AUTHOR,
AUTHOR

GEORGE O. SMITH

A comparative new-comer to the ranks of the top favorite science-fiction authors, George O. Smith has made his niche secure with a succession of superlative stories. It was in the October 1942 issue of ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION that his first story, "QRM -- Interplanetary", appeared. This was followed by other stories in the "Venus Equilateral" series and a host of other takes, both under his own name and under the pen-name, "Wesley Long".

The wide range of versatility displayed in his stories can be traced directly to the man himself. The sound science and technical backgrounds in his stories spring naturally out of his work as radio engineer. The likeable and natural characters that move thru George O.'s tales come from his liking for and interest in people and the hilarity of his humorous pieces stems from his light-hearted approach to life.

Ever since moving to Philadelphia in 1946, Smith has been active in fan circles, both in the Philadelphia SFS and at numerous fan gatherings. He has been prominently present at the last three World Conventions, contributing much to the programs and general hilarity of the occasions. In the course of this association with fandom, a number of legends have arisen about him (possibly carefully nurtured by George O. Smith), so we are glad to have this opportunity to peer into the flames behind the smoke screen.

This is going to be difficult. I am asked to deliver a couple of thousand well-chosen words about myself, and it obtains that I really haven't lived that long yet. Furthermore, this magazine is expected to go thru the United States Mails and that automatically eliminates about half of it right there. Ergo I shall forgive anybody who decides to go out for a short beer between the end of this paragraph and the beginning of the next article.

For you who have remained, remember that I gave you fair warning.

The first event of my life was getting born. This occurred at an age when I was too young to remember any part of it and so all I know is hearsay evidence. The event took place on 9 April 1911, in the town of Oak Park, Illinois. The proud parents christened me Wesley Edward Long, which accounts for the pen-name. After contemplating what I might become when I grew up, they departed and I was adopted and rechristened George O. Smith, which accounts for the name I am most likely to answer to.

The early years of my life were run according to New England Presbyterian ideas held by Mother Smith and echoed by Father Smith. These early years are eminently uninteresting, consisting of mundane schooling, the smoking of catalpa pods behind the barn and the too frequent blowing of the house fuses caused by misinterpretation of a book on electricity that a favored uncle gave me on my eighth birthday. I left home at nine because my parents tried to cut me from three packs of cigarettes to two per day and worked my way thru eighth grade by delivering bathtub gin in milkbottles to the neighbors.

I was not an honor student.

Rumors to the effect that I graduated from grammar school because they razed Chicago's last public school in 1925 are entirely untrue. The razing of schools took place in 1929, when it became evident that four years of high school was not and never would be sufficient to teach George O. Smith how to conjugate a verb or to separate the various parts of speech. During my internship at high school, I discovered the nitration of glycerine, the production of ammonia nitrate smoke and the generation of hydrogen sulfide. There was quite a stink about the latter in certain literary circles. The vial of stuff was later located behind Gibbon's "Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire" in the school library.

Upon my being told that any further education would take place at my own expense and my own risk, I attempted to work my way thru the University of Chicago, financing this venture by painting signs and lobby show-posters for a string of Chicago theatres. It became evident that this was doomed to failure in 1931, since a man can live on an empty mind so long as he has a full stomach, but the reverse is not true. Further rumors that I was expelled for distilling alcohol in the chem laboratory are as erroneous as the canard that I was expelled for trying to scale the wall into the girl's dormitory. I was never apprehended in either endeavor.

After being expel -- I mean after b/e/i/n/g/ leaving college, I reduced the Rock Island Railroad to bankruptcy by acting as a pencil pusher in the accounting department, ruined several internal combustion engines working as an automobile mechanic, over- and double- and under- exposed many square miles of film as a photographer, dulled several cross-cut saws on rusty nails as a carpenter's assistant, fractured a few thousand nerves as a truck driver, blew out several thousand tubes as a radio repairman, and finally discovered that certain manufacturers do pay money for people who design radio equipment.

In the above period I discovered sex and liquor, and to maintain a comfortable standard of living (which includes both), I ran home, polished the slide rule that I'd bought in a hock shop thinking it was a burglar's jimmy, and applied for a job as a radio engineer. Times were rigorous then, and the chief engineer decided that they needed a guy around the place to send on errands for line stretchers, directional couplers and whistle suppressors.

