Tuckerization
Encyclopedia
Tuckerization is the act of using a person's name in an original story as an in-joke
. The term is derived from Wilson Tucker
, a pioneering American
science fiction
writer and fanzine
editor, who made a practice of using his friends' names for minor characters in his stories. For example, Harry Harrison
's To the Stars character: "Old Lundwall, who commands the Sverige, should have retired a decade ago, but he is still the best there is." Sam J Lundwall is a well-known Swedish
science fiction publisher and writer, as well as the godfather of Harrison's daughter. A tuckerization can also be the use of a person's character or personal attributes with a new name as an in-joke, such as Ian Arnstein in S.M. Stirling's Island in the Sea of Time
trilogy, clearly modeled on his good friend Harry Turtledove
, albeit an alternate history Turtledove.
Many science fiction authors auction off tuckerizations at science fiction conventions with the proceeds going to charity.
In most cases, tuckerization is used for bit parts, an opportunity for the author to create an homage
to a friend or respected colleague. But sometimes an author will attach a friend's name, description, or identifiable characteristics to a major character, and in some novels nearly all the characters represent friends, colleagues, or prominent persons the author knows. When this happens, tuckerization can rise to the level of a Roman à clef
. Larry Niven
and Jerry Pournelle
have done this at least twice:
A similar effect is seen in Niven's collaboration with David Gerrold
, The Flying Sorcerers
; all the gods are well known science fiction or media personalities (Ouells = H. G. Wells
, Rotn'bair = Star Trek
creator Gene Roddenberry
), etc.
One of the earliest tuckerizations was between Robert Bloch
and his mentor H. P. Lovecraft
: Bloch's story "The Shambler From The Stars" (1935) featured a Lovecraft-inspired character, who was gruesomely killed off. Lovecraft replied in kind with "The Haunter of the Dark
" (1936), whose characters included one Robert Harrison Blake
(who had the same address as Bloch), whom Lovecraft killed off in an equally horrible fashion. After Lovecraft's death, Bloch wrote a third segment, "The Shadow From the Steeple" (1950), in which the events of the first two stories are further explored. In the early 1930s, before Jerry Siegel
and Joe Shuster
created the comic-book superhero Superman
, they wrote and illustrated a fanzine
story, "The Reign of the Superman," featuring a super-powered villain. This story includes one of the very first tuckerizations: a character named after Forrest J Ackerman
. More recent examples include the many science fiction and military novelists whose names are borrowed in the Axis of Time
by John Birmingham
, and the Lachlan Fox thriller series by James Clancy Phelan
.
Tuckerization should not be confused with the inclusion of living or deceased real persons in fiction, either as major or minor characters (Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
in Warday
, Forrest J Ackerman
in various novels, etc.).
In-joke
An in-joke, also known as an inside joke or in joke, is a joke whose humour is clear only to people who are in a particular social group, occupation, or other community of common understanding...
. The term is derived from Wilson Tucker
Wilson Tucker
Arthur Wilson "Bob" Tucker was an American mystery, action adventure, and science fiction writer, who wrote professionally as Wilson Tucker....
, a pioneering American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
writer and fanzine
Science fiction fanzine
A science fiction fanzine is an amateur or semi-professional magazine published by members of science fiction fandom, from the 1930s to the present day...
editor, who made a practice of using his friends' names for minor characters in his stories. For example, Harry Harrison
Harry Harrison
Harry Harrison is an American science fiction author best known for his character the Stainless Steel Rat and the novel Make Room! Make Room! , the basis for the film Soylent Green...
's To the Stars character: "Old Lundwall, who commands the Sverige, should have retired a decade ago, but he is still the best there is." Sam J Lundwall is a well-known Swedish
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
science fiction publisher and writer, as well as the godfather of Harrison's daughter. A tuckerization can also be the use of a person's character or personal attributes with a new name as an in-joke, such as Ian Arnstein in S.M. Stirling's Island in the Sea of Time
Island in the Sea of Time
Island in the Sea of Time is the first of the three alternate history novels of the Nantucket series by S. M. Stirling.-Plot summary:An elliptical region, including the island of Nantucket, Massachusetts and the United States Coast Guard ship Eagle, is transported by an unknown phenomenon back in...
trilogy, clearly modeled on his good friend Harry Turtledove
Harry Turtledove
Harry Norman Turtledove is an American novelist, who has produced works in several genres including alternate history, historical fiction, fantasy and science fiction.- Life :...
