minority of the membership adhered to Gernsback's philosophy.
Sam Moskowitz dubbed The Planet the first true science fiction fan magazine, based on its July 1930 publication date. Jack Speer, in "Up to Now," assigns the honor to Time Traveller, by Julius Schwartz, Mort Weisinger and Allen Glasser, because of its truly nationwide circulation. Both blended lots of sercon material with a little fan-oriented material. Time Traveller, which upgraded to a printed format with its third issue, ignored scientism altogether.
Scientism faded within fandom's first few years, though increasingly infrequent examples persist. It ceased to be a major thought current for one reason: its adherents were less likely to participate in the paper world than folks with literary interests.
Apathy undermined every attempt to forward the cause of scientism in fandom. Editors of fanzines that emphasized such material complained about lack of contributions and reader participation -- until they tired of the struggle.
Eventually, the tenor of magazine science fiction itself changed. The musty Gernsback approach, so congenial to the garage tinkerers, died out. It was too sedate for newsstand consumers. Even Wonder Stories, Hugo's vehicle after financial machinations cost him Amazing, became Thrilling Wonder when it passed from his control.
Magazines, whether lowly pulps or Astounding of hallowed memory, put entertainment ahead of education. Gone were stories with all the dramatic tension of a World's Fair exhibit. Vivid characters and star-spanning action expanded the audience, while essentially disenfranchising those who thought "Ralph 124C41" was the model of a proper SF story.
Not that science fiction stopped being "the literature of ideas." Communicationist fans still found SF a fertile source of discussion topics. They no longer thought of personally achieving the scientific breakthroughs the stories predicted. Instead, they functioned as critics, debating the consequences and impact of various scientific and social trends.
In short, communicationists took discussions out of the laboratory and into the living room. These were, theoretically, intelligent laymen, not junior scientists., They read, thought and published their analyses, but they didn't fiddle with test tubes and bottle rockets much.
Stirrings of Fannishness
Interest in fans and fandom is as old as fandom itself, but it didn't start to become Trufannishness and Insurgentism until the mid-1930s. | Burbee and Laney didn't articulate Insurgentism as a viewpoint until the mid1940s, and it could be argued that Trufannishness didn't coalesce until Walt Willis and Bob Shaw wrote The Enchanted Duplicator in 1954.
Until Trufannishness and Insurgentism became coherent ideologies ideologies, however, fannishness referred to things of or pertaining to fandom. Most fans liked meeting other fans, and fanzines got good mileage from gossip columns, biographies of fans, fan fiction and reports of gatherings.
Today, this degree of fannishness is still common to virtually all fans, many of whom don't see themselves as disciples of Trufannishness or Insurgentism. Even the most sercon devotee of science fiction enjoys talking about the subject with another fan.
Fannishness began with the numerous reader departments and competitions Gernsback sponsored to merchandise Amazing and later Wonder. Magazine readers knew the top letterhacks and contests winners nearly as well as the authors of the stories. That visibility separated such activists from those who did nothing more than read.
One of Hugo's contests had a much more direct effect on fandom. Allen Glasser's essay on "What I am doing to popularize science fiction" won one of Hugo's contests. Glasser's description of the Scienceers impressed Gernsback so much that he set up what amounted to a small con. Thirty-five fans attended a special meeting of the Scienceers at the Museum of Natural History, starring Wonder editor David Lasser and two other SF writers.
Most early fanzines covered fandom, but no one adopted fannishness as their basic attitude toward the hobby. Fan stuff made good fanzine filler, but the hobby stuck close to science fiction (and discussions of the topics raised in the stories).. Fandom had not yet built up a sufficiently rich context to justify the full-
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