Jack Williamson

By: Joshua Glenn
April 29, 2012

Science-fiction’s so-called Golden Age (1934-63) was spearheaded by writers who remain well-known (e.g., Heinlein, Asimov, Van Vogt), writers who’ve fallen into obscurity (Fredric Brown, C.L. Moore, Eando Binder), and by betwixt-and-between figures like JACK WILLIAMSON (1908-2006), who was important enough to be named the Dean of Science Fiction — but only after Heinlein died. Williamson, whose first story (“The Metal Man”) appeared in a 1928 issue of Amazing Stories, helped introduce to the Golden Age canon certain memes first developed during sf’s Radium Age (1904-33). These include everything from terraforming (1942’s “Collision Orbit”) to antimatter (1949’s Seetee Shock), to genetic engineering (1951’s Dragon’s Island). Williamson also introduced readers, via Darker Than You Think (1940), to the persuasive notion that werewolves invented rational skepticism in order to make humankind stop believing in werewolves; if this meme never caught on, blame the werewolves’ ongoing cultural hegemony. Williamson’s most important contribution may be to science fiction’s space opera subgenre: His Legion of Space series, which stars warriors Jay Kala and Hal Samdu, the Purple Hall Empire renegade John Ulnar, and super-lockpicker Giles “The Ghost” Habibula, is a key link in the chain connecting the space opera of, for example, E.E. “Doc” Smith to that of, say, Iain M. Banks.

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On his or her birthday, HiLobrow irregularly pays tribute to one of our high-, low-, no-, or hilobrow heroes. Also born this date: Maya Deren.

READ MORE about members of the Partisan Generation (1904-13).

Jack Williamson

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