Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are,
uh, we're opening a file that honestly I really
didn't see coming. Oh, it's a surprising one
for sure. Yeah. You know how we usually talk
about the absolute titans of the genre? We look
at the people whose names are printed in giant
gold foil on the front of the paperback. Right,
right. The household names. Stephen King's, the
Asimov's, Lovecraft's, the folks everyone knows.
Naturally. Because that is where the spotlight
usually shines, right? We are all so drawn to
the, um... the great man or great woman theory
of history. Oh, definitely. Where we just assume
these singular geniuses appear out of the ether,
fully formed, and change the world. Exactly.
We see the mountain peaks, but we completely
ignore the tectonic plates that actually push
them up there in the first place. That's a great
analogy. But today, we are looking at the guy
who built the bridge those titans walked across.
We're looking at the geology, so to speak. It
really is a fascinating case study in what I
like to call literary connective tissue. Connective
tissue, yeah. We are looking at the life and
the long, long career of Robert A .W. Lowndes.
Who is often just known to his friends and colleagues
as Doc. Doc Lounds. Yes. And when you say connective
tissue, you really aren't kidding. I was I was
looking through the source material we pulled
for this. And the timeline here is just staggering.
Staggering. That's the word. We are talking about
a single human being who connects the pulp era
of the 1930s directly to the modern era of. horror
superstars. He spans the entire gap. He does.
And it is a wide gap. Huge. If you think about
the style of writing in 1935 versus, say, 1975,
they are almost different languages. Yeah, completely
different pacing, different tropes. But Lowndes
was fluent in both. On one end of his career,
he is a young fan corresponding directly with
H .P. Lovecraft. Which is mind blowing on its
own. We're going to get into the details of those
letters shortly because that alone is a story.
Right. And then on the other end. Decades later,
he is the editor who pulls a manuscript out of
the flesh pile and publishes the very first professional
stories of Stephen King. OK, let's just pause
and unpack that for a second. The exact same
guy who got letters from Lovecraft gave Stephen
King his first break. The very same guy. That
is wild. It is. And that is why this deep dive
is so important for anyone who cares about genre
history. Our mission today is to really explore
the life of a man who wore literally every hat
in the industry. Every single hat. He wasn't
just an observer sitting on the sidelines. He
was a fan, a poet, a novelist, a historian, and
perhaps most importantly, an incredibly influential.
editor it really makes you wonder how many other
dock lounge figures are out there quietly shaping
the culture we consume doesn't it oh absolutely
like we all know the stars but who are the architects
That is the question. And usually the architects
are completely invisible. They operate behind
the scenes. But Lowndes left a paper trail. A
massive paper trail. Yeah. So let's rewind the
tape. Let's go back to the very beginning. Who
was Robert Lowndes before he became doc? What
was the world that created him? Well, he was
born in 1916 and he passed away in 1998. A full
20th century life. Exactly. But to truly understand
him, we really have to look at the company he
kept in those early days. The source material
highlights his role as a principal member of
a group called the Futurians. The Futurians.
That sounds like, I don't know, secret society
from a comic book or maybe a synth pop band from
the 80s. In the world of science fiction history,
they essentially were a secret society. Just
much louder. Louder. Very loud. They were based
in New York City. And you have to understand
the context of fandom in that specific era. This
is the late 30s and early 40s. There wasn't a
clear, rigid line between being a fan and being
a pro, what there is today. Right. Today, if
I read a book, I'm a fan. If I write a book and
sell it, I'm a pro. And there is a giant wall.
of agents and publishers standing between those
two states. Exactly. Back then, it was a much
more fluid ecosystem. It was a permeable membrane.
You usually started out as a fan writing letters
to the magazines. They literally called them
letter hacks. Letter hacks. I love that. Then
you would join clubs like the Futurians. You
published fanzines on clunky mimeograph machines
in someone's basement. And the next thing you
know, the editor of a professional magazine realizes
he needs a story to fill five blank pages before
going to print. He eats filler. Right. So he
asks you if you have anything lying around. You
hand over a draft and suddenly, boom, you're
a professional writer. Sounds incredibly organic.
