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SAVAGE_FUTURIANS
September 21, 2021
"Ventnor's father had been destroyed for
gadgeteering and it was apparent that this
tendency had been carried forward to the next
generation. Worse, although latent, the
characteristic was predominent and increasing."
Philip E. High, "These Savage Futurians" (1967)
That's one side of an
One of the things I think is funny "ACE double", backed
about this is this seems like a with: John Rackham's
fairly light-weight, mildly trashy "The Double Invaders".
SF story... but in broad outline,
the premise here is the same as the The ACE double format was
one I was playing with in 1985: the invention of Donald
A. Wolheim, who was
RAT3 still in charge of ACE
books in 1967.
But then, Vernor Vinge's "The Peace
War" from (2003) works with something https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ace_double_titles
similar to this as well.
Donald A Wolheim was also
HARD a member of (wikipedia
has him as a "founding
member") of the science
fiction group called
"The Futurians".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurians
Get it? Could be there
was a bit of an in-joke
going on with that title.
I saw a reference calling
The Futurians a "club" but
that doesn't go anywhere
near far enough. They were
more like a "slan-shack", a
gathering of like-minded
nerds sharing living
quarters, and gradually
turning into one of the
main cadres of SF
professionals.
Around half of the published
SF from the 1940s is supposed
to have been handled by
members of The Futurians.
It was not unusual unfortunately to
publish some dreck cranked out by
one of your friends just to fill
My first guess was this "Philip some pages (and not incidentally,
E. High" had to be a pseudonym kick some cash to a friend).
for one of the Futurians,
perhaps even Donald A Wolheim The Toadkeeper commented "This
himself. explains why so much Science
Fiction was so bad."
As it happens a number of
people out there seem END_OF_INTELLIGENT_WRITING
convinced he's a real person:
https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/high-philip-e-1914
https://andrewdarlington.blogspot.com/2015/03/books-philip-e-high-man-who-created.html
My main reference on "The Futurians" was the 1977
book by Damon Knight, who was a younger member of
the scene--
Algis Budry's regarded Knight's book as
score-settling: they used to make him
wash the dishes.
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