Alec Nevala-Lee Quote

It was a small world—by one estimate, there were fewer than fifty active fans—that magnified certain personality traits. The most devoted members were usually young, obsessive, and confrontational. Disputes between clubs were driven by personal grudges, and a lone player like Wollheim could exert a disproportionate influence. The dynamics were much like those of modern online communities, except considerably slower, and a pattern was established in which a club would be founded, persist for a while, and then implode, either because of internal tensions or because Wollheim came in and dissolved it.

Alec Nevala-Lee

It was a small world—by one estimate, there were fewer than fifty active fans—that magnified certain personality traits. The most devoted members were usually young, obsessive, and confrontational. Disputes between clubs were driven by personal grudges, and a lone player like Wollheim could exert a disproportionate influence. The dynamics were much like those of modern online communities, except considerably slower, and a pattern was established in which a club would be founded, persist for a while, and then implode, either because of internal tensions or because Wollheim came in and dissolved it.

Related Quotes

About Alec Nevala-Lee

Alec Nevala-Lee (born May 31, 1980) is an American biographer, novelist, critic, and science fiction writer. He was a Hugo and Locus Award finalist for the group biography Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction. His book Inventor of the Future, a biography of the architectural designer and futurist Buckminster Fuller, was selected by Esquire as one of the fifty best biographies of all time. Collisions, his biography of the physicist Luis W. Alvarez, was released on June 10, 2025. His next book will be Whiz Kids, a history of the RAND analysts recruited by Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara during the Kennedy administration. He also edits puzzles for the magazine Analog Science Fiction and Fact.