It was very organic. And the Futurians were essentially
the radical wing of this whole process. Radical
in what way? Well, they included people who would
go on to be massive, massive figures. Isaac Asimov,
Frederick Pohl. Donald Wohlheim. Heavy hitters.
The heaviest. These were young, incredibly smart,
incredibly opinionated people who truly believed
science fiction was the most important thing
in the world. They argued about it constantly.
And Lowndes was right in the center of that energy.
A principal member. And that specific environment
is crucial for understanding him because it taught
him early on that literature is a conversation,
not a monologue. You write, you critique, you
argue, you publish. Exactly. It's a dialogue.
The source mentions his relationship with Donald
A. Volheim specifically. They were fellow Futurians,
right? Yes. And Donald Woolheim is another absolute
titan. He eventually founded Dia Double Books.
The yellow spine paperback. The very ones. Everyone
who reads sci -fi or fantasy knows those yellow
spines. But back then, he and Lowndes were just
a couple of aspiring writers trying to break
into the magazines. And that relationship led
directly to Lowndes' very first fiction credit.
Or, well, uncredited credit, if we want to be
technical about it. Exactly. I love these little
details in the story. material because they show
the unvarnished reality of the business back
then. What actually happened with that story?
So his first story was called The Outpost at
Altark. The Outpost at Altark. Great pulp title.
Classic. It was published in Super Science in
1940. Now, officially, or at least in terms of
how the actual physical work was done, it was
a collaboration between Lowndes and Donald Woolheim.
They wrote it together. Yeah. But his name wasn't
on it. Uncredited. It was likely published under
a house name or perhaps it's Woolheim's name.
And that speaks volumes about how these guys
operated in the trenches. They were just churning
out content. Turning it out. Helping each other,
ghostwriting, collaborating, polishing each other's
drafts. It was a creative factory. It really
wasn't about ego at that point, was it? It was
about survival. Getting into print. It was strictly
about getting the words on the page and getting
the check in the mail to pay rent. But even if
his name wasn't on the cover, that story, the
outpost at Altark, marks a huge transition for
him. The moment he crosses the threshold. Exactly.
From enthusiast to creator. And somewhere in
there. Amidst all the scraping for bylines and
the intense club meetings, he picks up the nickname
Doc. Doc Clowns, yes. It became his permanent
moniker for the rest of his life. Does the source
say where it came from? It doesn't specify the
exact origin story, unfortunately. Like, we don't
know if he performed first aid at a raucous sci
-fi convention or something like that, but whatever
the reason, it's Doc. It really fits the vibe,
though. Calling someone Doc implies a certain
level of authority. Respect. It does. It suggests
a sort of fix -it -kiss ability. In the fast
-paced pulp world, you really needed a doc. You
needed a surgeon for your story. Precisely. You
needed someone who could look at a broken, messy
narrative and instantly diagnose the problem.
They could say, the pacing is completely anemic
right here, or the dialogue is completely fractured
in this scene. And Lowndes became that person.
He became that person for the entire industry.
It definitely fits the image of a guy who knows
where all the bodies are buried, literarily speaking.
But let's go back a little bit further in the
timeline, because before he was publishing uncredited
stories with Woolheim, he was doing something
else. He was communicating directly with the
master himself, H .P. Lovecraft. This is one
of the most significant touchstones in his entire
life. We really have to remember the timeline
here to grasp the impact. Lovecraft died in March
of 1937. OK, I want everyone to keep that exact
date in mind. Yeah. March 1937. Right. And Lowndes
received two letters of encouragement from H
.P. Lovecraft. Wow. So right at the absolute
finish line of Lovecraft's life. And he actually
writes back. He writes back. And not just a brief,
thanks for writing, kid, keep it up. No. No,
these were letters of deep encouragement, real
validation from the master. And then mere weeks
or a couple of months later, that idol passes
away. That has to fundamentally change a person.
It creates a profound sense of obligation, doesn't
it? Like he's thinking he passed the torch to
me. Now I have to carry it. It completely validates
their path in a profound way. And we know this
happened and we know exactly how much it mattered
because those letters were meticulously preserved.
