{"id":11828,"date":"2019-12-28T11:54:40","date_gmt":"2019-12-28T11:54:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=11828"},"modified":"2019-12-28T14:52:45","modified_gmt":"2019-12-28T14:52:45","slug":"astounding-science-fiction-v32n06-february-1944","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=11828","title":{"rendered":"Astounding Science-Fiction v32n06, February 1944"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

ISFDB<\/a>
\nArchive.org<\/a><\/p>\n

Other reviews:1<\/sup>
\nAlva Rogers, A Requiem for Astounding<\/em>\u00a0 p. 129-134<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

Editor, John W. Campbell Jr.; Assistant Editor, Catherine Tarrant<\/p>\n

Fiction:
\nOff the Beam<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by George O. Smith \u2217\u2217<\/strong>
\nThough Dreamers Die<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Lester del Rey \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nPlague <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 novelette by Murray Leinster –
\nTaboo <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 short story by Fritz Leiber \u2217<\/strong>
\nThe Anarch<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Malcolm Jameson \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nCatch That Rabbit<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Isaac Asimov –<\/p>\n

Non-fiction:
\nCover <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 by William Timmins
\nInterior artwork<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by Paul Orban (x5), Smith (x2), A. Williams (x8)
\nPractically Nothing<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 editorial by John W. Campbell, Jr.
\nIn Times to Come
\nSensory Range<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 science essay
\nBrass Tacks<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 letters
\n\u201cEyes to See\u201d<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 science essay
\nUniverses to Order<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 science essay by John R. Pierce [as by J. J. Coupling]
\nThe Plurality of Worlds <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 science essay by Willy Ley
\nThe Analytical Laboratory: December 1943<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Off the Beam<\/em><\/strong> by George O. Smith is another of his \u2018Venus Equilateral\u2019 series, and it opens with Don Channing (the relay station\u2019s Director of Communications) on a spaceship trip to Earth. When he receives a telegram from Venus Equilateral<\/em> he has a short conversation with the steward, speculating that one day they\u2019ll be able to reply to the station: this exchange telegraphs the story\u2019s arc (one of the previous stories dealt with the reverse problem, of Venus Equilateral\u2019<\/em>s inability to urgently contact a ship in flight).
\nShortly after their exchange the ship is hit by a meteor which damages the engine controls. The ship undergoes a 10g acceleration for ten hours and they fly past Earth.
\nWhen Channing recovers consciousness he explores the ship and finds many casualties and\u00a0 fatalities floating around in the now zero gee spaceship. He goes to the surgery and finds the ship\u2019s doctor patching up some injured nurses, before going down to the engineering section. Channing finds the repair crews trying to get the normal lighting back on, as well as restoring artificial gravity by decelerating the ship.
\nThe rest of the story (spoiler) is a nuts and bolts (or anode and cathode) account of how Channing and crew turn the ship into a massive electron gun which will fire a crude communication beam at Venus Equilateral<\/em>. Some of the scientific detail I understood, some of it I didn\u2019t (the explanation about the ship\u2019s speed and where they think they are heading made no sense). The story does, however, give you an idea of the vast distances covered a high gee acceleration.
\nThis story is no worse and no better than the others in the series.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Though Dreamers Die<\/em><\/strong> by Lester del Rey has a dull \u2018man waking up\u2019 beginning which eventually reveals that Jorgen the narrator is on a spaceship, and is being revived by five robots. We learn he is the only human left alive on the ship as the other passengers have succumbed to a plague that killed all human life in the solar system. Later on in the story we find that Jorgen has early signs of the disease too, so the ship\u2019s flight has been in vain.
\nWhen the robots discover a habitable planet the decision is made to land:<\/p>\n

It was in many ways a world superior to that his race had always known, remarkably familiar, with even a rough resemblance between plant forms here and those he had known. They had come past five suns and through ninety years of travel at nearly the speed of light to a haven beyond their wildest imaginings, where all seemed to be waiting them, untenanted but prepared.
\nOutside, the new world waited expectantly. And inside, to meet that invitation, there were only ghosts and emptied dreams, with one slowly dying man to see and to appreciate. The gods had prepared their grim jest with painful attention to every detail needed to make it complete.\u00a0 p. 46-47<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

