{"id":12311,"date":"2020-02-23T10:51:34","date_gmt":"2020-02-23T10:51:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=12311"},"modified":"2020-02-23T12:27:06","modified_gmt":"2020-02-23T12:27:06","slug":"astounding-science-fiction-v33n03-may-1944","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=12311","title":{"rendered":"Astounding Science-Fiction v33n03, May 1944"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Summary:
\nThis is a lacklustre issue whose only highlight is the first part of E. Mayne Hull & A. E. van Vogt\u2019s serial, The Winged Man<\/em>, an entertaining adventure that features a US military submarine and crew transported one million years into the future!
\nNoteworthy is the first of Clifford Simak\u2019s \u2018City\u2019 series, City<\/em> and the debut of A. Bertram Chandler. There is also a second \u2018Plutonian Ring\u2019 story by George O. Smith, Latent Image<\/em>, and stories by Frederic Brown and P. Schuyler Miller among others.
\nThe science article by Campbell is about a discovery that wasn\u2019t: Ehrenhaft\u2019s magnetic monopoles. There is no Analytical Laboratory<\/em> in this issue due to lack of room and of letters (Campbell states he will change the publication schedule of this department to allow time for more letters to arrive).
\n[ISFDB page<\/a>] [Archive.org copy<\/a>]<\/p>\n

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

_____________________<\/p>\n

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

Fiction:
\n\u201cLatent Image\u201d<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by George O. Smith [as by Wesley Long] \u2217<\/strong>
\n\u201cThis Means War!\u201d<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by A. Bertram Chandler \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nThe Winged Man<\/em><\/strong> (Part 1 of 2) \u2022 novella serial by E. Mayne Hull and A. E. van Vogt [as by E. Mayne Hull] \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>+
\nThe Yehudi Principle<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Fredric Brown \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nCuckoo <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 novelette by P. Schuyler Miller \u2217<\/strong>
\nHouse of Tomorrow <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 short story by Roby Wentz \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>+
\nCity <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 novelette by Clifford D. Simak \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nEnvironment <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 short story by Chester S. Geier \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong><\/p>\n

Non-fiction:
\nCover <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 by William Timmins
\nInterior artwork<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by Paul Orban (x12), A. Williams (x13), Alfred (x2)
\nSandwich for Nazis<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 editorial by John W. Campbell, Jr.
\nIn Times to Come
\nPower <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 science essay
\nBeachhead for Science<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 essay by John W. Campbell, Jr.
\nBrass Tacks<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 letters<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

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\u201cLatent Image\u201d<\/em><\/strong> by George O. Smith is a sequel to March\u2019s Circle of Confusion<\/em>, and starts with McBride on Mars getting the news that his pregnant wife Enid (who is back home on the Plutonian Lens) has had a fall. Unfortunately for McBride the regular ship has just left and the next one isn\u2019t due in for five days. After making enquiries he finds there is an experimental ship, Haywire Queen<\/em>, that will take him to the Lens if he helps them finish their repairs. This leads to vast quantities of explainium:<\/p>\n

But look, Hammond, have you tried the magnetogravitic spectrum yet?\u201d
\n\u201cNo. That was our next program.\u201d
\n\u201cI\u2019d have tried that first,\u201d mused McBride. \u201cKnowing that the drive depends upon the action of a cupraluin bar under high magnetic density plus an electrogravitic warp, I should think that the close relationship between the magnetic and electronic phenomena would lead you to try the mag-grav first.\u201d
\n\u201cI didn\u2019t want to start at the top,\u201d said Hammond dryly. \u201cIn spite of the fact that Dr. Ellson claimed to have discovered a region in the mag-grav spectrum that produced a faint success.\u201d
\n\u201cWell, what I\u2019m thinking is that we can rip up the E-grav generator and use the field coil for the alphatron. It\u2019ll carry electrons as well as it carries alphons, you know.\u201d
\n\u201cBetter,\u201d said Hammond. \u201cBut what do we use for an E-grav?\u201d
\n\u201cFirst we\u2019ll hunt up through the spectrum of the magnetogravitic spectrum. If that doesn\u2019t work, we can add the warp produced by your mech-grav, run from the lifeship\u2019s little alphatron. Right?\u201d
\n\u201cIt\u2019s an idea. Seems to me that I\u2019ve heard somewhere that the combined warps of magneto- and mechanogravitic produces some vectors in the electrogravitic spectrum.\u201d\u00a0 p. 11<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It never fails to amaze me how Campbell lets Smith gets away with pages and pages of this unreadable drivel in his stories.
\nAnyway, the rest of the tale sees McBride meet the crew, and they figure out a plan to repair the ship. Then McBride learns that Hammond, the captain, has hired a pilot called Sandra Drake\u2014the reckless, headstrong, and gobby young woman who crashed through the lens in the first story. When she arrives there is much shouty arguing with the equally gobby McBride before she eventually agrees to fly the ship to get her licence back.<\/p>\n