They weren't just tossed in a drawer. Not at
all. They were eventually reprinted much later
in Crypt of Cthulhu, which is a major journal
dedicated entirely to Lovecraft's scholarship.
And Lowndes didn't just frame the letters and
walk away. He really leaned into that influence,
didn't he? He took up the mantle. He became a
true disciple, in a way. He transitioned that
inspiration directly into his own dark fantasy
writing. The source details a few key works that
clearly show this lineage. There were some of
the key ones. First off, there was a story called
The Abyss in 1941. The Abyss. Good, solid, ominous
title. You know what you're getting with that.
A classic weird tale title. And then there was
The Leapers in 1942. Now, The Leapers is super
interesting because it shows us the complicated
game these writers played with pseudonyms. Oh,
the pseudonym game. I swear, I feel like every
single writer from this era. had at least five
different names they published under. Why did
they do that so often? Well, there are multiple
reasons. Sometimes an editor simply wouldn't
want the exact same name on the table of contents
twice in one issue. So if you were prolific and
sold two stories to the same magazine that month,
one of them had to be under a fake name. Makes
sense. It makes the magazine look like it has
a bigger stable of writers. Exactly. Other times
they wanted to sound more exotic or distinguished,
or sometimes they just really wanted to separate
their dark horror work from their lighter sci
-fi work. Brand management, essentially. So what
happened with The Leapers? Which name did he
use? The Leapers first appeared in Future Fantasy
and Science Fiction in December 1942, but it
wasn't attributed to Robert Lowndes. It was credited
to Carol Gray. Carol Gray. That is a bit of a
departure from Doc Lowndes. Isn't it? It creates
this fascinating bibliographic puzzle for historians
later on. They look at the table of contents
and think, who is this Carol Gray person? When
it's just Bob. Exactly, it's just Bob. But the
story of the Leapers didn't even stop there.
Lowndes kept coming back to it over the years.
Was he not happy with it? Or he just felt he
could do it better. He revised The Leapers years
later for the magazine of horror. And then much,
much later, there was a third distinct version
created specifically for that Crypt of Cthulhu
tribute issue. So he was tinkering with this
one single story for decades. He was constantly
refining it. The final version even featured
a new introduction written by him where he meticulously
explained the entire publication history. That
shows a lot of care. It really shows a writer
who cares deeply about the actual work, not just
the quick paycheck. He was refining his personal
contribution to the Lovecraftian tradition. He
wanted to get it absolutely right. And there
was another one mentioned in the notes, right?
Settler's Wall? Yes. Or, as it was known when
he originally wrote it under yet another pseudonym,
Wilfred Owen Morley. The story was called The
Long Wall. Wilfred Owen Morley. That sounds very
distinguished, like a British poet who tragically
died in World War I. It really does sound like
that, doesn't it? Very stately, very serious.
That one ran in Stirring Science Stories in March
1942, and again he revised it twice over his
career. It seems like Lowndes was rarely satisfied
with the first draft. Or perhaps he just constantly
saw new opportunities to improve the stories
as the market and his own skills evolved. That's
thought on. Usually with pulp writers, the stereotype
is write it fast, sell it instantly, forget about
it completely, and move on to the next one. Right,
the penny a word grind. Exactly. But Lowndes
treated these specific stories, especially the
Lovecraftian ones, with a real level of reverence.
They weren't just commercial product for him.
They were art. Speaking of art, he didn't just
write short stories. The source material mentions
he wrote poetry too, which feels a bit rare for
the pulps. This is where the absolute depth of
his fandom really shines through. He wrote a
series of poems called The Annals of Archaea.
