George Hay

Oswyn Robert Tregonwell Hay (17 October 1922 – 3 October 1997), better known by his working name George Hay, was a British science fiction author, editor, and critic. He is notable as a co-founder of the Science Fiction Foundation. He was a proponent of science fiction being seen as "mankind's distant-early-warning system", as it is the only genre in which, facing the long-term problems of history, can be addressed the question of "What to do next?" The primary role of science fiction, as Hay saw it, was "to educate us for that future". At the age of fourteen, Hay became an avid read of science fiction magazines such as Amazing Stories and Astounding Stories. "I used to sneak out of boarding school to come back with copies of Astounding hidden under my jacket," Hay later recalled.

As an adult, he was working for the Refuse Collection Department of Camden Borough Council when he wrote the first chapter and an outline of a novel, which he sent to Hamilton-Stafford. Editor Gordon Landsborough liked it, and told Hay to finish it. Hay received payment for the story, which he says immediately went all to rent. Throughout the 1950's, Hay would have ever novel he wrote - save one - published. Hay later admitted that he felt like his work, while "no worse than some contemporary writing", lacked originality. Langford was recruited because of his access to "heavyweight computer power at the Ministry of Defense", Although the anthology was meant as "a joke" and "a literary game played with the deadpan earnestness of Sherlockologists", it grew into a cult book, especially in foreign editions.

Starting in the late 1960's, Hay began to push for science fiction to be better promoted in the United Kingdom. Langford, while saying that some attendees "liked the novelty", said that the event was "an organizational disaster." Leadership was organized around a council made up of science fiction writers, publishers, and critics. Its founding patrons were Arthur C. Clarke and Ursula K. Le Guin. A year later it began publication of Foundation: The Review of Science Fiction. Peter Nicholls later took over Foundation, pushing for "academic respectability" rather than Hay's hope, as David Langford put it, of a "pool of practical sf expertise, holding itself ready to be consulted by the Prime Minister in the event of an alien landing."

In 1986, Hay, through the council, convinced Arthur C. Clarke to give his name and financial donations to create the Arthur C. Clarke Award, an annual award given to a work chosen as the best British novel of science fiction from the previous year. It was meant to bring science fiction to the attention of the British public and validate science fiction as a tool of science education.

Involvement with Scientology

In the 1950's, Hay became fascinated with the idea of L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics, and became Secretary of the British Dianetic Association. He invited Hubbard to Britain, where he taught classes on the subject. He later credited himself as a "founder-member" of Scientology.

As Dianetics developed into Scientology, Hay would distance himself from the movement and be critical of its original distortion of Dianetics. In his view, Scientology had strayed from its original intent, and was being changed from others around Hubbard, moving away from his original intentions. The leadership was developing into a "paranoid bureaucracy" which Hay opposed,

At the 1970 SCICON, Hay invited a Scientologist to speak at a panel, with the intent to "stir things up a bit". Tom Morgan, the Scientologist speaker, gave a very basic introduction to Scientology to what was described as a "hostile crowd". When the panel was opened to questions, Perry Chapdelaine stood up and claimed that not only had he been there when Scientology was founded, but that many of Hubbard's beliefs had either been entirely made up, or had been taken from Chapdelaine without credit. Chapdelaine then ended his talk with, "Scientology is a hoax", which earned a big applause. Hay immediately ended the talk, declaring that the next panel had to start.

Death

Hay died in Hastings, East Sussex in 1997.

Legacy

In 2000, the Science Fiction Foundation instituted the George Hay Lecture in his honor. It is a lecture given by "a working scientist, or exponent of science, to an educated audience of fans, on the current work in their field."

Works

Novels This Planet for Sale (1951) Man, Woman and Android (1951)

Serializations: Man, Woman and Android (Complete Novel) (1951) Flight of the "Hesper" (1952) Terra! (1952) [only as by King Lang]

Magazine Editor Series Foundation: The Review of Science Fiction Foundation, #1 March 1972 (1972) with Charles Barren and Kenneth Bulmer Foundation, #2 June 1972 (1972) with Charles Barren and Kenneth Bulmer Foundation, #3 March 1973 (1973) with Charles Barren and Kenneth Bulmer Foundation, #4 July 1973 (1973) with Charles Barren and Kenneth Bulmer Foundation, #5 January 1974 (1974) with Peter Nicholls and Christopher Priest Foundation, #6 May 1974 (1974) with Peter Nicholls and Christopher Priest

Anthology Series Pulsar 1 Pulsar 1 (1978) 2 Pulsar 2 (1979)

Anthologies Hell Hath Fury (1963) The Disappearing Future: A Symposium of Speculation (1970) Stopwatch (1974) The Edward De Bono Science Fiction Collection (1976) The Necronomicon: The Book of Dead Names (1978)

