Summary:
This is a superior issue that has five stories that I rated as good or better; the best of these is P. Schuyler Miller’s The Cave, a tale about an Earthman who takes shelter in a cave during a storm on Mars—and then finds it is full of native wildlife observing a truce . . . .
There are also no less than four series stories: the third ‘Settee’ entry from Jack Williamson, Opposites—React! (first of a two-part serial); the second ‘Anarchon’ story from Malcolm Jameson, Barrius Imp; Anthony Boucher’s second ‘Fergus O’Breen’ story, Elsewhen; and there is also Time Locker, the first of Henry Kuttner’s popular ‘Gallagher’ series, which feature an eponymous scientist-inventor whose subconscious invents devices when he is drunk (which is often) but who can’t remember what their purpose is when he sobers up. These last three all involve time travel to a greater or lesser extent.
The non-fiction includes the conclusion of an article on armoured vehicles by L. Sprague de Camp, and an interesting review of Anthony Boucher’s Rocket to the Morgue by editor John W. Campbell.
The cover is by William Timmins, and the interior artists are mainly the usual Astounding regulars.
[ISFDB link] [Archive.org link]

_____________________

Editor, John W. Campbell Jr.; Assistant Editor, Catherine Tarrant

Fiction:
Opposites—React! (Part 1 of 2) • serial by Jack Williamson [as by Will Stewart] ∗∗+
Backfire • novelette by Ross Rocklynne –
The Search • novelette by A. E. van Vogt ∗∗
Nothing But Gingerbread Left • short story by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Henry Kuttner] ∗∗∗
Barrius, Imp • novelette by Malcolm Jameson ∗∗∗
The Cave • novelette by P. Schuyler Miller ∗∗∗+
Time Locker • novelette by Henry Kuttner [as by Lewis Padgett] ∗∗∗
Elsewhen • novelette by Anthony Boucher ∗∗∗

Non-fiction:
Cover • by William Timmins
Interior artwork • by William Kolliker (x4), Frank Kramer (x3), Paul Orban (x3), Manuel Isip (x6), Elton Fax
Re Rays • editorial by John W. Campbell, Jr.
Get Out and Get Under (Part 2 of 2) • essay by L. Sprague de Camp
The Analytical Laboratory: October & November 1942
Book Review • by John W. Campbell, Jr.
Brass Tacks • letters

_____________________

After another set of wonky Retro Hugo Award results¹ I thought I’d try and review as much of 1943’s eligible short fiction as I can before next year’s nomination season starts. I won’t even scratch the surface of course, and it won’t make the slightest difference to the voting, but nonetheless . . . .

The fiction opens with the third entry in Jack Williamson’s ‘Seetee’ series, Opposites—React! The previous stories set up a future solar system that has an uneasy truce or ‘Mandate’ between Earth, Mars and Jupiter, etc., with the settlers of the asteroid belt caught in the middle and unable to gain their independence. These latter also have to contend with regular showers of seetee (antimatter) passing through the belt, with potentially devastating consequences (when seetee meets normal matter there is a cataclysmic release of energy and radiation).
The story begins with Captain Paul Anders, one of the characters from the last story, in Austin Hood’s office. Hood is the Chief Commissioner of the High Space Mandate, an unstable planetary coalition, who pressures Anders to withdraw his application for retirement from Interplanet (an Earth based mining company) by pointing out that the planetary truce will eventually fail and that there will be war between Earth and the other planets. Anders agrees and is told to get the asteroid colonists’ secret method of handling seetee for Interplanet (as whoever has antimatter weapons will win any war). Hood also shows Anders a stolen film of an alien ship in space. When the person making the film fires a bullet at it there is an incandescent matter-antimatter reaction. The ship is obviously made of seetee and is therefore evidence of seetee life!
Anders then sets off for an asteroid called Pallasport to quiz one of the four key characters from the previous stories, Rob McGee (who is partners with Jim Drake and his son Rick in a company trying to exploit seetee). While McGee is provisioning his ship Anders quizzes him about whether he has found any seetee artefacts. McKee tells him to talk to Karen (an old romantic interest of Anders, since engaged to Rick Drake) who subsequently distracts Anders at lunch while McGee slips off in his ship.

The rest of the first part takes Anders to another asteroid, Obania, where he tracks down Ann O’Banion and forces her to use her piloting skills to get past a minefield to the surface of Freedonia, an independent asteroid where McKee and the Drake’s seetee lab is located.
Anders then gets the father and son to show him their research into seetee. They show him the seetee material they have collected by use of electromagnetic grapples (these operations were detailed in the first story) but Drake senior states they have failed to find a way to work with the material, demonstrating a hammer and anvil setup that is dangerously unstable.

While Anders is trying to convince the pair to work for Interplanet, McGee photophones the Drakes to tell them he has found the seetee ship and also a bedplate they can use to fix their anvil. However, a hostile Martian called Von Falkenberg has found him and damaged his ship. Anders sets off to rescue McGee, accompanied by Anne.
This first part of the serial is a bit creaky and shows Williamson’s recurrent faults: fairly crude prose—he repeatedly describes Rick’s hair as “bronze” and, similarly, his father’s as “roan”; there is also some quite unsophisticated love interest between Anders and Ann. Anders repeatedly calls Ann, his supposed adversary but someone he spends far too much time mooning over, “gorgeous” or “darling”. I mention this not out of modern-day political correctness but because it shows that Williamson has a tin ear for normal dialogue. The main problem this piece has, however, is that it doesn’t really show any evolution in Williamson’s writing since The Legion of Time (and is some respects this story is a move backwards), and therefore struggles to hold its own against the competition. That said, it moves along well enough, and sets up the story for a potentially intriguing second half.