They land near a perfect natural harbour, and (robot) Five describes a vision of the city that could have been built there. Jorgen then realises that man\u2019s dream will only live on through the robots, so he orders them to forget humankind and build their own civilization. He later leaves on the ship but, just before that, there is a moving scene where he notices that Five has kept a picture of the planets of the solar system. Quite a good mood piece.
\nI\u2019ve mentioned before that del Rey seems to be two writers in one: the first does more sober and (comparatively) literary pieces like this story, The Faithful<\/em> (Astounding<\/em>, April 1938), and Whom the Gods Love<\/em> (Astounding<\/em>, June 1943); the second does stories like Nerves<\/em> (Astounding<\/em>, September 1942).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Plague <\/em><\/strong>by Murray Leinster begins with a reserve officer called Ben Sholto\u2014dishonourably transferred for using his common sense rather than blindly following orders\u2014contacted by the space service, his previous employers, and put back on active duty. He is told to report any ship trying to leave a quarantined planet called Pharona. When he sees one he contacts HQ, who dispatch a destroyer as Sholto\u2019s ship is unarmed. Meanwhile, Sholto establishes contact with the fugitive ship, and finds that his ex-girlfriend is on it.
\nThis is a slick start to the story but thereafter it goes downhill, partly due to the long digressions at the start of each chapter that show how stupidly bureaucratic the administration has become. All of this is done in a smart-alecky style reserved for paper-pushers by SF writers:<\/p>\n

A space cruiser resignedly took up post in an orbit about the dark star Lambda Bootes. It would circle that star for six months and be relieved. Forty years before, a subcommissioner had intended to change cruisers at that place, and commanded that one be there to meet him. He had later changed his plan of travel, but there was no order to withdraw the cruiser posted at the rendezvous. The first cruiser asked for relief after six months of utterly useless waiting.
\nIt was relieved by a cruiser under orders to take its place. Seventy-eight cruisers, in turn, had uselessly swung about the dark star for six months each because of an order given forty years before and never rescinded.\u00a0 p. 71<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The other major drawback is the story\u2019s ridiculous plot, which involves Sholto\u2019s ex-girlfriend, Sally, having the plague (which causes her to glow due to some radioactive or energy effect). Eventually, Sholto realises that the plague isn\u2019t a disease but that an alien has taken up residence in her. As he tries to exorcise the alien, there is much pseudoscientific gibberish involving positrons, electrons, and insulated chairs.
\nThe story comes to a head when the Navy catch up with Sholto (now under a sentence of death for some earlier misdemeanour) just as he is away to transmit the cure to the rest of the Galaxy.
\nAn awful story.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Taboo <\/em><\/strong>by Fritz Leiber begins with a bit of a Gather, Darkness!<\/em> vibe, when an outlaw called Arnine seeks sanctuary at the Outsiders, a pseudo-religious order that has renounced the benefits of atomic power and the universal transmutators. Although these latter should have made Earth a paradise, it is in an almost post-holocaust state.
\nSeafor, the chief of the Outsiders, then finds a young boy of noble birth outside. Although the boy had previously been kidnapped by Arnine, he also demands refuge. Then the boy\u2019s father turns up, demanding his release . . . .
\nThis has an interesting background but the story isn\u2019t developed, and it comes to a juddering halt. Disappointing.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Last year I was particularly impressed by Malcolm Jameson\u2019s story Blind Alley<\/em> (Unknown Worlds<\/em>, June 1943) and, for the majority of its length, I thought that The Anarch<\/em><\/strong> was going to be its equal.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The story starts with Medical Inspector Garrison, who is struggling to issue a death certificate for a patient who has died from a condition that is supposed to be treatable:<\/p>\n