The Annals of Archaea sounds very mystic. And
these weren't just random standalone poems. They
were explicitly directly inspired by Lovecraft's
Fungi from Yugoth's Sonnet Cycle. Okay, that
is a seriously deep cut. For listeners who might
not be deep into Lovecraft lore, what exactly
is Fungi from Yugoth? It is this legendary sequence
of sonnets written by Lovecraft. It essentially
tells a very vague, nightmarish, cosmic story
entirely through verse. Which sounds incredibly
difficult. It's incredibly difficult to pull
off well because you are combining the very strict
structural rules of a traditional sonnet, the
precise rhythm, the strict rhyme scheme, the
meter. Right. With the chaotic, sanity -shattering
cosmic horror of the Cthulhu mythos. So you basically
have to make unspeakable nightmares rhyme. Basically,
yes. And for Lowndes to sit down and write a
full 12 sonnet sequence as a tribute to that,
that takes intense dedication. Just writing one
good sonnet is hard enough. Writing 12 of them
all thematically linked to a specific fictional
mythos. That is a true labor of love. Did anyone
actually read them at the time? Or was this just
something he did for his own? personal amusement
oh they were published donald wolheim remember
him from the futurians yeah the diido books guy
he issued them as a standalone booklet through
his own imprint the fantagraph press wolheim
again Those Futurian guys really looked out for
each other, didn't they? They absolutely did.
And later on, those sonnets were reprinted in
Crypt of Cthulhu. It shows that his peers, the
people deep in the genre, truly recognized the
literary quality of his tribute. It wasn't just
amateur fan fiction. Not at all. It was considered
a respectful, worthy addition to the broader
canon. Okay, so we have established that he was
a super fan, a dedicated poet, and a very talented
writer in the Lovecraft vein. But that is not
really what put his name in the history books,
is it? It was the editing. That's where he leaves
his biggest footprint. Correct. The editor's
desk is where Doc Lowndes truly left his massive
mark on the industry. Specifically, we need to
dive into the Columbia Publications era. Columbia
Publications. This is where he really starts
running the show. What was the publishing landscape
like at that point? So we're moving into the
late 40s and the 1950s. We're shifting away from
the large format, ragged edged pulp magazines
to the smaller digest magazine. They're just
format. Think Reader's Digest size. Exactly that
size. Smaller, thicker, easier to carry. Lowndes
was helming some absolute heavy hitters for Columbia.
Future Science Fiction, Science Fiction, and
Science Fiction Quarterly. Science Fiction Quarterly.
I really love how completely literal the titles
were back then. No ambiguity whatsoever. You
get what it says on the tin. Exactly. You knew
exactly what you were paying your 15 cents for.
But dealing with a whole slate of digest magazines,
that is a tremendous grind. Why is it such a
grind compared to the older pulps? Because you
have incredibly strict deadlines, razor -thin
budgets, and an insatiable nonstop need for content.
You have to fill all those pages every single
month or every single quarter without fail. They
don't. If a promised story falls through at the
last minute, you have to write one yourself under
a fake name or find a usable one literally overnight.
And he wasn't just sitting there reading robot
stories and rocket ship adventures all day, was
he? No, and this is what impresses me most about
that classic pulp work ethic. The source specifically
points out his genre versatility. He wasn't just
editing sci -fi titles. What else was he doing?
He was editing crime fiction magazines. He was
editing Westerns. He was editing sports fiction.
Sports fiction. Sports fiction. Yeah. That feels
like a whole different universe from cryptic.
I mean, going from the ancient ones are awakening
from their cosmic slumber to bottom of the ninth
bases loaded. It is completely different. But
that is the exact mark of a true professional
pulp editor. You had to implicitly understand
core story structure, narrative pacing and audience.
expectations regardless of the genre addressing
mechanics of the story Exactly. Whether it is
a cowboy facing a deadly shootout at high noon
or a starship captain facing a supernova, the
underlying editorial skills are completely transferable.
It's all just tension and resolution at the end
of the day. Precisely. And Lanz mastered them
all. He could look at a Western draft and say,
this dialogue feels way too modern for 1880,
and then immediately look at a murder mystery
and say, the clues aren't laid out fairly for
the reader here. And doing all of that simultaneously
across multiple titles. That is an insane juggling
act. It required an immense, almost superhuman
work ethic, but also gave him a highly unique
vantage point in the industry. He saw raw talent
across the entire board. He wasn't siloed into
just one genre, which brings us perfectly to
his role as a talent scout. Right. The source
brings up a name here, Edward D. Hoach. Edward
D. Hooch is an absolute legend in the mystery
field. He is often referred to as the king of
the short story. Why is that? Because he wrote
something staggering like 900 short stories over
his career, and it was Doc Lowndes who discovered
him and gave him his start. That is a pretty
big feather in the cap right there, finding a
guy who writes 900 stories. But what's even more
telling about Lowndes as a person is the loyalty.