Backfire by Ross Rocklynne takes place in the year 3555 AD, and is narrated by Bruce, one of that society’s immortals and the person responsible for deciding whether a 20^th Century man called Greely will also be allowed to become an immortal (Greely is there, we learn later, by some form of time-travel that is never elaborated on). When Bruce refuses Greely immortality, the latter threatens to use his powers as a demagogue to stir up unrest.
The story explicitly references Hitler at one point after one of Greely’s speeches on radio:

Greeley showed up on the dot, half an hour after the broadcast. He was wiping his heavy face.
“I’ve got ’em yelling now, ‘Down with immortality.’ Sometimes I scare myself. I made a labor chain out of five thousand department stores in the States—back in my time—but that took some talking and pamphlets and banners. All you got to do here is talk; say anything. You’re a bunch of dopes. I got trouble holding them in now.”
He sat down heavily. “Tomorrow they’ll bust loose if I give ’em the word, Cort. Unless I do something about it. What is it about my voice that gets ’em? Must be the same thing that Hitler had. Hitler was a dictator,” he explained, but Bruce nodded. “He was going strong when I was spirited away.” He scowled in memory.
“Whatever happened to him, anyway?”
“He died in Spitzbergen in 1944,” said Bruce. “He was defeated in the spring of 1943.”  p. 41

After more of Greely’s speeches and the consequent social unrest, Bruce feels forced to grant Greely his wish—but the biter is bit (spoiler: a youthful mob kill Greely when they find that he has taken the immortality treatment that he was protesting against).
The problem with the story is that it just does not convince, failing entirely to show why this stable future society (it is no Weimar Republic) would be subverted by Greely’s speeches (the content is waffle, and the explanation of their effect is cod psychology).
This is the worst of Rocklynne’s stories I’ve read so far.

The Search by A. E. van Vogt has its amnesiac protagonist Blake waking up in hospital to find that he cannot remember the events of the previous two weeks. Later his boss tells him where he was during the first week (Blake is a salesman and had placed orders from several locations on a planned route), so Blake picks up the trail at a place called Warwick Junction. There he (conveniently) bumps into a man called Bill Kellie who provides the next piece of the puzzle.
Once they are on the train to Kissling, Blake hears of a previous journey there, and that Kellie had demonstrated to Blake a pen that writes in multiple colours and which never emptied (it still worked after he filled a cup full with ink). After the demonstration a stranger in the seat opposite had asked to look at the pen and it broke in his hands, despite supposedly being unbreakable. Shortly after this, Selanie, the woman who originally sold the pen to Kellie (and who sells other futuristic devices that her father supposedly invents on the train) had arrived in the carriage. When Kellie showed her the broken pen she looked shocked and, when Kellie pointed out the man who broke it, the shock had turned to fear and she had fled. Blake had followed.

After hearing Kellie’s story, Blake goes to Kissling Junction to look for Selanie. He finds out where her and her father live, and talks to a woman and son nearby. They tell him that he was here before and explain that he went into their trailer and looked around (the boy, again conveniently, is a snoop and followed Blake).
Blake goes to the site of the trailer for the second time but it is no longer there, so he takes the train back to Warwick Station. During the journey he hears a man breaking a child’s pen and the mother’s protest. Blake goes to confront the man, and the next thing he knows he is waking up in a huge building. He explores and finds many offices: these contain files about the work of seemingly altruistic “Possessors” in various realities (this organisation seems similar to the ‘Weapon Shop’ in his other series):

First, to one of the offices. Examine every cabinet, break open the desk drawers, search— It wasn’t necessary to break anything. The drawers opened at the slightest tug. The cabinet doors were unlocked.
Inside were journals, ledgers, curious-looking files. Absorbed, Drake glanced blurrily through several that he had spread out on the great desk, blurrily because his hands were shaking, and his brain couldn’t penetrate for a second at a time.
Finally, with an effort of will, he pushed everything aside but one of the journals. This he opened at random, and read the words printed there:
.
SYNOPSIS OF REPORT OF POSSESSOR
KINGSTON CRAIG IN THE MATTER
OF THE EMPIRE OF LYCEUS II
A. D. 27,346— 27,378
.
Frowning, Drake stared at the date; then he read on:
.
The normal history of the period is a tale of cunning usurpation of power by a ruthless ruler. A careful study of the man revealed an unnatural urge to protect himself at the expense of others.
TEMPORARY SOLUTION: A warning to the Emperor, who nearly collapsed when be realized that he was confronted by a Possessor. His instinct for self-preservation impelled him to give guarantees as to future conduct.
COMMENT: This solution produced a probability world Type 5, and must be considered temporary because of the very involved permanent work that Professor Terran Link is doing on the fringes, of the entire two hundred seventy-third century.
CONCLUSION: Returned to the Palace of Immortality after an absence of three days.
[. . .]
There were more entries, hundreds—thousands altogether in the several journals. Each one was a “REPORT OF POSSESSOR KINGSTON CRAIG,” and always he returned to the “Palace of Immortality” after so many days, or hours or—weeks.  p. 53

Although the story is a compelling read up to this point, the second half is weaker with much explaining. Blake wakes up in a bed beside a woman who treats him as if he is a Possessor. She and another Possessor subsequently convince him to go back in time (spoiler) to apply a “glove of destruction” to Selanie’s father, the source of the futuristic inventions sold in Kissling. This is the place where the people who will eventually become the Possessors are all born. If the father’s sales activities are not stopped, and their consequent disruption of normal life in the area, the Possessor organisation will not come into existence.

