The Magic that Works: John W. Campbell and the American Response to Technology

Aldiss, Brian W. Rev. The Magic that Works: John W. Campbell and the American Response to Technology (1993) by Albert I. Berger. SFRA Review #207 (Sept./Oct. 1993): 27-29. Berger, Albert. "The Magic that Works: John W. Campbell, Jr. and the American Response to Technology." Journal of Popular Culture 5 (Spring 1972): 867-943. [Adapted from M.A. thesis 1972]

Berger, Albert. The Magic that Works: John W. Campbell and the American Response to Technology. San Bernardino, CA: Borgo Press, 1993. [Expansion and revision of JPC article and M.A. thesis] (David Samuelson, "On Hard Science Fiction: A Bibliography," SFS #60 = 20.2 [July 1993]: 151.)

Argues that Berger's book is less about Campbell (or even Astounding) than about "the ideas and ideology which Campbell espoused, as measured against society's changing attitudes." Berger sees Campbell's great accomplishment in the reconciliation of contradictory responses to technology: love or hate "ebullience and fear"—responses within the S.F. writing community, the USA, and the West at large. Notes switch in Campbell's interests to parapsychology and the psi-power themes that led to the birth, in Astounding of L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics. See rev. of TMTW by Gary Westfahl. (RFS, 27/04/95) }

Slightly revised, RDE 21May19