The source explicitly states that Hohut continued
to contribute his stories to Lowndes' fiction
magazines for as long as Lowndes was editing
them. Wow. That is actually really rare, isn't
it? Usually a writer gets a big break, builds
a name, and then moves on to the highest bidder.
Like, thanks for the start, Doc, but Playboy
or Esquire pays 10 times as much now. Exactly.
That is the normal trajectory. For a superstar
like Hush to stick with Lowndes for years suggests
that Lowndes was a genuine pleasure to work with.
He must have been an incredible editor. Someone
who respected the writers, gave constructive
feedback, didn't butcher their prose, or just
ran a ship that writers actively wanted to be
a part of. That kind of long -term professional
loyalty does not happen by accident in publishing.
No, it definitely doesn't. So he's grinding away
at Columbia Publications, doing everything from
cowboys to aliens. hit the 1960s in the timeline.
And this, to me, is the most exciting part of
his entire career. The 1960s revival? Yes. This
is the Health Knowledge Inc. era. Health Knowledge
Inc. Honestly, it sounds like they should be
selling mail -order vitamins or medical encyclopedias,
not horror stories. It really does sound very
clinical and sterile. But in 1963, under that
bizarre corporate umbrella, Lowndes initiates
the magazine of horror. 1963. So you're officially
moving out of the golden age of Polk and into
something entirely new. The whole counterculture
is just starting to bubble up in America. And
Lowndes had a very specific, very clever editorial
strategy for this new magazine. He didn't just
want to publish purely new stuff. He intentionally
mixed reprints of classic stories with a brand
new material. Why do that, though? Why not just
feature all new cutting edge stuff? Was it just
a cheap way to save money on author payments?
Well, there were two reasons. First, yes, economics
played a part. Reprints are generally much cheaper
or even completely free if the original author
copyright lapsed and it fell into the public
domain. That obviously helped stretch a tight
magazine budget. Sure, practical business. But
second, and far more importantly for the health
of the genre itself, it was deeply educational.
Educational, what do you mean? Think about the
demographics. In 1963, you had a whole new generation
of eager readers coming of age. Kids born during
or just after the Second World War who completely
missed the golden era of the pulps in the 30s
and 40s. Right, they never saw those original
fragile issues of weird tales. Exactly. By carefully
selecting and reprinting the absolute classics,
Lanz was actively teaching this new audience.
He was saying, here is where we came from. Here
is the foundation. He was essentially building
and curating a canon for them. Exactly. He's
building a syllabus. And then, right next to
those legendary classics, he deliberately places
a brand new story by a young, unknown writer.
Oh, I see. That's powerful. He was contextualizing
the new voices within the long history of...
field, he was subtly telling the reader, this
new kid, he belongs on the exact same shelf as
Edgar Allan Poe and H .P. Lovecraft. Take him
seriously. That is brilliant editorial sequencing.
It's like a perfectly curated playlist. If you
like that classic track from the 30s, check out
this brand new artist we found. Precisely. And
the formula absolutely worked. The magazine of
horror was popular enough and profitable enough
to spawn a whole family of companion magazines
under health knowledge. He built a franchise.
He really did. Startling mystery story. in 1966
famous science fiction also in 1966 weird terror
tales in 1969 bizarre fantasy fiction in 1970
He was building an absolute empire. A very successful
mini -empire, certainly. And on top of all that
fiction, he even edited the non -fantastic titles
for the parent company, like Thrilling Western
Magazine and Worldwide Adventure. The man simply
did not stop editing. He was a machine. A dedicated
machine. Okay, but we absolutely have to talk
about startling mystery stories, because buried
in that stack of obscure digest magazines is
a bomb. A good bomb, but a massive historical
bomb. A true literary nuclear weapon, yes. Startling
mystery stories. Who did he publish that makes
this so important? That magazine is highly notable
for carrying the very first professional stories
of Stephen King. The Stephen King. The Shining.