Blake and Selanie travel back in time and use the glove to destroy the father’s ability to time travel but this also leaves them stranded in the past (there are other complicated reasons for this). A year or so later they manage to get the father to teach them how to time travel back to the present.
This story is perhaps unnecessarily overcomplicated by its temporal structure (the flashbacks and the time travel).

Nothing But Gingerbread Left by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore² is, like the Rocklynne, another story that touches on wartime concerns, this time explicitly. A Professor of linguistics and his German-speaking honours student develop a semantic weapon (a mind worm, a jingle) to undermine the German war effort. After a short setup the story spends most of its length illustrating the effect it has on the Germans:

It was a minor post in occupied France, and the man wasn’t especially important, except that he was a good marksman. He looked up, watching a little cloud luminous in the sky. He was reminded of a photographic negative. The British planes would be dark, unlike the cloud, until the searchlights caught them. Then—
Ah, well. Left. Left. Left a wife and seventeen—
They had sung that at the canteen last night, chanting in it chorus. A catchy piece. When he got back to Berlin—if ever—he must remember the words. How did they go?
—in starving condition—
His thoughts ran on independently of the automatic rhythm in his brain. Was he dozing? Startled, he shook himself, and then realized that he was still alert. There was no danger. The song kept him awake, rather than inducing slumber.
It had a violent, exciting swing that got into a man’s blood with its LEFT
LEFT
LEFT a wife—
However, he must remain alert. When the R. A. F. bombers came over, he must do what he had to do. And they were coming now. Distantly he could hear the faint drone of their motors, pulsing monotonously like the song, bombers for Germany, starving condition, with nothing but gingerbread
LEFT!
LEFT
LEFT a wife and SEVenteen children in STARVing condition with—
Remember the bombers, your hand on the trigger, your eye to the eyepiece, with nothing but gingerbread
LEFT!
LEFT
LEFT a wife and— ,
Bombers are coming, the British are coming, but don’t fire too quickly, just wait till they’re closer, and LEFT
LEFT
LEFT a wife and there are their motors, and there go the searchlights, and there they come over, in starving condition with nothing but gingerbread
LEFT!
LEFT!
LEFT a wife and SEVenteen children in—
They were gone. The bombers had passed over.
He hadn’t fired at all. He’d forgotten!
They’d passed over. Not one was left. Nothing was left. Nothing but gingerbread LEFT!  p. 66

The climactic scene (spoiler) has Hitler preparing for a (subsequently abandoned) speech, and the story becomes interestingly meta in the last few paragraphs:

Maybe this particular copy of Astounding will find its way to England, and maybe an R. A. F. pilot will drop it near Berlin, or Paris, for that matter. Word will get around. There are lots of men on the continent who can read English.
And they’ll talk.
They won’t believe, at first. But they’ll keep their eyes open. And there’s a catchy little rhythm they’ll remember. Someday the story will reach Berlin or Berchtesgarten. Someday it’ll reach the guy with the little mustache and the big voice.
And, a little while later—days or weeks, it doesn’t matter—Goebbels is going to walk into a big room, and there he’s going to see Adolf Hitler goose-stepping around and yelling:
LEFT
LEFT
LEFT a wife and SEVenteen children in
STARVing condition with NOTHing but gingerbread LEFT—  p. 68

This is a little dated but it is a neat idea and well executed. The mindworm stayed with me for several days . . . .

Barrius, Imp by Malcolm Jameson is the second of three ‘Anachron’ stories (Anachron is the name of a trading company that conducts its business in various historical eras by the use of time-travel). I didn’t much care for the first in the series, Anachron, Inc. (Astounding, October 1942), as it was overlong and had unconvincing time theory explanations—but this one doesn’t have either of these deficiencies.
In this story Mark Barry, a former commando major, is sent back to Roman times to get control of an agent who has gone rogue. When he arrives one of the first things he sees are changes to the way that one of the temples is operating (the messengers are on roller skates and there is a modern cash register on the petitions table).
Later he meets Cassidus, the rogue agent, and learns the extent of the many, many rackets that he runs in Rome.
As the story develops so does Barry’s abhorrence of Cassidus’s corruption, but not as much as his hatred of the carnage at the Coliseum. Barry attempts to ameliorate this by introducing American football to the arena. This doesn’t work out the way he hoped:

The teams consisted of about a hundred men on the side. Each fell in in two ranks, the first crouching, the second standing behind with naked swords in their hands. All wore heavy body armor, spiked steel helmets, gaffs at their heels, and daggers at their belts. A small cloud of retiarii—lithe and agile gladiators armed with nets and tridents—covered each end, evidently for the purpose of discouraging end runs. But it was the back formation that afforded the big thrill. Each quarterback—and judging from the delighted howls from the stands they must have been popular champions—rode a mighty war chariot whose wheels were fitted with murderous revolving scythes. The other backs, of whom there were about a dozen to the side, rode horses. They carried lances and battleaxes hung at their saddlebows.
There was a fanfare of trumpets, then a single prolonged bray. As its hoarse note died, the teams plunged into the fray. The quarterback with the ball—which he carried in a net slung over his shoulders—attempted an end run, the cavalry of his backfield preceding and flanking him by way of interference. Barry’s hands gripped the stone rim of the box as he watched the horror of the scrimmage that followed. His senses reeled . . . the crash of impact as the two lines met head-on . . . the dozens of individual duels . . . the raging juggernaut plunging around the left end . . . the futile efforts of the linemen to break through the fringe of horsemen to complete their tackle by disemboweling a chariot horse. There followed the countercharge of the defending chariot . . . the hideous melee that followed when the two war buggies met head-on only to capsize into a welter of spinning wheels, kicking and screaming horses, slashing, stabbing and gouging men. Many died before the armored referees fought their way into the midst and declared the ball at rest. Barry hardly heard the next braying of the trumpet, or the clarion voice of the umpire calling out, “First down, forty paces made good. Time out for replacements.”  p. 78-79

At the end of the game Barry publicly insults the Emperor before walking out and going to the offices of the newspaper he has set up. There he dictates a story that reveals the corruption in the city. In the finale Barry is forced to fight the Emperor in the arena, a conclusion slightly marred by (spoiler) the former’s somewhat deux ex machina use of tear gas pellets and nitrous oxide. (By the way, if this duel foreshadows the film Gladiator, another scene where he only just avoids dental torture brings to mind Marathon Man).
This is an entertaining read for the most part, but weaker towards the end.

The Cave by P. Schuyler Miller gets off to a slow start with several hundred words of geological description about a cave. During this we learn that it is on Mars:

Most of the planet’s surface had been desert for more millions of years than anyone has yet estimated. From the mouth of the cave its dunes and stony ridges stretched away like crimson ripples left on a beach after a wave has passed. They were dust rather than sand: red, ferric dust ground ever finer by the action of grain against grain, milling over and over through the centuries. It lay in a deep drift in the alcove and spilled down into the opening of the cave; it carpeted the first twenty-foot passage as with a strip of red velvet, and a little of it passed around the angle in the tunnel into the short cross-passage. Only the very finest powder, well-nigh impalpable, hung in the still air long enough to pass the second bend and reach the big room. Enough had passed to lay a thin, rusty mantle over every horizontal surface in the cave. Even in the black silt at the very back of the cave, where the air never stirred, there was a soft red bloom on the yellow flowstone.
The cave was old. Animals had sheltered in it. There were trails trodden into the dry clay, close to the walls, made before the clay had dried. There was no dust on these places—animals still followed them when they needed to. There was a mass of draggled, shredded stalks and leaves from some desert plant, packed into the cranny behind a fallen rock and used as a nest. There were little piles of excreta, mostly the chitinous shells of insectlike creatures and the indigestible cellulose of certain plants. Under the chimney the ceiling was blackened by smoke, and there were shards of charcoal and burned bone mixed with the dust of the floor. There were places where the clay had been chipped and dug away to give more headroom, or to make a flat place where a bowl could be set down. There were other signs as well.  p. 84

The next section has a native grak (an intelligent biped) enter the cave for shelter from an approaching sandstorm, only to find several other Martian animals already there. One is a potentially dangerous zek, but we discover that all Martian creatures are grekka and abide, on certain occasions, by a law of mutual assistance against an inimical universe. So they all settle down and prepare to wait out the storm.
The second half of the story has a human prospector called Harrigan stumble upon the cave after his sand car breaks down in the storm. When he enters the pitch-black cave he hears something move, and uses his lighter to see what is in the cave with him:

The burst of yellow flame was dazzling. Then he saw their eyes—dozens of little sparks of green and red fire staring out of the dark. As his own eyes adjusted he saw the grak, huddled like a woolly black gargoyle in his corner. The Martian’s huge round eyes were watching him blankly, his grinning mouth was slightly open over a saw-edged line of teeth, and his pointed ears were spread wide to catch every sound. His beaklike, shining nose and bright red cheek patches gave him the look of a partly plucked owl. He had a wicked-looking knife in his spidery fingers.
Harrigan’s gaze flickered around the circle of watching beasts. He knew nothing of Martian animals, except for the few domesticated creatures the greenlanders kept, and they made a weird assortment. They were mostly small, ratty things with big eyes and feathery antennae in place of noses. Some of them were furred and some had horny or scaly armor. All of them were variously decorated with fantastic collections of colored splotches, crinkled horns, and faceted spines which presumably were attractive to themselves or their mates. At the far end of the cave, curled up in a bed of dry grass, was a lean splotched thing almost as big as the little native which stared at him with malevolent red eyes set close together over a grinning, crocodilian snout. As he eyed it, it yawned hideously and dropped its head on its crossed forepaws—paws like naked, taloned hands. It narrowed its eyes to crimson slits and studied him insolently from under the pallid lids. It looked nasty, and his fingers closed purposefully over the butt of his gun.  p. 87-88