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The trip itself is beset with unexplained acceleration changes caused by the repaired drive\u2014this increases up to seven gee before returning to normal and repeating the cycle again. After more explanium they fix the problem and, after a modification suggested by Drake, find themselves travelling at trans-light speeds.
\nDrake arrives at the Lens station to save the day (the mere sight of him is enough to pull his wife through her pregnancy crisis), and the story ends with him arguing with Drake about who should pilot the ship to Earth (\u201cI\u2019m not going to let any idiot male handle the Haywire Queen<\/em>, and don\u2019t you forget it!\u201d)
\nNot so much a story as a collection of bad habits.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThis Means War!\u201d<\/em><\/strong> by A. Bertram Chandler is the debut of a long term contributor to the SF magazines, and tells of an amphibious alien submariner\u2019s visit to the oceans of Earth with his fleet. This largely consists of his account of the hostilities unleashed on them by WWII surface fleets, submarines, and aircraft. The story ends with the alien council which is receiving his report (spoiler) declaring war on Earth.
\nThis is a readable enough, if rather too straightforward story, and shows some promise for the future.<\/p>\n

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The best thing in this decidedly middling issue is the first part of The Winged Man<\/em><\/strong> by E. Mayne Hull and A. E. van Vogt. This opens on the a US submarine on its way to the battle with Japan, with the first officer, Kenlon, on duty in the coning tower. He sees a large bird in the night sky, and phones the third officer, Tedder, to quiz him about it. After the call Kenlon sees this:<\/p>\n

A shadow darkened the face of the moon. Kenlon, on the verge of turning away, glanced up again. Then he gasped. And caught the railing and glared like a madman.
\nPlainly silhouetted against the moon was the figure of a tall man with wings. The wings were only partly spread; and they were not moving. He seemed to be poised there like a creature out of a nightmare, black as only a shadowed outline could be. Intently he stared down towards Kenlon.
\nFor a long instant, that was the picture, like a \u201cstill\u201d taken at night. And then, the legs drew up, the body lost its manlike resemblance. A great bird swooped out of the path of the moon into the covering darkness.\u00a0 p. 39<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Events develop quickly in the next part of the story: Tedder comes up to see Kenlon and, as they are speaking, the Quartermaster arrives and points to a winged man on the deck. The creature attaches what looks like a metal plate to the hull, and the men rush down in an effort to capture him but, after a brief struggle, he escapes into the sky.
\nAt this point the sub\u2019s commander, Jones-Gordon, gets involved, and he and Kenlon discuss the \u201cbomb\u201d attached to the deck and how to get rid of it. On closer examination the metal disc appears to be an electronic device but, no matter what the crew try, it remains attached to the boat. Then the winged man lands again, and attaches a device at the opposite end; this time they capture him (or, as we later find out, he allows himself to be captured).
\nDuring the interrogation of the winged man Kenlon discovers that he speaks no known language, but draws a picture of the submarine with its hatches battened down. After some more back and forth Kenlon realises that the sub may be in danger, and rushes up to the deck crew, ordering the hatches shut behind him. There is a bright light, and he finds himself underwater for a time, before surfacing in a roiling sea alongside three of the four other men. The submarine appears shortly afterwards and takes them on board.<\/p>\n