It. The Stand, Salem's Lot, Stephen King. The
very same. The Undisputed Master of Modern Horror.
The story was called The Glass Floor. Wow. Just
think about that. So long before Cary, long before
he was a household name with movies and miniseries,
Stephen King was just another guy desperately
trying to get a short story published somewhere.
Just a young, struggling man up in Maine, typing
away on a heavy typewriter, collecting a massive
spike full of rejection slips. And Robert Doc
Lowndes was the editor sitting at a desk in New
York who pulled that brown envelope out of the
slush pile, read it, and said, yes, I will buy
this one. That is just, I mean, imagine the alternate
reality where Lowndes is having a bad day and
just stamps no on that envelope. It is a genuinely
chilling thought for any horror fan, isn't it?
Rejection is incredibly discouraging for a young
writer. If King hadn't found that early platform
and that crucial validation in startling mystery
stories, Does he keep going with the same fire?
Does he pivot to something else? Does he find
another outlet? Probably. Raw talent like that
usually breaks through eventually. But Lowndes
provided that vital, crucial first step. He swung
the door open. It totally validates Lowndes'
incredible eye for talent, doesn't it? It proves
it wasn't just a fluke with Edward Hutch back
in the day. He spotted Stephen King when King
was an absolute nobody. And it wasn't just King,
either. There's more. Oh, yes. The source notes
that he also published the first professional
stories of F. Paul Wilson. Another huge, huge
name in the genre. Exactly. F. Paul Wilson, famous
for the massive Repairman Jack series and the
classic novel The Keep. Wow. So in this one specific
magazine run, under this weird health knowledge
banner, Doc Lanz discovers and launches two of
the foundational masters of modern horror and
thriller fiction. That cements his legacy forever.
Right there. You could delete the entire rest
of his career, delete the Lovecraft letters,
delete the poetry, delete all the Westerns and
sports stories. And he is still historically
essential as the guy who found Stephen King and
F. Paul Wilson. Arguably, yes. That alone earns
him a chapter in the history books. He is the
ultimate bridge. He literally took the torch
from Lovecraft's generation and physically handed
it to King's generation. It's a simplified view
of his life, but it's really not inaccurate.
It's the most impactful way to frame his contribution.
But unfortunately, the platform itself, those
magazines, they weren't as durable as the legendary
writers they launched. No, sadly they weren't.
The final collapse of Health Knowledge Inc. in
1971 abruptly ended the run of all these digest
magazines. Ouch. What actually happened? Why
did they fold if they had such great talent?
The entire market shifted beneath their feet.
It was a mix of brutal distribution issues and
rapidly changing consumer tastes. People weren't
buying magazines anymore. The classic digest
magazine format was dying out, being rapidly
replaced by paperback original anthologies and
full -length novels. People wanted to buy a paperback
book, not a flimsy digest. It really marked the
definitive end of an era. Magazine of horror,
startling mystery stories, all of them just gone.
just pack up his desk and retire, did he? He
seems like the kind of guy who would just dust
himself off and find another desk somewhere else.
Oh, no. Lowndes was the ultimate survivor. After
the fiction magazines all folded, he went right
back to work. He got a job with Gernsback Publications,
but crucially, not working on science fiction.
No. What was he doing? He was hired to work on
their non -fiction magazine, Sexology. Sexology.
Did I hear that right? Sexology. You heard that
correctly. Talk about a massive career pivot
going from editing Lovecraftian cosmic horror
and Stephen King thrillers to editing sexology.
It really is quite a leap, but it speaks heavily
to his core professionalism as a working editor.
To him, words are words, deadlines are deadlines,
page layouts are page layouts. They needed to
play the bills. He needed to work, and he possessed
the highly technical skills to manage a publication
from start to finish, completely regardless of
what the actual subject matter was. I guess if
you can successfully edit a convoluted story
about a tentacled monster from a non -Euclidean
dimension, you can figure out how to edit. well,
pretty much anything. You really have to respect
the hustle. He was a dedicated, working, blue
-collar writer and editor right up until the
end. Now, we have talked extensively about his
short stories and his massive editorial runs,
but the source material also lists several novels.