By becoming a radio engineer, I was supplied with the necessities of life (see top of paragraph above) and also imbued with an all-consuming curiosity and a willingness to try almost anything at least once. For instance, I tried to play the guitar. I am not surprised that the Philharmonic has succeeded in getting along without my services. I've dabbled in oil painting. This is a messy occupation. But I cannot see why my messes go unnoticed whilst the same sort of mess gets hung in the museum when Picasso does it. I've also tried marriage. This venture lasted ten years. Then having inherited a typewriter, I essayed writing.

You can blame the Other Smith for this. It was reading the Skylark that fired my ambitions along this line. Frankly, I spent some time spilling lots of words on wasted paper before I wrote something that I enjoyed myself.

I wrote and sold "QRM -- Interplanetary".

About the time that my first erudite literary effort began to remold the reading habits of the Great American Public, a sordid campaign was set by my jealous rivals, who went so far as to start a war in their meager efforts to have George O. Smith barred from print. To hamper my genius, many vile diversions were tried. The FBI wanted my fingerprints, the Navy wanted me to join the Army, the Draft Board kept insisting upon their sovereign right to mail me all sorts of ridiculous postcards and the Government sent me reams and reams of questionaires, which so well occupied my time that I succeeded in fighting this late war with a fountain pen, and V-Day came without my ever having heard a shot fired in anger. Meanwhile, the OSS heard rumors to the effect that the enemy were spending millions of rasbuckniks and millions of man hours attempting to make a Military Secret out of "Venus Equilateral" and they urged me to continue confusing the enemy. All too few people know that mingled in these tales of science and fact were written the secrets of radar, the proximity fuse and loran. These items, of course, were edited from the stories and used by the government, which denies my inventive genius to this day. They even refused to honor my application for the position of 4F, claiming that when the enemy saw what they had to contend with upon invasion, they would give up.

Broken in spirit, caring nothing for life, wanting to end it all, I migrated at long last to Philadelphia. In thisI was urged by an old friend who saw in my determination to come unglued a chance to offer, for science, a broken semblance of a human being who would gladly test high voltage supplies for lethal effects, taste cadmium plating to ascertain whether the cyanide had been washed off, and between time double in brass between laboratory jester and janitor.

At this point I must explain about my Great Discovery. Men of ambition, Captains of Industry, Bankers and others who work hard, eschewing the temptations and pitfalls of life, are all unhappy, maladjusted and fraught with ulcers. Upon them rest he cares of life. Upon them rests the responsibility for the future of mankind -- which thankless brutes will probably get along fine whether we fret about them or not -- whereas you must seek out the loafers, the profligate and the hell-raisers ere you locate the men of cheerful mien, satisfied and well-rounded in experience.

So now, armed with a bottle-opener and a copy of the "Compleat Werewolf", I refuse to permit my work to interfere with my pleasure. I retain my association with Philco because it permits me to meet interesting characters and keeps me supplied in typer-paper, typer-ribbons and envelopes, and I continue to write because it helps me to afford my job. I happen to enjoy both.

I am, however, horrified at the number of evil rumors that seem to be circulating about me. I trust that I can clear these away.

For instance, it is circulated widely that "Special Delivery" was written during a lost week end in the Campbell home. This is untrue. John Campbell is not the kind of man who indulges in lost weekends. It is also circulated that George O. does not rewrite. This is a base canard. The two rather egregious errors that turned up in the original copy of "Nomad" were a definite result of having rewritten wisely but not too well.

I am also accused of drinking. This is a long, involved tale, entirely untrue in fact but with the meager evidence enough to convince many others who had already decided in the affirmative. The basis for this erroneous legend stems way back in 1944, when I was parked in L. Jerome Stanton's bailiwick in New York. I had been working like mad on a novelette called "Trouble" which had for the main character a schizophrenic engineer who was in his alter ego a physicist.