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The second part of this instalment involves further interrogation of the prisoner, who communicates to them that the submarine is now a million years in the future. There are also drawings of a city floating in the air above the sea, whose winged occupants are fighting something underneath. At this point the lookout sights land, and a boat is sent to investigate. This reveals, when the team lose a man, that the mud near the shore is like quicksand, and that the ground is the same.
\nA month later, by which time they have taught the birdman\u2014who is called Nemmo\u2014to speak English, they learn this quicksand effect is due to a strange rain that came from space. This robbed solid material of its ability to stick together (and also raised the sea-level, which is why the submarine and deck crew arrived here underwater).
\nThe rest of the Q&A session has Nemmo explain that the groundmen (who are now dead) made the birdmen and the fishmen to ensure the survival of humanity, but that these two races are now at war. Nemmo states that if the submarine destroys the fishmen\u2019s metal underwater city for the birdmen, they can return to their own time.<\/p>\n

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The installment finishes with the submarine arriving at the birdmen\u2019s eyrie. As they arrive the fishmen come out of the sea and take Jones-Gordon overboard.
\nIf this all seems like a typical fast-paced van Vogtian adventure, it is, but it is much more than that too. For one thing the plotting is more considered and less wild than in some of van Vogt\u2019s stories, and it is also more smoothly written (van Vogt\u2019s prose is sometimes notably crude and ungainly). There is also an atypical amount of character observation: throughout the piece Kenlon frequently assesses his commander Jones-Gordon to see how he is coping with the strange events they are experiencing and, in the early part of the story, worries that he does not appreciate the implications of the winged man\u2019s existence. However, Jones-Gordon frequently transcends Kenlon\u2019s expectations, perhaps most notably in this later passage:<\/p>\n

Jones-Gordon stood staring out to sea, his heavy face almost expressionless. Kenlon recognized the fatalistic look that finally came into the lieutenant commander\u2019s eyes. The officer said in a curiously quiet voice:
\n\u201cIf our situation is as this creature described, then we are, so far as the United States Navy is concerned, an expended unit. By that statement you will see that I take no stock in their promise to return us to 1944 when we have accomplished this ridiculous purpose of theirs. I think we are justified in assuming that we are lost men, and are, therefore, free of all constraint and all the petty alarms of men who still retain hope.\u201d
\nHe stopped; and Kenlon sighed inwardly. Like all human beings, Jones-Gordon could not be docketted into one pigeonhole. Practical he might be, but in this mood his character changed almost literally. Somehow, long ago, the lieutenant commander had resigned himself to death. It had made him utterly fearless, cool and unexcitable in battle, the perfect commander. It was theoretically possible that all the men who went down to the sea in submarines should similarly surrender themselves to a destiny with death. But they hadn\u2019t. Kenlon hadn\u2019t. In battle, his nerves tensed to violin-string tautness; his mind was as cold as the metal plates of the sub in which he served; his calmness the artificial calm of the trained man who has a job to do, and does it.
\nBut he feared death. Sometimes at night he would wake up sweating from a dream in which they had been sunk, and the water was pouring in with a hellishly final violence.\u00a0 p. 65<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There is convincing evidence to suggest that \u201cE. Mayne Hull\u201d was little more than a pseudonym for A. E. van Vogt2<\/sup> but, reading the passage above, I wonder. The far-future plot and elements certainly seem to be typical of van Vogt, but the writing above? Did E. Mayne Hull (van Vogt\u2019s wife) perhaps write the story based on her husband\u2019s outline?<\/p>\n

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The Yehudi Principle<\/em><\/strong> by Fredric Brown starts with Charlie Swann demonstrating a newly invented device to the narrator:<\/p>\n

\u201cDoes what?\u201d I wanted to know.
\nThe dingbat, I might interrupt myself to explain, was a headband.
\nIt fitted neatly around Charlie\u2019s noggin and there was a round black box not much bigger than a pillbox over his forehead. Also there was a round flat copper disk on each side of the band that fitted over each of Charlie\u2019s temples, and a strand of wire that ran down behind his ear into the breast pocket of his coat, where there was a little drycell battery.
\nIt didn\u2019t look like it would do anything, except maybe either cure a headache or make it worse. But from the excited look on Charlie\u2019s face, I didn\u2019t think it was anything so commonplace as that.
\n\u201cDoes what?\u201d I wanted to know.
\n\u201cWhatever you want,\u201d said Charlie. \u201cWithin reason, of course. Not like moving a building or bringing you a locomotive. But any little thing you want done, he does it.\u201d
\n\u201cWho does?\u201d
\n\u201cYehudi.\u201d\u00a0 p. 69<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