He was in no ordinary dilemma, and was beginning to know it. It was more a being caught between two opposing sets of antlers bristling with scores of prickly points. The death, as far as that went, of the obscure Leona McWhisney meant nothing to a seasoned doctor. People were dying at Sanitar all the time. But they were dying in approved ways that could be reported on approved forms. Her departure from the normal played hob with the whole Autarchian set-up. Garrison groaned aloud, for he was, until that moment, a thoroughly indoctrinated, obedient, unthinking cog in the vast bureaucracy that was Autarchia. Not once in the thirty years of his life until then had the Code failed him. He had never doubted for an instant that that wonderful document was the omniscient, infallible, unquestionable guide to human behavior. It was unthinkable that he could doubt it now. And yet\u2014
\nYet Leona McWhisney was dead.\u00a0 p. 124<\/p>\n

But there were only three forms [. . .], for there were only three possible ways for an Autarchian to die. The most common\u2014reportable on the gray form\u2014was by euthanasia after recommendation of a board of gerocomists, and approved by the Bureau of Population Control. Elderly citizens beyond further salvage, or those in excess of the Master Plan were disposed of in this fashion. Then there was the yellow form that was employed when violent accidents occurred. Even the all-wise framers of the Code had not known how to recapitate or re-embowel a citizen thus torn apart. Last of all there was provided the scarlet form for the use of the executioner at Penal House after the monitors had finished dealing with dissenters. That one was on the road to obsolescence, for in recent generations there had been few who refused to abide by the Code, or scoffed at it. The trait of rebelliousness had been pretty well bred out of the race.\u00a0 p. 125<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Garrison then goes to the diagnostat department to get the dead patient\u2019s diagnosis confirmed; while he is there, the technician tells him of a number of similar fatalities from supposedly non-fatal illnesses.
\nWhen Garrison goes to the mess hall for food that evening, there is an announcement that puts this story solidly into proto-1984<\/em> territory:<\/p>\n

A fanfare of trumpets warned that something big and unusual was about to come through. He got to his feet and stood at attention. A uniformed figure appeared on the screen.
\n\u201cBy order of his supremacy, the Autarch,\u201d he proclaimed in a deep, sonorous voice. \u201cEffective immediately, those provisions of the Social and Penal Code requiring attendance during Renovation Hour at Social Halls is suspended for officials of C.I. one-thirty or better. Such officers may attend or not, as they choose\u2014\u201d
\nGarrison blinked. He had never heard the word \u201cchoose\u201d before and had but the faintest idea of what it might mean. More obscure ones were to follow.
\n\u201cIf they so elect, they may stay within their own quarters or visit other officers of similar rank in theirs. Restrictions as to topics of conversation are lifted during this period. Officers will not be required to discuss assigned cultural subjects, but may talk freely on any topic they prefer. Monitors will make note of this alteration in the Codes.
\n\u201cThe order has been published. Carry on.\u201d
\nThe light failed, and with it the figure on the screen. Garrison continued to stand for about a minute, entirely at sea as to what the communication he had just heard meant. Such words as \u201celect,\u201d \u201cchoose,\u201d and \u201cprefer\u201d had long since become obsolete if not actually forbidden. The concept of choice was wholly absent under the autocracy. It never occurred to one that there could be such a thing\u2014it was inconsistent with orderly life. One simply obeyed the Code, which always said \u201cyou shall.\u201d To think of anything different was rank heresy and treason, and subject to the severest penalties. Garrison puzzled over the order a moment and gave it up. No doubt there would be further clarification later. Perhaps the Propag lecturer of the evening would have a word to say about it. The order would be carried out of course, but to Garrison\u2019s well-disciplined mind it had the bad fault of ambiguity.\u00a0 pp. 129-130<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Later in the story, Garrison takes an elevated monorail home to his dorm. As he travels over the fields below he sees they are blighted. When Garrison notices an unusually healthy section, a senior medic sitting behind him starts a conversation about the similarities between the problems in the fields below and the growing number of medical problems in the larger population. Garrison is scared by the treasonous nature of these comments, but his bluster is met by the senior medic\u2019s revelation that his heart is failing and he likely faces euthanasia at an imminent board hearing. Before they part, he tells Garrison that a man called Clevering is the agronomist in charge of the healthy section of field.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