Now it is dusty in New York. And after many hours of hard typing, my throat became dry and I sought the ice box to get a glass of milk. I was surprised to find a small bottle of beer there and no milk, because of course, Jay Stanton does not drink either. But not wanting to run down five flights of stairs for my customary milk, I opened the small bottle of beer and poured one small glass. This cut the dust in my throat and I went on working. Hours later, Jay and friends came home, saw me writing, saw the half-empty glass of beer on the table beside me and forthwith made up their minds that I was a drinking man. Now when I appear at a gathering, I am forever having a glass of something thrust into my hand because they wish to please. And, I ask you, is it in my realm to be a bad guest to people whose only desire is to please?

At present I have a few projects near and dear to my heart. One, to be called "The Fourth'r" is a bit of character study about a child's life, beginning at the age of four or five. This is quite a normal kid in every way but one. No mutant he. Just a kid who happened to be the first one to be raised by parents who were smart enough to build the Mechanical Educator. This gadget, employed for years, has never been exploited in a yarn to its fullest and I hope to do it. You see, the trouble is that knowledge might inform you how to play Chopin or build a house or speak French. Knowing how is but one part of learning. A man may know that the process of driving a nail consists of beating it on the head until it is gone in, but have you ever seen an untrained man doing the job with the celerity and dispatch of an experienced carpenter? The fingers must be trained to follow brain patterns born of practice before they will make a piano sound off with music; knowing how "filet mignon avec pommes de terre" should sound is not having the tongue trained to speak it. Then, even if he knows as much law as Blackstone, what adult would give a child of six the right to vote, to own property, to live in self-reliance? And, friends, the finest education in the world might teach a kid all he needs to know, but until his glands grew up, he would not understand, nor even believe, what he had been taught about Dr. Kinsey, Freud or Ernest Hemmingway.

My second project is to get Guy Maynard out of the unhappy hole I left him in at the end of "Nomad". I'll say little about the plot of this since it is a long way in the offing and at present time is being talked about as a book for the Prime Press (an original), tentatively scheduled for late in 1950, or maybe '51.

Now to fill the remaining space, I'll give you MY answers to the same questions asked other writers. Since each writer seems to have a different answer, you can add mine to theirs' and someday you'll have every possible answer which you can promptly discard since they add up to nothing definite. In mathematics, this is what is known as an application of Maxwell's Law of Random Distribution, which says in so many words that the average velocity of a tub full of fast-moving gas molecules adds up to zero because there are as many going West as there are going East, et cetera.

Frankly, I pay little attention to the names of my characters, contriving them to sound like ordinary names. I'm twitted occasionally that a name doesn't fit a character. I can only answer that the toughest guy I've ever met was named Harold, John L. Lewis' middle name is Llewellen and I once dated a gal yclept Juanita Schultz. When strapped for a name I pick a first name from a telephone book and a last name from the same, so long as neither fits the opposite. (Follow, or is it double-talk again?) Maybe that should be the singular; anyway, there are only about thirteen original plots and pulp fiction wouldn't print more'n half of them. State it this way:

Start with a character. Then because of this character's character, the character gets into trouble. In wriggling out of this jam, the character's character gets the character into more trouble until it's either the river or cyanide; because of the same set of characteristics the character always had, the character gets himself out of trouble. It's as simple as that. And where do I get my characters? Golly, the woods is full of them, and if you haven't any woods, try the Seventh Avenue Subway, Boston Common, the Lake Street El or the corner store in Lower Inertia, Kansas.

How do I write? That's another tough one to answer. Sometimes the lines come easy, sometimes I sweat out every paragraph. But whether I steam them out of the typer or whether the darn characters take the story in their teeth and make the story come out on paper, the outcome is both ways. I've had toughies lauded and I've had easy jobs roasted to a fare-thee-well. I've sweated over every word and had the thing panned; and I've run off ten thousand words on a single Sunday, put it in the evening mail and had it called fine business. There's no accounting for it.

Ideas? Again the world is full of them. Most of them stem from the self-imposed question of: what happens if such and such were done, or were true, or if this or that weren't really possible? The story "Alien" started when I was sitting on a Boston street car next to a bird as bald as a cannon ball, who was reading a pamphlet from the Department of Agriculture on the "rotation of crops". What his dome needed was a rotation of crops. So we plant feathers for a time. So then what happens when a large gent steps into a bar, takes off his hat and displays a fine head of feathers? Five thousand words!