After \u201cYehudi\u201d does various simple tasks for the pair\u2014drinks arrive, and are mixed\u2014Charlie explains that there really isn\u2019t a Yehudi completing these tasks but that the device is an \u201cautomatonic autosuggestive sub-vibratory superaccelerator\u201d, a device which allows the wearer to do the task incredibly quickly but not remember doing it (and this is why the wearer \u201cblurs\u201d for a second or too when using the device).
\nThe narrator then uses the device write a story in less than a second.
\nThis goes on for a while until a final scene where (spoiler) one of the two says \u201cshoot yourself\u201d. This is followed by a bang, and the device ceasing to function. There is then the realisation that Yehudi may have been doing the tasks, and that they have just killed him. The pair then notice the recently written story describes all these events, including the ones that happened after it was created . . . .
\nThis is metaphysically entertaining stuff, but you cannot escape the fact that the author continually moves the goalposts (Yehudi to \u201caccelerator\u201d to Yehudi), and then tacks an ending that has little to do with the rest of the piece.3<\/sup><\/p>\n

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Cuckoo <\/em><\/strong>by P. Schuyler Miller is initially told from the viewpoint of Commander Jeff Norcross of the Triplanetary Space Patrol, the unwilling officer in charge of the Morgan Wildlife Preserve on Venus. The story gets going (as much as it ever does) when he and his assistant Hall host two professors at a dinner party:<\/p>\n

Professor W. Ouderkirk Simms led the procession. He would have come to Hall\u2019s shoulder if he had cared to stand on tiptoe to try it.
\nThe top of his head had been planted with a stiff white herbage of about the length and distribution of the green variety which one occasionally saw growing from the skulls of plaster Hibernians in florists\u2019 windows back on Earth. His face was pink, pear-shaped, and full of little wrinkles, and his eyes were bright and beady. He had a nose as long and as sharp as Norcross\u2019 own hawkish beak, and a series of punctured chins draped one behind the other in descending sequence above a neat bow tie. He was wearing the formal professorial garb of the previous century\u2014stiff shirt front, high collar, and flapping tails. He had a row of medals pinned unevenly over the breast pocket of his rather rusty coat.
\nBehind the little professor loomed a female whom Norcross took to be C. Virginia Banning\u2014and his eyes glittered with wicked satisfaction as he sized her up. She had long red hair, cut raggedly to shoulder length, apparently with a kitchen knife on a bread board. It streamed out in all directions as though each separate filament were highly charged and repelling every other one. Her face was her own, and she was balancing pince-nez precariously on a nose which did nothing whatever to supply them with an adequate foundation. She was broad of shoulder, long of leg, and massive of contour, and she had dressed to display her squareness and massiveness to the greatest if not the best advantage.\u00a0 p. 81<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This passage illustrates the story\u2019s semi-farcical tone and general bagginess. The rest of the story, largely told from second-in-command Hall\u2019s point of view, involves: a \u201cwhippersnapper\u201d nest with a \u201ccuckoo\u2019s\u201d egg in it; Hall shooting down a drone above the reservation and discovering an embedded Geiger counter; the cuckoo hatching from its shell, and the latter found to be made of pure U235; and (spoiler) both professors\u2019 involvement in the discovery of a uranium lode in a new part of the reserve.
\nOr something like that\u2014I rather lost interest in this unlikely and padded tale half-way through. It is hard to believe that this one came from the author of the fast-paced and lean The Cave<\/em> (Astounding<\/em>, January 1943).<\/p>\n

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House of Tomorrow <\/em><\/strong>by Roby Wentz is set in WWII Munich, where a schoolboy tells his master of the strange device that he has found in the vaults below. Eventually, the schoolmaster narrator goes down to see it:<\/p>\n