That evening at the social hour, no-one is brave enough to talk freely about the problems that their society faces.
\nThe next day Garrison goes to work and finds a surge in admissions\u2014and notices Clevering\u2019s name among them. Garrison finds the agronimist close to death but, before he dies, Garrision finds out that he has conducted illegal agricultural research, and that he also has a small library of forbidden books. After Clevering dies, Garrison goes to recover them:<\/p>\n

The book he came to love most of all was a very slim one\u2014a little volume on \u201cLiberty\u201d by a John Stuart Mill. His limited vocabulary troubled him much at first, but he shrewdly arrived at the meanings of such words as \u201cchoice\u201d and \u201cfreedom\u201d by considering the context. He discovered to his delight that there were shades between good and bad. There were the words \u201cbetter\u201d and \u201cbest\u201d as well as the bare, unqualified \u201cgood.\u201d\u00a0 p. 141<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Garrison starts making experimental drugs and treats his patients with them. Eventually, he begins to cure them. Then the Monitors come for him.
\nThe next part of the story involves his torture and maltreatment by the Monitors, which, initially, ties in with the previous arc of the story. The rest of it though, where Garrison is taken to see the Autarch,2<\/sup> is where everything falls flat.
\nGarrison is questioned by the supreme leader, and does not mince his words when asked about what is wrong with the system. However, after a few pages of mildly adversarial talking heads material about democracy, etc., they end up working together. The story ends with them issuing conflicting codes, to force people to learn to think for themselves, and to compromise.
\nThis ending is unconvincingly consensual (as well as being far too talky) but, for most of its length, this story is a very good piece about totalitarian society, and covers much of the same subject matter as George Orwell\u2019s later 1984<\/em> (life in a regimented society, methods of control, what happens to language, etc.) The Autarch<\/em> is worth reading, if only to gain an appreciation of what this writer might have produced had he not died of cancer in his early fifties.3<\/sup><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t much like the last \u2018Donovan & Powell\u2019 story from Isaac Asimov that I read, and thought even less of Catch That Rabbit<\/em><\/strong>. In this one the pair are on a mining asteroid where Dave the robot (who is running six subsidiary units) periodically goes into a fugue state which causes him to march the robots up and down the tunnels. Eventually, and after a lot of theorising, and a contrived situation which puts the two men in peril, we find the problem is that (spoiler) Dave giving orders to six other robots causes a malfunction, but giving orders to five doesn\u2019t. The reader has no chance of working this out before the solution is presented on a plate.
\nThe story is also hugely padded, and has completely unconvincing dialogue and interaction (you sometimes wonder if Asimov had ever listened to anyone other than obnoxious teenagers):<\/p>\n

Michael Donovan\u2019s face went beety, \u201cFor the love of Pete, Greg, get realistic. What\u2019s the use of adhering to the letter of the specifications and watching the test go to pot? It\u2019s about time you got the red tape out of your pants and went to work.\u201d\u00a0 p. 159<\/p>\n

Powell groaned heavily behind a noticeably insincere smile. The unwritten motto of United States Robot and Mechanical Men Corp. was well-known: \u201cNo employee makes the same mistake twice. He is fired the first time.\u201d
\nAloud he said, \u201cYou\u2019re as lucid as Euclid with everything except facts. You\u2019ve watched that robot group for three shifts, you redhead, and they did their work perfectly. You said so yourself. What else can we do?\u201d\u00a0 p. 160<\/p>\n