, albeit an alternate history Turtledove.
Many science fiction authors auction off tuckerizations at science fiction conventions with the proceeds going to charity.
In most cases, tuckerization is used for bit parts, an opportunity for the author to create an homage
Homage
Homage is a show or demonstration of respect or dedication to someone or something, sometimes by simple declaration but often by some more oblique reference, artistic or poetic....
to a friend or respected colleague. But sometimes an author will attach a friend's name, description, or identifiable characteristics to a major character, and in some novels nearly all the characters represent friends, colleagues, or prominent persons the author knows. When this happens, tuckerization can rise to the level of a Roman à clef
Roman à clef
Roman à clef or roman à clé , French for "novel with a key", is a phrase used to describe a novel about real life, overlaid with a façade of fiction. The fictitious names in the novel represent real people, and the "key" is the relationship between the nonfiction and the fiction...
. Larry Niven
Larry Niven
Laurence van Cott Niven / ˈlæri ˈnɪvən/ is an American science fiction author. His best-known work is Ringworld , which received Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards. His work is primarily hard science fiction, using big science concepts and theoretical physics...
and Jerry Pournelle
Jerry Pournelle
Jerry Eugene Pournelle is an American science fiction writer, essayist and journalist who contributed for many years to the computer magazine Byte and has since 1998 been maintaining his own website/blog....
have done this at least twice:
- Inferno, in which about half the people the main character meets are famous people.
- Fallen AngelsFallen Angels (science fiction novel)Fallen Angels is a Prometheus Award-winning novel by science fiction authors Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Michael Flynn published by Jim Baen. The novel was written as a tribute to science fiction fandom, and includes many of its well-known figures, legends, and practices...
, nearly everybody who assists the effort to return the "angels" (astronauts) to orbit is either a well-known fan (Jenny Trout = filksinger, author, and political activist Leslie FishLeslie FishLeslie Fish is a filk musician, author, and anarchist political activist.-Music:Along with The DeHorn Crew, in 1976 she created the first commercial filk recording, Folk Songs for Folk Who Ain't Even Been Yet...
), a friend of Niven & Pournelle (Dan Forrester = Dan AldersonDan AldersonDaniel John "Dan" Alderson was a scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, and a prominent participant in science fiction fandom. He came from a middle class family and had diabetes...
), or somebody who paid (through donation to a fan charity) for the privilege of appearing in the book. In this case, it can be argued that the first and second categories are not true tuckerizations, since the individual's real names are not used (however recognizable many of them may be).
A similar effect is seen in Niven's collaboration with David Gerrold
David Gerrold
Jerrold David Friedman , better known by his pen name David Gerrold, is an American science fiction author who started his career in 1966 while a college student by submitting an unsolicited story outline for the television series Star Trek. He was invited to submit several premises, and the one...
, The Flying Sorcerers
The Flying Sorcerers
The Flying Sorcerers is a humorous 1971 science fiction novel by David Gerrold and Larry Niven. It was originally serialized in 1970 as The Misspelled Magishun in If magazine....
; all the gods are well known science fiction or media personalities (Ouells = H. G. Wells
H. G. Wells
Herbert George Wells was an English author, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing text books and rules for war games...
, Rotn'bair = Star Trek
Star Trek
Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...
creator Gene Roddenberry
Gene Roddenberry
Eugene Wesley "Gene" Roddenberry was an American television screenwriter, producer and futurist, best known for creating the American science fiction series Star Trek. Born in El Paso, Texas, Roddenberry grew up in Los Angeles, California where his father worked as a police officer...
), etc.
One of the earliest tuckerizations was between Robert Bloch
Robert Bloch
Robert Albert Bloch was a prolific American writer, primarily of crime, horror and science fiction. He is best known as the writer of Psycho, the basis for the film of the same name by Alfred Hitchcock...
and his mentor H. P. Lovecraft
H. P. Lovecraft
Howard Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....
: Bloch's story "The Shambler From The Stars" (1935) featured a Lovecraft-inspired character, who was gruesomely killed off. Lovecraft replied in kind with "The Haunter of the Dark
The Haunter of the Dark
"The Haunter of the Dark" is a horror story in the Cthulhu Mythos genre. It was written by H. P. Lovecraft in November 1935, and published in the December 1936 edition of Weird Tales...