At first I saw nothing where he pointed in the gloom. Then, moving in the direction, I caught my first sight of it. I made out the lines of the hull first, then forgot them for the moment as the candlegleams touched the surfaces and flamed back in mirrored beauty from the brilliant surfaces of the most exquisitely fashioned sculpture or artifact of an inanimate object I have ever seen.
\nIt was a ship, or rather boat, yet modeled with the antique lines of an ancient galley, about the length and size of a modern canoe. What it was made from, I cannot tell: a lifetime as a teacher of physical science gives me no clue to the metal\u2014if it was metal\u2014of the object, it was silvery-smooth, more polished than the aluminum of an airplane wing, yet with an indescribable quality of depth\u2014as though one were gazing into water of incredible clarity.\u00a0 p. 121<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are more visits. During one of these the boy climbs in, grabs the controls, and promptly vanishes. Later, as the master searches for him, the ship reappears, piloted by a man who turns out to be a time-traveller from centuries earlier. He reveals himself as a member of a strange guild (the forerunners of Bacon and Galileo) that invented the time boat and other advanced devices. The man later says he is searching for three men from his guild who stole the boat to get to this time period: their descriptions match those of Hitler, Goering, and Goebbels. The narrator then agrees to lure them to the vault (by sending a letter with details of the machine, etc., to Berlin) in exchange for the safe return of the child.<\/p>\n

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The first part of this is a well written and atmospheric piece (I suspected a mainstream writer slumming4<\/sup>) but the second half is a more routine and melodramatic potboiler. Entertaining piece, though, although it would be better without the framing device of a future archaeologist finding and reading the narrator\u2019s account.<\/p>\n

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One of the highlights of Astounding<\/em> in 1944 and 1945 was Clifford Simak\u2019s \u2018City\u2019 series, which begins with the novelette City <\/em><\/strong>in this issue. The beginning of this story will, to those of us who have robot vacuum cleaners and the like, feel very contemporary:<\/p>\n

Gramp Stevens sat in a lawn chair, watching the mower at work, feeling the warm, soft sunshine seep into his bones. The mower reached the edge of the lawn, clucked to itself like a contented hen, made a neat turn and trundled down another swath. The bag holding the clippings bulged.
\nSuddenly the mower stopped and clicked excitedly. A panel in its side snapped open and a cranelike arm reached out. Grasping steel fingers fished around in the grass, came up triumphantly with a stone clutched tightly, dropped the stone into a small container, disappeared back into the panel again. The lawn mower gurgled, purred on again, following its swath.
\nGramp grumbled at it with suspicion.\u00a0 p. 117<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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When Gramp\u2019s friend Ole drives by in his car, he stops to talk. During this conversation we find that internal combustion cars are obsolescent, the roads unused, and towns and cities are largely abandoned. Gramps reflects further on these subjects when he later goes for a walk around the deserted neighbourhood:<\/p>\n

The years had moved too fast. Years that had brought the family plane and helicopter, leaving the auto to rust in some forgotten place, the unused roads to fall into disrepair. Years that had virtually wiped out the tilling of the soil with the rise of hydroponics. Years that had brought cheap land with the disappearance of the farm as an economic unit, had sent city people scurrying out into the country where each man, for less than the price of a city lot, might own broad acres.
\nYears that had revolutionized the construction of homes to a point where families simply walked away from their old homes to the new ones that could be bought, custom-made, for less than half the price of a prewar structure and could be changed at small cost, to accommodate need of additional space or just a passing whim.
\nGramp sniffed. Houses that could be changed each year, just like one would shift around the furniture. What kind of living was that?
\nHe plodded slowly down the dusty path that was all that remained of what a few years before had been a busy residential street. A street of ghosts, Gramp told himself\u2014of furtive, little ghosts that whispered in the night. Ghosts of playing children, ghosts of upset tricycles and canted coaster wagons. Ghosts of gossiping housewives. Ghosts of shouted greetings. Ghosts of flaming fireplaces and chimneys smoking of a winter night.
\nLittle puffs of dust rose around his feet and whitened the cuffs of his trousers.
\nThere was the old Adams place across the way. Adams had been mighty proud of it, he remembered. Gray field stone front and picture windows. Now the stone was green with creeping moss and the broken windows gaped with ghastly leer. Weeds choked the lawn and blotted out the stoop. An elm tree was pushing its branches against the gable.
\nGramp could remember the day Adams had planted that elm tree.
\nFor a moment he stood there in the grass-grown street, feet in the dust, both hands clutching the curve of his cane, eyes closed.
\nThrough the fog of years he heard the cry of playing children, the barking of Conrad\u2019s yapping pooch from down the street. And there was Adams, stripped to the waist, plying the shovel, scooping out the hole, with the elm tree, roots wrapped in burlap, lying on the lawn.
\nMay, 1946. Forty-four years ago. Just after he and Adams had come home from the war together.\u00a0 p. 141<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At that point a young man arrives and starts talking to Gramps. He eventually identifies himself as Adam\u2019s grandson, and he is there to visit the old house.<\/p>\n

