{"id":12404,"date":"2020-03-06T10:54:38","date_gmt":"2020-03-06T10:54:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=12404"},"modified":"2020-03-06T11:09:02","modified_gmt":"2020-03-06T11:09:02","slug":"astounding-science-fiction-v33n04-june-1944","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=12404","title":{"rendered":"Astounding Science-Fiction v33n04, June 1944"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Summary:
\nA lacklustre issue whose only story of note is Frederic Brown\u2019s Arena<\/em>. E. Mayne Hull and A. E. van Vogt\u2019s The Winged Man<\/em> concludes (it isn\u2019t as good as the first half), and there are stories by Hal Clement, Murray Leinster, and Randall Garrett (the latter is a pseudonymous entry in the unfortunately returned Probability Zero<\/em> department).
\nWilliam Timmins contributes another good cover.
\n[ISFDB page<\/a>] [Archive.org copy<\/a>]<\/p>\n

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

_____________________<\/p>\n

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

Fiction:
\nTrog <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 novella by Murray Leinster –
\nTrojan Fall<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Hal Clement \u2217<\/strong>
\nArena <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 novelette by Fredric Brown \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>+
\nBoomerang <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 short story by Harry Walton \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>+
\nThe Winged Man<\/em><\/strong> (Part 2 of 2) \u2022 serial by E. Mayne Hull and A. E. van Vogt [as by E. Mayne Hull] \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nProbability Zero:
\nContagion<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by George Holman \u2217<\/strong>
\nThe Absence of Heat<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Randall Garrett [as by Gordon Garrett] –
\nSecret Weapon<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Robert Browning (II) \u2217<\/strong><\/p>\n

Non-fiction:
\nCover <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 by William Timmins
\nInterior artwork<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by Paul Orban (x16), A. Williams (x8)
\nThe Difference <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 editorial by John W. Campbell, Jr.
\nThe Analytical Laboratory: February & March 1944
\nBrass Tacks<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 letters
\nMathematician <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 science essay
\n\u201cThey Were Dead\u2014\u201d<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 science essay by Willy Ley<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

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

This issue\u2019s fiction opens with a novella by Murray Leinster called Trog<\/em><\/strong> which, like the handful of other stories I\u2019ve read by this writer, only reinforces my low opinion of his work. That said, the first couple of pages, where Dick Drummond and Sally cross the river to a post-apocalyptic New York, aren\u2019t too bad:<\/p>\n

At only one place along the whole Hudson shore was there a tiny plume of steam. That was where a barge lay alongside a ship sunk at its dock, salvaging cargo from the swamped vessel. The other docks were lifeless.
\nBut not empty. One stretch three city blocks long, to be sure, was a scorched mass of ruin, with the masts of three steamers standing up above the wreckage. But the rest of the water front seemed intact as far as the docks were concerned. Yet there was no sign of life. The monster liner Queen Caroline<\/em> lay careened, her deckhouses crushing in the roof of the wharf beside her.
\nThe rest of the wharves had sunken ships beside them. Some few had settled upright. More leaned one way or another, and several lay on their sides with no human beings anywhere about. The rest of the city was as strangely quiet. A horse and wagon crawled along the Hudson Drive. There was smoke from the chimney of a brown-brick building at Thirtieth Street. Somewhere up where Riverside Drive began there were a few bright spots which might have been children. But the city seemed to be dead. There were three steamers\u2014one listing badly\u2014at anchor down in the lower harbor, and a sailing schooner came down under the George Washington Bridge. That was all the water traffic. Absolutely all.\u00a0 p. 6<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As they are taken across the river in a rowboat, Sally indicates to Dick that their oarsman is a looter and a \u201ctrog\u201d. When they arrive at the far shore Dick mentions this to the soldiers there to meet them, and the man dives into the water to escape, only to be shot.<\/p>\n

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

In the next few pages we learn more about this collapsed society, and what a \u201ctrog\u201d is, starting with comments from Hamilton, who is also there to meet Dick:<\/p>\n