Initially the uneasy truce is maintained but, later on, Harrigan unintentionally disturbs the equilibrium. Then the situation unravels.
This story has some good (if slow-moving) description at the start and the latter part of it is quite suspenseful: a pretty good piece, even if it does use an outdated version of Mars as its setting.³

Henry Kuttner’s second appearance in this month’s magazine is with Time Locker, the first of his ‘Gallegher’ series.⁴ You can get a flavour of the story from the first paragraph:

Galloway played by ear, which would have been all right had he been a musician—but he was a scientist. A drunken and erratic one, but good. He’d wanted to be an experimental technician, and would have been excellent at it, for he had a streak of genius at times. Unfortunately, there had been no funds for such specialized education, and now Galloway, by profession an integrator machine supervisor, maintained his laboratory purely as a hobby. It was the damnedest-looking lab in six States. Galloway had spent ten months building what he called a liquor organ, which occupied most of the space. He could recline on a comfortably padded couch and, by manipulating buttons, siphon drinks of marvelous quantity, quality, and variety down his scarified throat. Since he had made the liquor organ during a protracted period of drunkenness, he never remembered the basic principles of its construction. In a way, that was a pity.  p. 100

This is the gimmick that runs throughout the series: Gallegher can only invent things when he is drunk, and can’t necessarily remember what they do or how they work when he is sober.
There are three other elements to this particular story: the first is an associate of Gallagher’s called Vanning, who is an amoral, crooked lawyer (one of his sidelines is renting out a neurological gun that Gallagher invented to various killers—it is popular because it leaves no marks or evidence); the second is another of Gallagher’s inventions, a box that shrinks things put into it as well as changing their form:

“That—locker,” Vanning said, frowning in a baffled way. “What the—” He got up. The metal door hadn’t been securely latched and had swung open. Of the smock Vanning had placed within the metal compartment there was no trace.
[. . .]
Vanning went over and swung a fluorescent into a more convenient position. The locker wasn’t empty, as he had at first imagined. The smock was no longer there, but instead there was a tiny blob of—something, pale-green and roughly spherical.
“It melts things?” Vanning asked, staring.
“Uh-huh. Pull it out. You’ll see.”
Vanning felt hesitant about putting his hand inside the locker. Instead, he found a long pair of test-tube clamps and teased the blob out. It was—Vanning hastily looked away. His eyes hurt.
The green blob was changing in color, shape and size. A crawling, nongeometrical blur of motion rippled over it. Suddenly the clamps were remarkably heavy.
No wonder. They were gripping the original smock.
“It does that, you know,” Galloway said absently. “Must be a reason, too. I put things in the locker and they get small. Take ’em out, and they get big again. I suppose I could sell it to a stage magician.” His voice sounded doubtful.  p. 102

The final element is a bag full of bonds stolen by one of Vanning’s clients and in need of a hiding place. Vanning hides the bag in the locker, but after it shrinks and changes into a small bronze egg he notices a small creature in the locker pick it up. Vanning reaches inside and crushes the creature. When the police search the locker they do not see the bag. After they leave, Vanning checks the locker and both creature and the bag/bronze egg have both disappeared.

Vanning pays Gallagher to investigate, and the latter comes up with a theory (presumably after a few drinks) that the space inside the locker is in the future, where the universe has shrunk in size and different geometric rules may apply: this would explain the size reduction and change of shape. This ‘scientific’ explanation is one of those woolly unconvincing ones but the story has a clever twist ending where Vanning (spoiler) gets his just desserts: when he unexpectedly finds the bag in his office a week or so later, a hand comes down from above to crush him . . . .

Elsewhen by Anthony Boucher is the second story in his ‘Fergus O’Breen’ series. O’Breen, having had a bit part in The Compleat Werewolf (Unknown, April 1942),⁵ doesn’t actually appear in this one until we are several pages in, and after we have been introduced to an inventor called Mr Partridge and his nagging Aunt Agatha:

“My dear Agatha,” Mr. Partridge announced at the breakfast table, “I have invented the world’s first successful time machine.”
His sister showed no signs of being impressed.
“I suppose this will run the electric bill up even higher,” she observed. “Have you ever stopped to consider, Harrison, what that workshop of yours costs us?”
Mr. Partridge listened meekly to the inevitable lecture. When it was over, he protested, “But, my dear, you have just listened to an announcement that no woman on earth has ever heard before. For ages man has dreamed of visiting the past and the future. Since the development of modern time-theory, he has even had some notion of how it might be accomplished. But never before in human history has anyone produced an actual working model of a time-traveling machine.”
“Hm-m-m,” said Agatha Partridge. “What good is it?”  p. 112

The rest of this setup has Partridge use the machine’s limited ability to go forty-five minutes into the past to commit the locked-room murder of a relative (this will make his aunt the next in line to inherit from an even older relation). However, the murdered relative’s assistant Simon is in the locked room when the murderer vanishes to the past and is blamed for the crime. Simon’s fiancée Linda employs Fergus O’Breen to clear his name.