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The next part of the story introduces Webster, who arrives at a city council meeting where there is an argument about burning empty houses to move squatters on and prevent crime. Webster quarrels with the other men, and loses his job, but he ends by giving a speech which says they should be glad the cities are dead, and people and industries dispersed, otherwise humanity would have perished in an atomic war.
\nAfter this long (largely talking heads) section, Webster goes to the Bureau for Human Adjustment, where Taylor, the man who interviews him, does more<\/em> talking about recent changes, and finishes by offering Webster a job.
\nThe rest of the tale (spoiler) concerns a stand-off between the police and Gramps and the squatters. This is resolved when Gramps and the grandson turn up at city hall to reveal that the grandson has bought all the houses that have unpaid taxes. He wants the city charter dissolved, and plans to turn the city into a museum to show people how their ancestors lived.
\nThere are some good parts in this story, such as the material about a transition to a post-capitalist society, but there\u2019s also a lot of speechifying and data-dumping, and the standoff at the end feels rather contrived. A middling start to a major series.<\/p>\n

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Environment <\/em><\/strong>by Chester S. Geier5<\/sup> has a spaceship arrive at a deserted alien city looking for previous settlers who have subsequently gone missing. As the two crew, Gaynor and Harlan, fly around in their anti-grav packs, they see what look like crystalline birds:<\/p>\n

As they flew, a small cloud of the aerial creatures flashed past. The things seemed to be intelligent, for, as though catching sight of the two men, they suddenly changed course, circling with a clearly evident display of excited curiosity. The crystalline chimings and tinklings which they emitted held an elfin note of astonishment.
\nIf astonishment it actually was, Gaynor and Harlan were equally amazed at close view of the creatures. For they were great, faceted crystals whose interiors flamed with glorious color\u2014exquisite rainbow shades that pulsed and changed with the throb of life. Like a carillon of crystal bells, their chimings and tinklings rang out\u2014so infinitely sweet and clear and plaintive that it was both a pain and a pleasure to hear.\u00a0 p. 164<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The pair land, and see a fountain decorated with a bas-relief showing humanoid creatures. They later find crystals inside the city\u2019s many apartments and, when they hold these, they have visions of ghostly furniture and machines, and get an inkling of something they can sense but cannot understand.<\/p>\n

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The rest of the story (spoiler) has them go through all the apartments in the city. During this process they turn into the aerial creatures they saw after landing:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Third Stage. The tasks will be very difficult, Wade\u2014but interesting. We\u2019ll be putting our knowledge into practice\u2014actually creating. This means we\u2019ll have to deal directly with the powers of the various soldani and varoo. As these are extradimensional, control will be solely by cholthening at the sixth level, through means of the taadron. We\u2019ll have to be careful, though\u2014any slightest relaxation of the sorran will have a garreling effect\u2014\u201d\u00a0 p. 176<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This piece is essentially a Mimsy Were The Borogoves<\/em> redux, with an added last line that suggests the city is some sort of trap:<\/p>\n

A perfect environment, the city. Ideal for the inquisitive humanoid.\u00a0 p. 178<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well-enough, if predictably, done.<\/p>\n

The Cover<\/em><\/strong> by William Timmins is a good effort I think\u2014the bulbous red spaceship, the abstract sun image, and the Van Gogh swirl in the background work for me.
\nThe Interior artwork<\/em><\/strong> is the usual mixed bag, but I liked the Paul Orban illustrations for the Hull (although the second one has what looks like a normal bloke with wings drawn on6<\/sup>) and the Wentz, and A. Williams quirky spot drawings for the Miller,7<\/sup> as well as his work for the Simak. Alfred\u2019s two contributions are uninspired and boring (but it\u2019s a hard story to illustrate).
\nSandwich for Nazis<\/em><\/strong> by John W. Campbell, Jr. is short essay about compound materials which ends by describing those used in the RAF\u2019s \u201cNazi-killing Mosquito\u201d:<\/p>\n