Finally, I am glad of this chance to ramble on about myself. Normally, I'd rather not, because it is difficult to talk about one-self without bragging and I do not like braggarts, including myself. But it seems that if I tell the world how smart I am, I am bragging, and if I tell the world how dumb I am, I am just making a statement that I do not believe, and a statement that you will not believe, and that you know that I know you do not believe, and that I know that you know that I know that you know -- seems to me there was a song by that title once.

So far I have only one solemn hope: I hope to die of a ripe old age, leaving the uncompleted manuscript of my ten-thousandth story.

Now, the vital statistics:

AGE: 38
WEIGHT: 140
HEIGHT: 5' 10"
EYES: Blue
HAIR: Unruly and thick.
HIDE: Fair
STATUS: Divorced.
ATTITUDE: Let's keep it that way.
HEALTH: Excellent.
WIND: Sound.
TRACK: Fast.
WEATHER: Clear.
LIKES AND LOVES: Women, limericks, scotch, Erle Stanley Gardiner, women, filet mignon, archery, rye, women, roller skating, Sibelius, women, shaggy-dog stories, rum, ham and eggs, dogs, women, Chesterfields, bum poetry, baked ham, women, beer, swimming, Spike Jones, Roquefort cheese, Beautyrest mattresses, bourbon, women, brandy, women and corn likker.
DISLIKES AND HATREDS: Milk, intolerance, pedants, communists, reformers and do-gooders, precocious brats, Ted Sturgeon's puns, people who douse steak with Ketchup or louse scotch with seven-up, street-cars, Detroit, television, singing commercials, tight shoes, boiled shirts, stuffed owls, modernistic art -- and radio engineers who tell me how to write or writers who tell me how to engineer a radio.

-- George O. Smith

STORIES by GEORGE O. SMITH

Title............................................M. Words....................................Magazine................................................Date