O’Breen interviews Linda and quickly deduces that Partridge is a likely suspect (he essentially follows the money and a couple of other leads) but then has to work out how to prove it. A game of cat and mouse ensues between O’Breen and Partridge that induces the latter to use his time machine to attempt another murder.
I thought this was going to be so much fluff at the beginning of the story—the initial section is a little affected—but it turns into a clever and slick time-travel cum locked-room murder story.

•••

The Cover is by William Timmins and is his third effort for the magazine: I think it is for the Williamson piece (the balanced gun blisters are in the text, and the spaceship is similar to the illustration on p. 22). The black surround is atypical for Astounding, but it works for what would otherwise be a dark illustration.
The best of the Interior artwork this issue is probably by Paul Orban. I like his strong diagonal for the title page of The Search, and the wide two page spot. This widescreen flexibility is also used to good effect by Frank Kramer in the title page for Elsewhen; he rather phones it in for his other illustrations though. Kolliker’s contributions are fine, just a little old-fashioned, and Manuel Isip’s are, as usual, a little too comic book for me. That said, his ‘three test tubes’ illustration for Time Locker is a striking image, and a favourite of mine from this issue. Elton Fax’s drawing for The Cave is a little amateurish-looking.
Re Rays is a one page editorial by John W. Campbell, Jr. about the advantages of bullets over death, heat, or disintegration rays.

Get Out and Get Under is the second part of an essay by L. Sprague de Camp. In this (perhaps slightly overlong) half he examines the history and development of the armoured train, car, and tank.

The Analytical Laboratory: October & November 1942 results will be discussed in the reviews for those magazines (when, if ever, I get around to reading them).⁶
At the end of Boucher’s story there is a short Book Review of his new murder mystery novel, Rocket to the Morgue, by John W. Campbell, Jr. Campbell explains why he is reviewing a non-SF novel in the pages of Astounding:

This is not a science-fiction yarn; it’s straightforward whodunnit, by a whodunnit regular, author of several such. As a mystery novel, it doesn’t get a review in Astounding’s pages. But—H. H. Holmes is writing for us now, a result of having joined the Manana Literary Society, the group of fantasy and science-fiction writers that centered around Bob Heinlein’s home in Hollywood before Pearl Harbor. And the story, straight murder mystery that it is—is laid in and about the Manana Literary Society. Half a dozen of your favorite authors and mine are prime characters in the book. Somewhat disguised, somewhat blended and somewhat distorted by the inexorable necessities of a mystery yarn; you’ve got to have a couple of villains, and several suspicious characters. The only sciencefictionry in the story is the murder method—a rocket does help the victim on his way to the morgue. But that’s as it should be; if the author were free to pull any imaginative gadget out of his hat, neither the detective nor the reader would stand a chance of solving it.
This yarn’s beauty, from the science-fictionist’s viewpoint, is in the characters involved. Knowing the group, I can state that the Manana Literary Society scenes have the air of being straight reporting rather than fiction. A number of the incidents mentioned happened that way, though not always to the characters accredited. The necessity of compression of several people into one “character” changes them a little, but the feel of the whole setup is perfect. If you know the members of the M. L. S., you need the book.
If you know them only through their writing, you can meet them. And if you read Astounding, you know them that way—Bob Heinlein, Cleve Cartmill, Anthony Boucher, Anson MacDonald, Roby Wentz, Lewis Padgett, Will Stewart, Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore, who is Mrs. Kuttner, Jack Williamson, Edmond Hamilton and half a dozen others . p. 127

Campbell finishes with a brief resume of the plot:

The basis of the story is the literary profiteering of one Hilary Foulkes, sole controller of the literary estate of his late, great father, Fowler Foulkes, author of the Dr. Derringer stories. The Dr. Derringer stories being early science-fiction stories that made a tremendous impression, widely known all over the world. But Hilary Foulkes is sitting tight on the copyrights, charging outrageous and disastrous fees for the use of anything associated with the works of his father. The result is that every writer, agent and editor in the field feels that a fatal accident would bring about a great improvement in Hilary. Since all the members of the Manana Literary Society are active in the field, and each has been directly damaged by some action of the foppish and tight-fisted Hilary, every member is open to suspicion when Hilary starts getting presents of candied cyanide and packages that tick.
Which means that the detective—and hence the reader—is exposed to the Manana Literary Society in full action. Since H. H. Holmes is himself a recently joined member, it’s a good analysis of what makes science-fiction, and why. Oh, incidentally—it’s a first-rate murder mystery, too. p. 127

I’ve haven’t read Boucher’s book but, on the strength of the above, I’m going to dig it out.⁷

Brass Tacks has only four letters this month but there is a lot of comment about the artwork, most of it negative (a number of the regulars including cover artist Howard Brown have joined the military). Manson Brackney, Minneapolis, MI, has this about clever stories:

First, of course, is “Not Only Dead Men.” Von Vogt really scores a topper with this one [. . .] this well-written, and above all, interesting story. What I mean by interesting is that, while I like to exercise my mind with some of these mental jigsaw puzzles of brain-teasers, I am not able to digest story after story of this type issue after issue. I can’t help but feel that most of the stories in recent issues have only increased my admiration of your writers’ cleverness. I long for the old emotional story and for the “good old days” of heroes and heroines. Don’t misunderstand me, I like a clever intellectual story as well as the next fellow, but I am not able to “lose myself” in this type of story, but can only say, “What a clever story.” p. 128