He wasn't strictly a short -form guy his whole
life. No, he produced several longer works as
well, and they are quite varied in tone and audience.
For example, there was Mystery of the Third Mind,
which was a juvenile fiction novel published
back in 1953. Juvenile fiction, so basically
what we would call YA or young adult fiction
today. Essentially, yes. Sci -fi adventure stories
aimed specifically at younger readers. It was
a very big, lucrative market in the 50s. Right,
getting kids into sci -fi early. Think of the
famous Winston science fiction set, that kind
of gateway literature. Then there was a book
called The Duplicated Man. Oh, that's a notable
one. It sounds kind of trippy. What's the story
behind it? Well, it was a major collaboration
with James Blish. It was officially published
as a book in 1959, but the text had actually
appeared in magazine form a few years earlier.
James Blish is another really heavy hitter in
classic sci -fi, right? Very heavy. He wrote
the famous Cities and Flight series, and he is
very well known for writing the original Star
Trek novelizations. So seeing Doc Lowndes team
up with him is significant. It is. It firmly
puts Lowndes in the higher intellectual circle
of the genre at that time. Blish was known for
being a very rigorous, very critical, very smart
guy. He wouldn't suffer fools. Exactly. He wouldn't
collaborate with just any hack off the street.
He clearly respected Lowndes' chops. And what
about Believer's World? That's another novel
mentioned in our notes. That one has a very interesting
history. It was published as a standalone novel
by Avalon Books in 1961. But it was actually
expanded from an older serialized story called
A Matter of Faith that first appeared back in
1952. Oh, rewriting old material again. And get
this, when he originally published the serialized
version, he wrote it under the pseudonym Michael
Sherman. Michael Sherman. Yet another name to
add to the massive list. Carol Gray, Wilfred
Owen Morley. Michael Sherman. He really, really
collected them over the years. He also published
The Puzzle Planet in 1961. So think about the
timeline here. While he was exhaustively editing
all these various magazines, managing the westerns,
the sports pulps, the mystery titles, he was
still somehow finding the time and energy to
write full length novels. The man must have literally
never slept. I genuinely suspect he didn't sleep
much or more likely he just drafted very, very
fast. But we also have to touch on his work as
a historian. Because Laub's wasn't just creating
the history of the genre in real time, he was
actively documenting it later in life. He seemed
to have a deep sense of self -awareness about
the historical movement he was a part of. Right,
that transition from creator to chronicler. The
source material mentions a specific book called
Three Faces of Science Fiction. Published in
1973. Yes. And the subtitle of that book is absolutely
fascinating. It is SF as Instruction, Propaganda,
and Delight. Instruction, propaganda, and delight.
That is a pretty sophisticated academic framework
to view pulp fiction through. It really is. It's
not just basic fan gushing about cool spaceships.
The book collects his various literary columns
that he originally wrote for famous science fiction.
It shows that he was thinking very critically,
very analytically about what the genre actually
does to the reader. Let's break that framework
down a bit. Instruction, propaganda, delight.
What did he mean by that? Well, instruction clearly
covers the classic Gernsbackian idea that science
fiction should actively teach the reader real
science. Like explaining orbital mechanics in
the middle of a space battle. Exactly. Then you
have propaganda, which might refer to stories
that deliberately push a specific social or political
viewpoint. Like cautionary tales warning us about
nuclear war or overpopulation. Right, the heavy
thematic stuff. And finally, delight is simply
the pure entertainment value, the core sense
of wonder and escapism. Lowndes astutely argued
that the best of the genre was always a complex
mix of all three of those elements. That is a
really nuanced, modern take for a guy writing
in 1973. It shows how sharp his analytical mind
was. And then there is his other major historical
work, The Gernsback Days. Now that sounds like
a definitive, weighty history book. It is a major,
major piece of scholarship, co -authored with
the renowned anthology Mike Ashley. The full
title is The Gernsback Days, a study of the evolution
of modern science fiction from 1911 to 1936.