Alien.........................................................5...........................Astounding S-F........................................Oct. 1946
Answer, The.............................................5...........................Astounding S-F.........................................Feb. 1947
Beam Pirate.....*7...................................12...........................Astounding S-F.........................................Oct. 1944
Beam Pirate.....*7................................................................ Astounding BRITISH................................Feb. 1945
Blind Time.............................................10...........................Astounding S-F.........................................Sep. 1946
Calling the Empress......*2.....................10...........................Astounding S-F.........................................June 1943
Calling the Empress............................................................. Astounding BRITISH...............................June 1943
Catspaw, The..........................................25..........................Astounding S-F.........................................Sep. 1948
Catspaw, The........................................................................Astounding BRITISH...............................Feb. 1949
Cosmic Jackpot, The................................7...........................Thrilling Wonder.....................................Oct. 1948
Dead Pigeon (Detective).......................................................Hollywood Detective...............................
Dog's Life, A............................................5...........................Thrilling Wonder.....................................Apr. 1948
Elusive Microvolt, The (Article)..............3..........................Astounding S-F........................................Sep. 1945
Fine Feathers..........................................10...........................Astounding S-F........................................Jan. 1946
Fire In the Heavens................................50............................Startling Stories......................................July 1949
Firing Line.................*8........................12.............................Astounding S-F......................................Dec. 1944
Firing Line.............................................................................Unknown BRITISH...............................Win. 1945
Identity......................*12.......................12............................Astounding S-F......................................Nov. 1945
Impossible Pirate, The.............................5............................Astounding S-F......................................Dec. 1946
Incredible Invasion, The..........................5............................Astounding S-F......................................Mar. 1948
In The Cards..........................................10............................Thrilling Wonder....................................Aug. 1947
Journey....................................................5............................ Startling Stories.....................................May 1948
Kingdom of the Blind, The....................50........................... Startling Stories......................................July 1947
Long Way, The......*6............................12.............................Astounding S-F......................................Apr. 1944
Lost Art...............*4...............................10.............................Astounding S-F......................................Dec. 1943
Mad Holiday...........*11..........................................................VENUS EQUILATERAL Prime Press.............'48
Meddler's Moon.....................................12.............................Astounding S-F......................................Sep. 1947
Meddler's Moon......................................................................Astounding BRITISH...........................Aug. 1948
Minus Danger........................................10.............................Super Science Stories............................Sep. 1949
Mobius Trail, The..................................12.............................Thrilling Wonder..................................Dec. 1948
NOMAD....(Novel).................................................................Prime Press, Philadelphia..............................1948
Obey That Impulse....(article).................................................Astounding S-F......................................July 1947
Off The Beam.......*5............................15..............................Astounding S-F......................................Feb. 1944
Off The Beam.........................................................................Astounding BRITISH............................June 1944
One Man'sMuskie....(sports)...................................................Toronto Star Weekly.............................
Pandora's Millions.....*10......................12.............................Astounding S-F......................................June 1945
Pandora's Millions..................................................................Astounding BRITISH............................Sept. 1945
Pattern For Conquest...(3 parts)............80.............................Astounding S-F......................................Mar. 1946
PATTERN FOR CONQUEST (Novel).................................Gnome Press, New York.................................1949
Problem in Solid...................................12.............................Astounding S-F.......................................Oct. 1947
Problem in Solid....................................................................Astounding BRITISH.............................Oct. 1948
Puck Fever.......(sports)..........................................................All Sports Magazine...............................
QRM--Interplanetary.....*1...................12.............................Astounding S-F.......................................Oct. 1942
QRM--Interplanetary.............................................................Astounding BRITISH..............................Jan. 1943
Quarantine.............................................10............................Thrilling Wonder....................................Dec. 1947
Quest to Centaurus..................................7............................Thrilling Wonder....................................Apr. 1947
Rat Race..................................................5............................Astounding S-F.......................................Aug. 1947
Recoil.............*3...................................12............................Astounding S-F.......................................Nov. 1943
Recoil....................................................................................Astounding BRITISH..............................Apr. 1944
Special Delivery....*9............................12............................Astounding S-F.......................................Mar. 1945
Trans-Galactic Twins, The....................30............................Thrilling Wonder....................................June 1948
Trouble..................................................10.............................Astounding S-F.......................................July 1946
Trouble...................................................................................Astounding BRITISH............................June 1947
Trouble Times Two...............................10.............................Astounding S-F......................................Dec. 1945
Trouble Times Two................................................................Astounding BRITISH............................May 1946
Unapproachable.....(article).....................3.............................Astounding S-F......................................Apr. 1946
Undamned, The.....................................20.............................Astounding S-F.......................................Jan. 1947
Undamned, The......................................................................Astounding BRITISH.............................June 1948
Vanishing Yankee, The...(article)...........3.............................Astounding S-F.......................................Mar. 1944
VENUS EQUILATERAL....(Book of Shorts)........................Prime Press, Philadelphia...............................1948
Vocation................................................10..............................Astounding S-F......................................Apr. 1945
Vocation..................................................................................Astounding BRITISH.............................Jan. 1946

STORIES under the name of WESLEY LONG

Circle of Confusion...............................10.............................Astounding S-F.......................................Mar. 1944
Climate--Incorporated...........................10.............................Thrilling Wonder....................................Aug. 1948
Fixer, The...............................................12.............................Astounding S-F.......................................May 1945
Fixer, The................................................................................Astounding BRITISH.............................Mar. 1946
Latent Image...........................................12.............................Astounding S-F.......................................May 1944
Latent Image............................................................................Astounding BRITISH.............................Aug. 1944
Nomad....(3 parts)...................................80.............................Astounding S-F.......................................Dec. 1944
One of Three...........................................50.............................Startling Stories......................................Mar. 1948
Redevelopment.......................................15.............................Astounding S-F.......................................Nov. 1944

Index Data from Donald B. Day, S. G. Norman Ashfield & George O. Smith

*VENUS EQUILATERAL 1-QRM-Interplanetary 2-Calling the Empress 3-Recoil 4-Lost Art 5-Off the Beam 6-The Long Way 7-Beam Pirate 8-Firing Line 9-Special Delivery 10-Pandora's Millions 11-Mad Holiday 12-Identity.

Data entry by Judy Bemis

Updated May 16, 2001. If you have a comment about these web pages please send a note to the Fanac Webmaster. Thank you.