In essence, the sandwich materials represent the compound material reduced to its simplest elements.
\nA layer of material A, a layer of B and a layer of A\u2014or C. Common plywood is the # 1 representative of the class. The next most familiar example is shatterproof glass. In plywood, the \u201clayer of A\u201d is wood, and B becomes the binding adhesive. In shatterproof glass, it\u2019s glass and a synthetic resin. But the sandwich really begins to come into its own with the type of sandwich represented in the famous Mosquito fighter-bomber. The sandwich is wood, with a glue binding the layers together; the trick is that the wooden sandwich is made up of a layer of very thin, fragile hardwood veneer, a comparatively thick slab of balsa\u2014on the order of a quarter of an inch in thickness\u2014and another thin, fragile peeling of hardwood veneer.
\n[. . .]
\nThe sandwich is tough, strong, rigid, and extremely light\u2014as perfect for the job as the Nazi-killing Mosquito is in its job.\u00a0 p. 6<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In Times to Come<\/em><\/strong> starts off bemoaning the lack of space and of letters for the Analytical Laboratory<\/em>.8<\/sup> It seems that Campbell has finally realised that he should allow a longer period between the publication of an issue and the published results. The rest of the column is a warmongery plug for Murray Leinster\u2019s Trog<\/em>:<\/p>\n

Some while back I remarked editorially that attacking the United States with mechanised war was inherently an unhealthy idea. Like a man attacking a lion on a tooth-and-nail basis\u2014the lion\u2019s got more teeth and lots more nail. The mechanized weight of American power is really beginning to swing into action now, proving the argument. But\u2014how could you attack America? Past experience indicates that the Nazis\u2019 successors in control of Germany will probably try. German citizens seem to like monomaniac rulers\u2014with a mania for world conquest.
\nMurray Leinster has a long novelette next month\u2014\u201cTrog\u201d\u2014that has an astute suggestion on that problem. He\u2019s right, too\u2014it\u2019s one form of attack we might fall for\u2014and before!\u00a0 p. 28<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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

Power <\/em><\/strong>is a short photo article about various kinds of motors and gearing.<\/p>\n

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

Beachhead for Science<\/em><\/strong> by John W. Campbell, Jr. fleshes out last month\u2019s editorial announcement about the purported discovery of magnetic monopoles by Dr Ehrenhaft. Campbell is an awful science writer and his explanations are as clear as mud:<\/p>\n

Curiously, electrical engineers and physicists have, for years, calculated the properties of free magnetic poles\u2014north pole charges, without south pole accompaniment\u2014and of magnetic currents, flowing magnetism, as well as the properties of magnetic fields. It was long recognized as a mathematicophysical simplification to consider that free north poles did exist, and calculate the behavior of such poles under the conditions laid down in the problem. Electrical engineering data were so calculated\u2014always with the accompanying denial of the reality of the free north pole.
\nOther engineering and physical problems were solved\u2014meaning, naturally, that they got the answers that agreed with the facts!\u2014by assuming the existence of a magnetic current, purely as a means of simplifying the mathematical processes of attacking the problem. And, of course, denying the reality of that current.\u00a0 p. 104<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Why give a clear example when you can waffle? Although I skimmed most of the rest of this, I got the impression that Campbell also has other bad habits for someone who wants to be a science writer: one is odd analogies (there is one about aliens trying to measure the heating effects of electrical current in remote vacuum, where most metallic materials are superconductors), and another is a tendency to leap into blue-sky speculation about what we may not know and what might be possible.<\/p>\n

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

Perhaps another part of the article gives a clue as why (other than temperament) Campbell had this latter habit:<\/p>\n

Resurveyal of atomic theory is nothing new; it has been done with great regularity about once every five years since 1890. Recently, they\u2019ve discovered neutrons and positrons in the atom. Because their figures would not balance properly, they have been forced to postulate a neutrino, a changeless particle of electron mass.\u00a0 p. 117<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