" (1936), whose characters included one Robert Harrison Blake
Robert Harrison Blake
Robert Harrison Blake is a fictional character in the Cthulhu Mythos. The character is the creation of H. P. Lovecraft and appears in his short story "The Haunter of the Dark" .-Summary:...
(who had the same address as Bloch), whom Lovecraft killed off in an equally horrible fashion. After Lovecraft's death, Bloch wrote a third segment, "The Shadow From the Steeple" (1950), in which the events of the first two stories are further explored. In the early 1930s, before Jerry Siegel
Jerry Siegel
Jerome "Jerry" Siegel , who also used pseudonyms including Joe Carter, Jerry Ess, and Herbert S...
and Joe Shuster
Joe Shuster
Joseph "Joe" Shuster was a Canadian-born American comic book artist. He was best known for co-creating the DC Comics character Superman, with writer Jerry Siegel, first published in Action Comics #1...
created the comic-book superhero Superman
Superman
Superman is a fictional comic book superhero appearing in publications by DC Comics, widely considered to be an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born American artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective...
, they wrote and illustrated a fanzine
Fanzine
A fanzine is a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon for the pleasure of others who share their interest...
story, "The Reign of the Superman," featuring a super-powered villain. This story includes one of the very first tuckerizations: a character named after Forrest J Ackerman
Forrest J Ackerman
Forrest J Ackerman was an American collector of science fiction books and movie memorabilia and a science fiction fan...
. More recent examples include the many science fiction and military novelists whose names are borrowed in the Axis of Time
Axis of Time
The Axis of Time trilogy is an alternate history series of novels written by Australian journalist and author John Birmingham, from Macmillan Publishing.-Plot:...
by John Birmingham
John Birmingham
John Birmingham is an Australian author. Birmingham was born in Liverpool, England and migrated to Australia with his parents in 1970.-Early life and career:...
, and the Lachlan Fox thriller series by James Clancy Phelan
James Clancy Phelan
James Clancy Phelan is an Australian author, published as James Phelan. His first fiction novel, Fox Hunt, went into reprint in its first month.-Biography:Phelan was born in Victoria, Australia...
.
Tuckerization should not be confused with the inclusion of living or deceased real persons in fiction, either as major or minor characters (Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
-Biography:She was born in Berkeley, California. She attended Berkeley schools through high school followed by three years at San Francisco State College .In November 1969 she married Donald Simpson and divorced in February 1982...
in Warday
Warday
Warday is a novel by Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka, first published in 1984. It is a fictionalized account of the authors traveling across America five years after a limited nuclear attack in order to assess how the nation had changed after the war. The novel takes the form of a research...
, Forrest J Ackerman
Forrest J Ackerman
Forrest J Ackerman was an American collector of science fiction books and movie memorabilia and a science fiction fan...
in various novels, etc.).
See also
- The Flying SorcerersThe Flying SorcerersThe Flying Sorcerers is a humorous 1971 science fiction novel by David Gerrold and Larry Niven. It was originally serialized in 1970 as The Misspelled Magishun in If magazine....
by Larry NivenLarry NivenLaurence van Cott Niven / ˈlæri ˈnɪvən/ is an American science fiction author. His best-known work is Ringworld , which received Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards. His work is primarily hard science fiction, using big science concepts and theoretical physics...
and David GerroldDavid GerroldJerrold David Friedman , better known by his pen name David Gerrold, is an American science fiction author who started his career in 1966 while a college student by submitting an unsolicited story outline for the television series Star Trek. He was invited to submit several premises, and the one... - InfernoInferno (novel)Inferno is a science fiction novel written by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, published in 1976. It was nominated for the 1976 Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novel.-Background:...
by Niven and Jerry PournelleJerry PournelleJerry Eugene Pournelle is an American science fiction writer, essayist and journalist who contributed for many years to the computer magazine Byte and has since 1998 been maintaining his own website/blog.... - Fallen AngelsFallen Angels (science fiction novel)Fallen Angels is a Prometheus Award-winning novel by science fiction authors Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Michael Flynn published by Jim Baen. The novel was written as a tribute to science fiction fandom, and includes many of its well-known figures, legends, and practices...
by Niven, Pournelle, and Michael Flynn.