1911 to 1936. That is the absolute primordial
soup of sci -fi. Exactly. The era before the
Golden Age. And who better to possibly write
it? Lounds literally lived through the tail end
of that specific era and personally knew many
of the key people involved. Right. And for listeners
who don't know, Hugo Gernsback is basically the
father of the modern genre magazine. He launched
amazing stories. Yes, the Hugo Awards are named
after him. For Lowndes to co -author that definitive
history puts him in the highly unique position
of being a primary source historian. It's basically
like having a decorated general write the definitive
history of the war he actually fought in. That
is a perfect analogy. He had the ground truth.
He wasn't just sitting in a dusty university
library reading old crumbling magazines. He vividly
remembered buying those exact issues fresh at
the corner newsstand. He lived it. He remembered
arguing passionately with Donald Woolheim about
those stories in a cramped New York apartment.
He brought personal context to the history. So
if we look back at the big picture. We have covered
the eager fan, the dedicated poet, the prolific
writer, the tireless editor, the brilliant talent
scout, and finally the rigorous historian. It
is an awful lot for one single life. It is an
incredible unmatched resume in the field. And
importantly, it was ultimately recognized by
his peers while he was still alive. In 1991,
he received the First Fandom Hall of Fame Award.
Which honestly feels very, very deserved after
hearing all this. Absolutely deserved. First
Fandom is a specific organization that specifically
honors the people who were there at the very
start of the community and worked to keep the
flame alive. Linz fits that exact description
perfectly. He was there when the foundational
concrete was poured, and he was still there working
when the massive skyscraper was fully built.
Beautifully put. So, as we start to wrap this
deep dive up, what does this all mean for us
today? We started off the show by calling him
the Literary Bridge. And I think that title absolutely
holds up to scrutiny. Just look at the physical
span of time. He starts his journey in the late
1930s, completely saturated in the direct influence
of H .P. Lovecraft. The era of the old weird
tale, cosmic horror. Right. And he takes that
specific torch and carries it safely through
the massive pulp explosion of the 40s and 50s.
He keeps the Digest magazines alive through sheer
willpower, finding and nurturing new prolific
writers like Edward Hawk along the way. Then,
in the 60s and 70s, he successfully hands that
same torch off to Stephen King and F. Paul Wilson.
He is the relay runner who ran the longest, hardest
leg of the entire race. Exactly. Without him,
without his specific eye for talent and his tireless
work ethic, the baton very well might have been
dropped. Or at the very least, it would have
been picked up by someone else entirely. And
the final destination of the genre might have
been drastically different. The tone of modern
horror might look nothing like it does today.
It really makes you stop and think about the
hidden ecosystem of creativity. As readers, we
focus so intensely on the author with a capital
A. We do. We mythologize them. We worship Lovecraft.
We obsess over King. But we so rarely spend time
talking about the editor, the person sitting
behind a desk making the calls. That is the crucial
lingering question here. The vital role of the
gatekeeper in art. We so often think of the word
gatekeeper as a purely negative term today. Right.
We picture people who snobbishly keep others
out. Yeah. The person aggressively saying. No,
you don't belong here. Exactly. But Doc Lance
was a gatekeeper who explicitly existed to open
the gate. He actively facilitated the difficult
transition from one older generation of masters
to the next new generation. He essentially said,
come in, look closely at what we've done before
you, and now show us what you can do next. Without
a Doc Lance sitting at that desk, does the torch
actually get passed? Maybe. I mean, you said
talent finds a way. It usually does. but it almost
certainly might not have burned nearly as brightly,
and the direct connective tissue between the
generations might have been permanently severed.
We might have had a clean, jarring break between
the old pulps and the modern bestsellers, rather
than a continuous evolving lineage. And that
is a really profound thought worth mulling over.
Next time you pick up a thick Stephen King paperback
at the bookstore, or even watch a modern horror
movie heavily inspired by those tropes, maybe
just give a little mental nod to Doc Lowndes.
The invisible architect. The man who said yes
when it mattered the most. Indeed. Thanks for
joining us on this deep dive. It has been an
absolute journey through time. Thank you. It
was a pleasure to talk about him. See you all
next time. Keep reading and keep looking for
the people behind the pages.