With basic science changing at such a rapid rate perhaps this kind of over-excited piece is inevitable. I’ll be interested to see to what extent this tendency is exacerbated by the events of August 1945.<\/p>\n

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

Brass Tacks<\/em><\/strong> has a couple of letters about technical matters (space travel, and the machining processes in one of George O. Smith\u2019s stories) and a long, interesting one from John Gergen of Minneapolis, Minnesota, that discusses Simak\u2019s writing and the magazine\u2019s artwork among other matters. It\u2019s worth reading in its entirety (click on the image above).<\/p>\n

The serial is the only highlight of what is a lacklustre issue.\u00a0 \u25cf<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

1. Alva Rogers says that The Winged Man<\/em> was \u201ca moderately interesting story\u201d but later adds:<\/p>\n

Miss Hull always gave the impression of being a second-rate writer, and this short novel didn\u2019t materially change that impression.\u00a0 p. 130<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Pah.
\nHe has this to say of Simak\u2019s \u2018City\u2019 series:<\/p>\n

Clifford D. Simak, one of the best craftsmen in the science fiction field and one of the handful of old pros who had smoothly managed the transition from the thud and blunder of the thirties to Campbellian science fiction of the middle forties, began in May a series that would eventually bring him \u201cThe International Fantasy Award\u201d when all the stories in the series were combined into a book. The story, of course, was \u201cCity,\u201d which told, from the viewpoint of the Webster family, of the breakup of the urban complex and the return to a more pastoral existence brought about by automation, inexpensive and fast transportation, etc. This novelette was quickly followed by \u201cHuddling Place,\u201d a short in the July issue and \u201cCensus,\u201d the cover story for September. \u201cHuddling Place\u201d examined the phenomenon of man, served by robots, surrounded by labor-saving devices and in instant face-to-face communication with any point in the world, being psychologically unable to face the prospect of leaving his home. \u201cCensus\u201d was concerned with the need to determine the probable number of non-human mutants who could take over and keep the dreams of man alive when man eventually vanished from the Earth. The dogs, of course, were the ones who would fill the bill. A fine series that deserved every bit of acclaim it received.\u00a0 p. 132<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

2. There is a post on the subject of \u201cE. Mayne Hull\u201d at Sevagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n

3. I would have put serious money on this story of Brown\u2019s turning out to be a refugee from Unknown Worlds<\/em>\u00a0(Astounding\u2019<\/em>s companion magazine folded in late 1943, and several stories were transferred from its left-over inventory). However, it isn\u2019t listed in Stefan Dziemianowicz\u2019s The Annotated Guide to Unknown & Unknown Worlds<\/em> (1991).<\/p>\n

4. This was actually the fourth of four stories that Roby Wentz contributed to Astounding<\/em> and Unknown<\/em>. His ISFDB<\/a> page.<\/p>\n

5. Geier\u2019s story is a potential addition to the list of stories in Astounding<\/em> where the aliens win (the big myth is that Campbell always insisted on human supremacy). See the comments section in this Classics of Science Fiction blog post<\/a> for a longer list of stories where this did not apply.
\nI note that this is the only story Geier sold to Campbell for Astounding<\/em>, although he did sell him a couple for Unknown<\/em>. Geier sold many other stories to his main markets, Amazing Stories<\/em> and Fantastic Adventures:<\/em> his page at ISFDB<\/a>.<\/p>\n

6. Orban’s “normal bloke with wings drawn on”:<\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

7. Some of Williams\u2019 other illustrations for Miller\u2019s story:<\/p>\n

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

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

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

8. The Analytical Laboratory<\/em> results for this issue appeared in September:<\/p>\n

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

I\u2019m surprised that (a) the Hull\/van Vogt serial didn\u2019t come top, and (b) the Smith did as well as it did.\u00a0 \u25cf<\/p>\n\"rss\"<\/a>\"rss\"<\/a><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Summary: This is a lacklustre issue whose only highlight is the first part of E. Mayne Hull & A. E. van Vogt\u2019s serial, The Winged Man, an entertaining adventure that features a US military submarine and crew transported one million years into the future! Noteworthy is the first of Clifford Simak\u2019s \u2018City\u2019 series, City and […]<\/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-12311","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\/p6Pcj7-3cz","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12311","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=12311"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12398,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12311\/revisions\/12398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}