Nonfiction Foundation: The Review of Science Fiction, Numbers 1-8 (1978) The John W. Campbell Letters with Isaac Asimov and A. E. van Vogt, Volume 2 (1993)

Short Fiction Over and Out (1965) Synopsis (1966) The End of the ANTHOLOGY (1972) [only as by Ayre Hogge] Letter from Dr Stanislaus Hinterstoisser (1978) A Serious Call (1979) All That Flies (1980) An Error of Long Standing (1985)

Poems Twenty Years On (1971)

Essays Preface (Hell Hath Fury) (1963) Letter (Riverside Quarterly, August 1967) (1967) Foreword (The Disappearing Future: A Symposium of Speculation) (1970) Letter (Analog, October 1971) (1971) untitled (1972) Introduction: Science Fiction - Science Fact (1973) A Science of Fiction (1973) Letter (The Alien Critic #6) (1973) For the Record: What the Science Fiction Foundation Ought to Be About (1974) Introduction (Stopwatch) (1974) Letter (The Alien Critic #11) (1974) Introduction (The Food of the Gods) (1976) Preface (The Edward De Bono Science Fiction Collection) (1976) Introduction (Men Like Gods) (1976) Recommended Bookshop - The Einstein Intersection (1976) Introduction (The Late Breakfasters) (1977) Letter (Sfear II) (1977) Letter (Nexus 3) (1977) Letter (Science Fiction Review #22) (1977) Bibliography to 'Fragments from the Necronomicon' and 'Commentary' (1978) Editor's Foreword (The Necronomicon: The Book of Dead Names) (1978) Introduction (Pulsar 1) (1978) Letter (Science Fiction Review #24) (1978) Review of The Spaceflight Revolution (William Sims Bainbridge) (1978) Science Fiction: Thinking or Dreaming? (1979) Introduction (Pulsar 2) (1979) Letter (Science Fiction Review #34) (1980) Letter (Locus #232) (1980) Letter (Science Fiction Review #36) (1980) The Man Who Did (1980) Letter (Analog, December 1980) (1980) Letter (Foundation #23) (1981) Letter (Analog, November 1981) (1981) Sleep No More (1982) Letter (Ansible 28) (1982) Shiel versus the Renegade Romantic (1983) Letter (Foundation #28) (1983) John Wood Campbell (1985) with Perry A. Chapdelaine [only as by Perry A. Chapdelaine, Sr. and George Hay] The John Wood Campbell Letters (1985) Keeping Books in Print ... By One Who Knows (1985) Letter (Ansible 44) (1985) O'Brien's Interim Report (1987) Letter (Ansible 50) (1987) Science, Scientism, and ... ? (1987) Letter: Sublimity and L. Ron Hubbard (1988) Mission Earth (1989) Letter (Foundation #55) (1992) Preface (The R'lyeh Text) (1995) Foreword (The Inheritors) (1999)

Reviews Anywhen (1972) by James Blish Fugue for a Darkening Island (1972) by Christopher Priest Lud-in-the-Mist (1972) by Hope Mirrlees Mutant 59 The Plastic Eater (1972) by Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis R Is for Rocket (1972) by Ray Bradbury S Is for Space (1972) by Ray Bradbury The Cream of the Jest (1972) by James Branch Cabell The Lathe of Heaven (1972) by Ursula K. Le Guin The Making of Doctor Who (1972) by Terrance Dicks and Malcolm Hulke The Tombs of Atuan (1972) by Ursula K. Le Guin Lords of the Starship (1973) by Mark S. Geston The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman (1973) by Angela Carter A Choice of Gods (1973) by Clifford D. Simak A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah! (1973) by Harry Harrison Deryni Checkmate (1973) by Katherine Kurtz Deryni Rising (1973) by Katherine Kurtz The Haunter of the Dark (1973) by H. P. Lovecraft The Three Eyes of Evil and Earth's Last Fortress (1974) by A. E. van Vogt The Green Isle of the Great Deep (1977) by Neil M. Gunn Black Destroyer (1982) by A. E. van Vogt Inseminoid (1982) by Larry Miller Memory of Tomorrow (1982) by Marc Fingal Fantastic Lives: Autobiographical Essays by Notable Science Fiction Writers (1984) by Martin H. Greenberg Clockwork Worlds: Mechanized Environments in SF (1984) by Thomas P. Dunn and Richard D. Erlich The Mechanical God: Machines in Science Fiction (1984) by Thomas P. Dunn and Richard D. Erlich Null-A Three (1985) by A. E. van Vogt A Voyage to Arcturus (1988) by David Lindsay Grumbles from the Grave (1990) by Robert A. Heinlein Ladies Whose Bright Eyes (1990) by Ford Madox Ford Retrieved from the Future (1997) by John Seymour

Interviews with This Author George Hay: 1976 (1976) by David Langford