Tanner F. Boyle - The Fortean Influence on Science Fiction: Charles Fort and the Evolution of the Genre: Critical Explorations in Science Fiction and Fantasy, Book 73

The field of science always has a bone to pick with the paranormal and the genre of science fiction is no different. This work began as an English thesis, so I soon found that literary studies, too, has a similar blind spot for the paranormal, unless it is relegated to fiction. This is to say that not much has been written about true paranormal stories from a literary standpoint. Because of this, Charles Fort, who was amongst numerous big names in New Yorks 1920s literary scene, is often unacknowledged. Forts best friend, Theodore Dreiser, has been subject to abundant scholarship. But the hermit of the Bronx, the foe of science, the prophet of the unexplained has very little scholarship written about him. This book hopes to change that.

My true passion in literature is what many consider to be the bottom of the barrel, alternatively called occult or paranormal non-fiction. I scoured my local library for books about UFOs, aliens, and ghosts and read them with vigor. The works shaped how I viewed the world, especially as young as I was, and made the world seem more fantastic, mysterious, and even terrifying. As I grew older, the less I took these works seriously. Many of them were pieces of sensationalist literature aimed at shocking the reader as opposed to giving a factual account of mysterious events. Urban legends were equated with true reports; none of it was believable any longer. Rediscovering Charles Fort after being only briefly acquainted with him in a young adult novel was what reignited my love of the strange. Forts works capture the reasons why the paranormal fascinates some of us and frightens others. He made these often-ridiculed subjects matter again to me; he made me more comfortable with the fact that they did matter to me.

SF too fought a lengthy battle to gain credibility in the literary community, but it has slowly risen in status over the past half-centuryfar from its lowly origins in the pulps. Paranormal non-fiction continues to live in the dregs, a fate that seems wildly unfair given how codependent the genre and SF have been throughout the last century. When I was first fully introduced to SF, I was already fully aware of Fort and his works. After reading several of these SF classics, such as 2001: A Space Odyssey , I could not help but notice that the stories were often Fortean. This realization is how this research truly began. I could find numerous references to Charles Fort by SF authors, editors, and historians, but these were never collated. Many SF community members opined that you could fill a book with all the SF writers that Charles Fort has influenced, but no one had done so. This book is an honest attempt to highlight those numerous authors with Fortean ties; it also hopes to explain just why his influence has been so far-reaching. My research led me to interact with several figures in SF and Forteana I never dreamed I would correspond with. It led me down paths sometimes frustrating, sometimes rewarding, but almost always delightfully strange.

I wish to give special thanks to Prof. Gary Wihl for initiating me into SF studies and advising this work from its fetal stage to its present form. I want to further thank Prof. Guinn Batten for advising how this work should progress and giving endlessly helpful feedback. Lastly, I am forever grateful to Prof. Jeffrey J. Kripal for being the premier source of paranormal/SF research and giving me early advice on how to proceed with this work. His writings have not only inspired facets of this book this book, they have also been immensely important resources for contextualizing the relationship between SF and Fortean topics.

The Heinlein Archives, Tessa B. Dick, Ben Rock, Jennifer Reibenspies, and Kristine Helbling have all been immensely helpful in my research regarding the fictional side of things. Tessa B. Dick was especially helpful to give me information about her late husbands interest in Charles Fort. In terms of Fortean research, I would like to thank the ever-helpful Forteans in the email chain; you all know who you are. First and foremost, there is the INFO member Richard Leshuk, who immediately initiated a search for the INFO letters to SF greats. Then there is the SF great in the flesh, David Drake, who gave immensely helpful background information about the organization and its relationship to SF. Former editor of INFO Michael Shoemaker gave similarly helpful information, contextualizing a group about which facts seem hard to come by. Mr. X, the Consulting Resologist, gave me important contacts in this research and numerous other leads that were a joy to follow. Lastly, amongst the Forteans, there is Patrick Huyghe and Anomalist Books for releasing highly readable and groundbreaking works on Fortean topics and pointing me in the direction of the wonderful people at McFarland.