Powell scowled at the ceiling and pulled at his brown mustache. \u201cI\u2019ll tell you what, Mike. We\u2019ve been stuck with pretty lousy jobs in our time, but this takes the iridium asteroid.\u201d\u00a0 p. 160<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Clunk, clunk, clunk. This one is just awful, even worse than the Leinster.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This issue\u2019s Cover <\/em><\/strong>by William Timmins (for Smith\u2019s story) is of interest for the combination of realistic and abstract elements (the diagrams and the tear at the bottom of the page). Timmins had flirted with this kind of thing on the June 1943 cover, and would use the technique again. It\u2019s a bit of a muddy affair nonetheless.
\nThe Interior artwork<\/em><\/strong> is again hobbled by the fact that it is mostly spot work. Out of the three artists that contribute to this issue\u2014Paul Orban, Smith, and A. Williams, the latter provides the best work (although even some of his is so-so; but the one on p. 132 is pretty good, as is the one on p. 99, which looks like a black and white Timmins).
\nSmith\u2019s and Orban\u2019s robots look very primitive and old-fashioned, and come from a future where they still use large rivets.
\nPractically Nothing<\/em><\/strong> by John W. Campbell, Jr. is in the editorial slot but is really a science essay that discusses the difficulty of testing equipment which requires a hard vacuum. It goes on to state that this would be easier on the Moon or in space.
\nIn Times to Come<\/em><\/strong> talks about the improbability of mankind falling victim to alien microorganisms before ceding that it may happen on rare occasions and cause mutations. This preamble introduces one of next month\u2019s stories, The Contract<\/em> by E. Mayne Hull (who Campbell refers to as \u201che\u201d funnily enough\u2014a slip of the tongue I presume, as I think he knew that the writer was A. E. van Vogt\u2019s wife).
\nSensory Range<\/em><\/strong> is a half-page filler about the human auditory range, and suggests that, \u201cThe inhabitants of alien planets may not be able to speak our language, but they\u2019ll hear it, and we\u2019ll hear theirs.\u201d
\nThe Brass Tacks<\/em><\/strong> column contains four letters this month, including two from future SF writers Chan Davis and Frank Robinson.
\nDavis, of Sandwich, Mass., opens the column with his likes and dislikes (currently, his ratings are letters, he hasn\u2019t yet graduated to the later 1 to 10 scale with decimals): he gives the August instalment of Moore\u2019s Judgement Night<\/em> an A+, and Leiber\u2019s The Mutant\u2019s Brother<\/em> an A.
\nVirgil Utter,4<\/sup> of Modesto, CA, also liked Moore\u2019s piece best, and had this to say:<\/p>\n

For her first stf epic Miss Moore has outdone herself. By far the most beautiful piece of writing this year has produced; better even than the marvelous \u201cThere Shall Be Darkness.\u201d My favorite science-fiction stories embody certain little fantasy suggestions as are in this story. Little things like the ilar and its behavior, the visit to Cyrille\u2014that was a real thrill!\u2014and all the tiny fantasies that transpired there, and I especially enjoy going down into some deep underground passage that simultaneously holds so much of death and an equal amount of life. These are perfect touches, but they alone could not sell me on a story so completely. Moore has dug up a rather ancient plot, smoothed it into a new setting, and shined it up like new. The wonderful description is, to be VERY trite, out of this world.\u00a0 p. 96<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Frank M. Robinson, of Sacremento, IL, also thought highly of Moore\u2019s novel (\u201coutstanding\u201d) and liked the other stories too. However, he criticises the artwork:<\/p>\n

With Rogers gone, your covers have slipped tremendously. With Schneeman gone, so have your interior drawings. Williams\u2014or Kolliker\u2014is simply ng. Ditto for Orban and Fax. Kramer is so-so. One could hope for eventual inclusion of Virgil Finlay, Leydenfrost, Charles Chickering, or practically anybody else besides the Fax-Kolliker-Kramer-Orban-and-Williams quintuplets.\u00a0 p. 98<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He then asks about the future publishing plans of Street & Smith:<\/p>\n

As a humble request: May we expect Astounding<\/em>\u2014and likewise Unknown<\/em>\u2014to return to the large-size magazine after the war is over and the paper shortage remedied? At least, here\u2019s hoping.\u00a0 p. 98<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Campbell replies:<\/p>\n