And Art Saha of Hibbing, MI, has this about war stories:

Well, you ask us if we’d like to see more war stories. I say “No!” Let’s fight this war in actuality, not in fiction. After all that’s all we hear about and read about, so let’s save our magazine for “avenues of escape.” Now don’t get me wrong. It isn’t that I want to get away from all mention of this war, but the thing is that too often time proves the ideas in the story silly. Witness “Final Blackout,” but if you can get another story as powerful as that one, I say print it even though it might be all wrong in its political aspects. p. 129

•••

A superior issue, with five stories that rate good or better. ●

_____________________

1. The 1943 Retro Hugo Awards (awarded in 2018 for fiction published in 1942) went to Waldo by Robert A. Heinlein for best novella, Foundation by Isaac Asimov for best novelette, and The Twonky by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore for best short story. I don’t have a particular problem with the novella or short story choices (although the latter is a clunky effort in a generally weak group of nominees) but it is pretty obvious that the Asimov won due to the name recognition of the entire ‘Foundation’ series. If the voters had gone for Bridle and Saddle (the second in the ‘Foundation’ series and by far the better of the two stories nominated) I wouldn’t have so much of a problem, even though I preferred van Vogt’s The Weapon Shop.
I realise that we are not necessarily supposed to emulate the voters of 1943 but the ‘Foundation’ series produced much better work later on so you would think that it would make more sense to give a later story an award (and, indeed, The Mule won the 1946 Retro Hugo for best novel in 1996). Given that the trilogy has also won a ‘Best All-Time Series’ Hugo in 1966, you have to wonder how many more Hugos the voters are going to give this series? Is it going to win one every time a ‘Foundation’ story is on the ballot?
As well as the above choice there have been previous winners like How We Went to Mars by Arthur C. Clarke (Amateur Science Stories, March 1938) instead of, say, Helen O’Loy by Lester del Rey; and To Serve Man by Damon Knight (Galaxy Nov 1950) instead of Coming Attraction by Fritz Leiber or Born of Man and Woman by Richard Matheson. One wonders if the only three criteria operating here are (a) title recognition, (b) writer name recognition, and (c) teenage reading memories viewed through fifty years of rose-tinted glass.
I note in passing that Locus reports there were 703 final ballots for the 1943 Retro Hugos but only 203 nominating ones. That is not a healthy ratio, and suggests a badly informed group of voters. There is a detailed breakdown of the voting for the 1943 awards here.
There are other comments on the web about the dysfunctionality of the Retro Hugos: here are some from Jason Sanford and Cora Buhlert.

2. Campbell would depend, from 1943 onwards, on Kuttner and Moore (and van Vogt and others) to fill the gaps left by writers who had entered military or related service. Campbell wrote to his friend Robert D. Swisher about Kuttner in a May 1943 letter (Fantasy Commentator #59/60, edited by Sam Moskowitz & A. Langley Searles, Lulu.com):

“Speaking of pen names reminds me to tell you beforehand: Will Stewart is Jack Williamson; Lewis Padgett is Hank Kuttner— and if you think Kuttner’s a hack who couldn’t, can’t and won’t write anything fit to put in a good science fiction magazine, you’re in for a most pleasant shock. The son-of-a-gun’s going to make it distinctly heavy pulling for Heinlein when he gets back. Damned if he didn’t turn out to be a genuinely beautiful writer! ‘Deadlock’ (Astounding, August, 1942), the first Padgett story isn’t extra good—though the writing is worthwhile. But ‘The Twonky’ (Astounding, September, 1942) is a nice piece, and with ‘Mimsy Were the Borogoves’ (Astounding. February, 1943) I think he’s really hitting a nice stride. He’s improving greatly with each one, as he finally throws back the hack atmosphere overboard and writes as if he really wants to and feels.
“He’s a homely little squirt and looks pretty weak. I didn’t see, myself, what Catherine Moore saw in him. I herewith take it back; he evidently has real character and real worth. They’ve been having troubles; they’re in Hollywood you know—were in the Heinlein’s house as renters while Bob and Leslyn were here. They moved out, with the intention of coming East, because Kat was expecting, (first anyone ever heard of C.L. Moore being pregnant) was homesick, and didn’t think an air-raid shelter at a critical moment was satisfactory. Kat evidently had a mild hysteria attack—wouldn’t let anyone but Hank in the house, took to her bed, more or less, and demanded constant attention. Hank, being the breadwinner, had his hands fullish. Also, just as they were about to get started East, after selling their car. Kat had to be hospitalized for a period vaguely diagnosed as a month or so. They’d leased the house—it’s miles from town, and carless.
Hank couldn’t stay anyway. Hank had to have a minor neck operation. He supervised moving day, resettled an apartment and wrote stories. With Kat, from what I can piece together in letters to me, explaining and apologizing for delay on promised scripts. And the Heinleins were complaining that he wasn’t visiting her at the hospital.
“The stories were good. too. The guy’s got more than I thought.
“The appearance of Lewis Padgett (Kuttner) is a godsend.” p. 142

Campbell then goes on to detail what his old writers are doing:

