the story, "You misunderstand, ... I am the master," prompts some interesting speculation about relationships between mankind and technology of the future.
While The Day the Earth Stood Still is inspired by Bates' short story, in the 1951 context of the Cold War the film changes the story's themes somewhat. In the movie Klaatu seeks to promote peace and to warn mankind of the dangers of science and technology when they are exploited and corrupted. The alien explains that Gort is a member of a race of all-powerful robots who were created to eliminate any civilizations which promoted warfare in space.
During 1983, The Day the Earth Stood Still was inducted into the Science Fiction Film Hall of Fame as part of the Balrog Awards, which were given from 1979-1985.
The 2008 version of The Day the Earth Stood Still, represents a major issue of its own day: the alien's concern is the destruction of the environment by mankind's activities. Earth is believed by alien civilizations to be of a very few precious planets that are capable of supporting intelligent life, and should therefore be protected from mankind's predations.
Hawk Carse Short Stories
Under the pseudonym of Anthony Gilmore, Harry Bates wrote the following stories in the Hawk Carse series with Desmond W. Hall, collected in Space Hawk: The Greatest of Interplanetary Adventurers (New York: Greenberg, 1952):- "Hawk Carse", Astounding, November, 1931
- "The Affair of the Brains", Astounding, March, 1932
- "The Bluff of the Hawk", Astounding, May, 1932
- "The Passing of Ku Sui", Astounding, November, 1932
Boucher
Anthony Boucher
Anthony Boucher was an American science fiction editor and author of mystery novels and short stories. He was particularly influential as an editor. Between 1942 and 1947 he acted as reviewer of mostly mystery fiction for the San Francisco Chronicle...
and McComas
J. Francis McComas
Jesse Francis McComas was an American science fiction editor. McComas wrote several stories on his own in the 1950s using both his own name and the pseudonym Webb Marlowe....
described the 1952 collection as "strongly commended to all connoisseurs of prose so outrageously bad as to reach its own kind of greatness.". P. Schuyler Miller
P. Schuyler Miller
Peter Schuyler Miller was an American science fiction writer and critic.-Life:Miller was raised in New York's Mohawk Valley, which led to a life-long interest in the Iroquois Indians. He pursued this as an amateur archaeologist and a member of the New York State Archaeological Association.He...
described the stories as "space opera of the old, raw, gloves-off school [including] every cliche of the period," concluding "Hawk Carse was so bad that he was almost good." Everett F. Bleiler
Everett F. Bleiler
Everett Franklin Bleiler was an editor, bibliographer, and scholar of science fiction, detective fiction, and fantasy literature. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, he co-edited the first "year's best" series of science fiction anthologies, and his Checklist of Fantastic Literature has been called...
characterized the series as "traditional pulp Western stories transplanted into space, with the addition of an Oriental villain in the mode of Sax Rohmer
Sax Rohmer
Arthur Henry Sarsfield Ward , better known as Sax Rohmer, was a prolific English novelist. He is best remembered for his series of novels featuring the master criminal Dr...
's Dr. Fu-Manchu."
Ten years later, Amazing Stories printed the final Hawk Carse novel, written by Bates alone. This story has never been collected or reprinted.
- "The Return of Hawk Carse", Amazing, July, 1942
Science fiction stories
Harry Bates wrote the following classic science fiction short stories:- "The Hands of Aten", with Desmond W. Hall, under the pseudonym H.G. Winter, 1931
- "The Slave Ship from Space", with the pseudonym A.R. Holmes, 1931
- "The Tentacles from Below", with Desmond W. Hall, as Anthony Gilmore, 1931
- "Four Miles Within", with Desmond W. Hall, as Anthony Gilmore, 1931
- "The Midget from the Island", with Desmond W. Hall, as H.G. Winter, 1931
- "Seed of the Arctic Ice", with Desmond W. Hall, as H.G. Winter, 1932
- "A Scientist Rises", with Desmond W. Hall, Astounding, November, 1932
- "The Coffin Ship", with Desmond W. Hall, as Anthony Gilmore, 1933
- "Under Arctic Ice", with Desmond W. Hall, as H.G. Winter, 1933
- "A Matter of Size", Astounding, April, 1934
- "Alas, All Thinking", Astounding, June, 1935
- "The Experiment of Dr. Sarconi", Thrilling Wonder Stories, July, 1940
- "Farewell to the Master", Astounding, October, 1940
- "A Matter of Speed", Astounding, June, 1941
- "The Mystery of the Blue God", Amazing Stories, January, 1942
- "The Death of a Sensitive", Science Fiction Plus, May, 1953
- "The Triggered Dimension", Science Fiction Plus, December, 1953
Essays
- "Introducing: Astounding Stories, 1930
- "Editorial: Just Around the Corner", 1933
- "Editorial: The Expanding Universe", 1933
- "Meet the Authors: Harry Bates", 1942
- Editorial Number One, "To Begin", in A Requiem for Astounding by Alva Rogers, with editorial comments by Harry Bates, F. Orlin Tremaine, and John W. Campbell. Chicago: Advent Publishers, 1964.
Magazine Editor
- Astounding Stories of Super-Science, 1930
- Astounding Stories, 1931
- Astounding Stories, 1932
- Strange Tales of Mystery and Terror, October, 1932
- Astounding Stories of Super-Science, 1933
Anthologies
The short story "Farewell to the Master" appears in the following science fiction anthologies:- They Came From Outer Space: 12 Classic Science Fiction Tales That Became Major Motion Pictures, edited by Jim Wynorski
- Isaac Asimov Presents the Great Science Fiction Stories, 1940, edited by Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg
- Machines That Think: The Best Science Fiction Stories About Robots and Computers, edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg, and Patricia S. Warrick
- Reel Future, edited by Forrest J. Ackerman and Jean Stine
- Isaac Asimov’s Wonderful Worlds of Science Fiction # 9: Robots, edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg, and Charles G. Waugh
- War with the Robots: 28 of the Best Short Stories by the Greatest Names in 20th Century Science Fiction, edited by Isaac Asimov
External links
- Farewell to the Master, available at The Nostalgia League
- Astounding Science-Fiction, the cover of the October, 1940 issue, which contained "Farewell to the Master": http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~we8y-mrt/vanvogt/magcover/asf4010.jpg
- The alien robot Gort (Gnut in the short story) and Klaatu from the 1951 movie The Day the Earth Stood Still: http://www.evanmix.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/day.jpg
- Astounding Stories, June, 1935 cover, featuring "Alas, All Thinking" by Harry Bates: http://lh5.google.co.uk/abramsv/R3GxQ0KUdBI/AAAAAAAABuE/xdPAioDREvE/s1600-h/ast_3506.jpg