Ye Ed is doing no more prophesying for the duration; Astounding<\/em> and Unknown<\/em> may reappear in large size A. T. W., but don\u2019t quote me! At present, paper is so tight, and gets tighter so suddenly, that the October Unknown<\/em> carries an editorial about the new, small-size Unknown<\/em>\u2014but, after that issue was printed, our paper was cut again. Sorry\u2014there won\u2019t be any new Unknown<\/em>\u00a0for the duration! So I quit prophecy.\u00a0 p. 97<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The last letter is from John Samuel, from Evanston, IL, and comments further on the early meat replacement research I mentioned in an earlier review:<\/p>\n

About that yeast\u2014it has been my good (?) fortune to taste some of it. The biochemistry department of the University of Illinois tried out some of the Anheuser-Busch product on its students this summer. It tastes quite well undiluted\u2014much like sodium glutamate, which is like a poor imitation of chicken soup. But it is dry and salty, and when diluted it is rather nauseating. However, it can undoubtedly be improved. As to its effects\u2014none in particular except it increases purine metabolism\u2014i.e., uric acid output.
\nI think readers of Astounding<\/em> might like to know about this first nonagricultural food.\u00a0 p. 98<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cEyes to See\u201d<\/em><\/strong> is a short photo essay about x-ray and electron microscopes, which is followed by Universes to Order<\/em><\/strong> by John R. Pierce, an eye-glazingly dull piece about electron multipliers and amplifiers.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Plurality of Worlds <\/em><\/strong>by Willy Ley is about the development of various cosmological theories, most of which are concerned with the construction of the solar system and the relative positions of Earth, Sun, planets and stars.
\nAt the end of the article there is a mention of the discovery of a third extra solar planet and that, at the time of writing, there is no theory if planetary formation.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Analytical Laboratory: December 1943 <\/em><\/strong>was discussed in the review of that issue, although I\u2019m happy to moan once more about Anthony Boucher\u2019s We Print the Truth<\/em> coming in second (and not winning last year\u2019s Retro Hugo for novella).5<\/sup><\/p>\n

A very mixed issue with some poor work from name writers. Worth digging out for the Jameson, though.\u00a0 \u25cf<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

1. Alva Rogers hasn\u2019t got anything to say about this issue in A Requiem for Astounding<\/em>, but he does have something to say about the year:<\/p>\n

Of all the years commonly considered Golden, 1944 was the least memorable; the outstanding stories that were published only pointed up the disappointing quality of the bulk of what was left. In some respects, 1944 can be regarded as a bridge between two peaks; the peak 1940 to 1943, and the peak 1945 to 1950. At any rate, the slump was short lived and things began to pick up considerably from 1945 on.\u00a0 p. 134<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

2. I\u2019m not sure why Jameson\u2019s story is called The Anarch<\/em> when the references in the story are to \u201cThe Autarch\u201d.<\/p>\n

3. Malcolm Jameson\u2019s Wikipedia page<\/a>. If I\u2019m ever in New York, I\u2019ll lay some flowers at his grave<\/a>.<\/p>\n

4. Virgil Utter later wrote various non-fiction pieces, as well as compiling a few bibliographies (including Moore and Kuttner among others). His ISFDB page is here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

5. The Analytical Laboratory<\/em> results for this issue appeared in the June 1944 edition (late, according to Campbell, due to publication schedule changes):<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At least the readers got the first and last places right, even if the Leinster snuck by them.\u00a0 \u25cf<\/p>\n\"rss\"<\/a>\"rss\"<\/a><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ISFDB Archive.org Other reviews:1 Alva Rogers, A Requiem for Astounding\u00a0 p. 129-134 _____________________ Editor, John W. Campbell Jr.; Assistant Editor, Catherine Tarrant Fiction: Off the Beam \u2022 novelette by George O. Smith \u2217\u2217 Though Dreamers Die \u2022 novelette by Lester del Rey \u2217\u2217\u2217 Plague \u2022 novelette by Murray Leinster – Taboo \u2022 short story by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astounding"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pcj7-34M","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11828"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11844,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11828\/revisions\/11844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}