Bob Heinlein’s busy—busier’n hell. He’s got a job in Philadelphia now.
[. . .]
Lieutenant L. Ron Hubbard dropped into the office the other day. He was in the Battle of the Java Sea, and got flown home by reason of some souvenir collecting he did during a bombing attack. They removed the souvenir from his leg, and he seems 100% now—no limp. But he’s most ungodly mad. They’ve kidnapped him into a desk job, and he got a licking out in Java, and he wants almighty bad to get back out that way and give his red hair a chance. Anyway, he’s writing.
De Camp went into the same job Bob’s on a week or so ago, following Isaac Asimov about nine days. The two are now under civil service; Sprague will remain on that basis only a month or so, while his papers making him a Lieutenant Junior Grade are being put through.
“Lesseee—that leaves me van Vogt, who’s Canadian, and can’t be grabbed by the U.S. Navy, and del Rey, who’s classified as 4-F due to the fact that his normal pulse rate of 130 goes to 160 when he jumps up and down 20 times. And Cleve Cartmill, who has full use of his right hand, and can use his left hand and wrist as a hook, having had polio at the age of six months; his legs don’t work at all.
“(Hubert) Rogers in the Canadian Army; we’ve got a new cover artist possibility who looks really good—guy by the highly improbable name of (A.) von Munchausen (did one cover illustrating ‘Lunar Landing’ by Lester del Rey, Astounding, October, 1942). To have something to show us as a demonstration of ability, he did an astronomical cover. He rates; it’s as good as Schneeman’s famous Saturn cover. But he’s working on a camouflage painting method he wants to interest the Army in, so . . . . p. 143

3. I’m pretty sure I’ve read elsewhere that Campbell insisted to his writers that humans were always to win out over aliens (didn’t Asimov famously say that this is why there are no aliens in the ‘Foundation’ series?) but (spoiler) Harrigan doesn’t win in Miller’s story (and from what I can remember of Philip K. Dick’s Imposter, humans also come off worst there).
Miller’s story is in The Great SF Stories #5, edited by Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg (DAW, 1980):

7 • Introduction (The Great SF Stories 5 (1943)) • (1981) • essay by Martin H. Greenberg
11 • The Cave • (1943) • novelette by P. Schuyler Miller
30 • The Halfling • [Earth (Brackett)] • (1943) • novelette by Leigh Brackett
57 • Mimsy Were the Borogoves • (1943) • novelette by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Lewis Padgett]
91 • Q. U. R. • (1943) • short story by Anthony Boucher
113 • Clash by Night • [Keeps • 1] • (1943) • novella by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Lawrence O’Donnell]
172 • Exile • (1943) • short story by Edmond Hamilton
178 • Daymare • (1943) • novelette by Fredric Brown
219 • Doorway Into Time • (1943) • short story by C. L. Moore
238 • The Storm • [Mixed Men] • (1943) • novelette by A. E. van Vogt
271 • The Proud Robot • [Gallegher (Henry Kuttner)] • (1943) • novelette by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Lewis Padgett]
306 • Symbiotica • [Jay Score / Marathon • 3] • (1943) • novelette by Eric Frank Russell
352 • The Iron Standard • (1943) • short story by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Lewis Padgett]

All stories are from Astounding apart from the Brackett (Astonishing), Hamilton (Super Science Stories), Brown (Thrilling Wonder Stories), and Moore’s solo effort (Famous Fantastic Mysteries).

4. The ISFDB link for Kuttner’s ‘Gallegher’ series has a quote from C. L. Moore stating, “not a word of any of them is mine.” Another three series stories would appear in 1943 and the final one in 1948, all in Astounding. They were collected in the book Robots Have No Tails, Gnome Press, 1952.

5. The April 1942 issue of Unknown, and Boucher’s The Compleat Werewolf, is reviewed here.

6. The Analytical Laboratory giving the results for this issue appeared in the March 1943 issue:

Reading through Campbell’s comments you wonder why he bothered running the lab at all: if you don’t have enough feedback for whatever reason, hold it over for a month. These results tell us nothing apart from the fact that a few readers thought Rocklynne’s story the worst (and the Kuttner too, surprisingly).

7. Campbell gave Swisher more detail about Boucher’s book in a letter dated October 21^st (Fantasy Commentator #59/60):

“I guess ya got [Rocket to the Morgue]. [. . .] For ‘Austin Carter’ read Bob Heinlein; for ‘D. Vance Wimpole’ read L. Ron Hubbard, but it’s somewhat distorted; White never met him. only heard about him through others. The outstanding fact that White did get right is that he’s unquestionably a major personality—as you know. For ‘Hilary Foulkes’ read A. Conan Doyle’s son (Adrian). For Lt. Marshall read A.P. White and family. For Duncan, read Cleve Cartmill. For Joe Henderson read Edmond Hamilton, 10% and Jack Williamson, 90%. For Phynn read Schwartz (Julius). Veronica was based on a gal that tried to make Jack damned unhappy, to the immense anger of the Manana Literary Society. About 50% of the yarn is straight reporting, and 90% of the gags are. Some had to be cleaned up. The one about the spider’s blood was pulled by Jack Williamson, only he said ‘subconscious conviction vaginae have teeth.’ You can keep the proofs long enough to read, but ship ’em back when finished, please. You’ll have to have the book for the collection anyway.” p. 144 ●