[Hamilton said bitterly:] \u201cMan, the Master of the Universe! Getting to the point where he was almost his own master\u2014where he\u2019d cease to be an animal responding to his environment and become someone who would change his environment to suit himself! We were almost at that point. But the troglodyte in us\u2014our mass consciousness, they say\u2014couldn\u2019t stand it. So it took charge and pulled everything down.\u201d
\n[. . .]
\n[Dick said:] \u201cThere is a mass consciousness with which each brain has a more or less tenuous contact. It accounts for telepathy and a few other things we haven\u2019t been able to explain with our brand of screwdriver research. But I haven\u2019t quite accepted the theory that people are sick of civilization, and every so often one of them will draw from that mass consciousness the impulse and the information he needs to smash up a power plant by reversing the polarity of a key relay\u2014much less that there\u2019s a mass consciousness for the whole human race which can\u2019t stand civilization and has cracked up and set out to destroy it.\u201d\u00a0 p. 10<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dick is right to be sceptical of this idea as\u2014after more padding about the world situation, and a plane crash involving Sally\u2019s father, a scientist, returning from a European conference to discuss the crisis\u2014he manages (spoiler) to lure a trog into his lab and empty a tommy-gun magazine into him.\u00a0 When Dick subsequently examines the trog\u2019s body he finds an electronic box, and later determines that it induced the catatonic brain patterns he and Sally and Blaisdell recorded when the trog arrived at the lab. (This ambush takes a lot of organisation as Dick has to set up ECG monitors, cameras, and alarms, etc.).
\nDick then goes to town with written accounts of how the trogs operate, and tells the leaders there to send messengers to the rest of the country.
\nLater on in the story, after the authorities capture more trogs, they realise that they are German agents involved in a plot to take over the world (third time lucky). The American military then spots an enemy armada sailing towards the USA, and Dick and his associate Blaisdell manage to modify the trog device so that it can be used to incapacitate the would-be invaders.
\nThis is a fairly dreadful story: apart from the fact that the mind-control plot just doesn\u2019t convince, the piece is heavily padded (this includes a lot of the dialogue with inserted ellipsis that don\u2019t seem . . . to have any purpose . . . but to increase the page count . . . and presumably pay rate).
\nThere are also parts of the story which look like Leinster pitched the story to Campbell and that the latter contributed his ideas: the \u201cmass consciousness\u201d sections (the idea that a large groups of people can be manipulated like a herd); the radio ham babble used in the description of the counter device; a speech which asserts that German ideology will never triumph over American industry and technology, etc., etc.<\/p>\n

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

Trojan Fall<\/em><\/strong> by Hal Clement is ostensibly about a thief going on the run in a spaceship but is, for the most part, a barely disguised (and dull) lecture about celestial navigation:<\/p>\n

From where he was, the runaway could not lay a direct course for his chosen hideout. His knowledge of solid geometry and trigonometry was so small that all he could do was to continue on his present course until the proper heliocentric distance was attained, then stop, put Sol exactly on his beam, hold it there while he turned in the proper direction, and again run in second-order flight for a certain length of time\u2014dead reckoning pure and very simple. By thus reducing his goal position to a known plane\u2014or near plane; actually the surface of a sphere centered on Sol\u2014he could get the course of his second leg by simply measuring, on a plane chart, the angle whose vertex was the point in the sky toward which he had been driving, and whose sides were determined, respectively, by some beacon star such as Rigel or Deneb, and the star of his destination. He dragged out a heliocentric chart and protractor, and set to work.\u00a0 p. 61<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The thief eventually arrives at a pair of dwarf red suns and parks himself at what he thinks will be a stable Trojan point (where he will theoretically remain in position and not drift). Then he shuts down his ship and waits for the Feds to turn up, hoping they will search the area, fail to find him, and move on. When they arrive he holds on as long as he can before (spoiler) the temperature inside the ship becomes too hot to be bearable. When he turns his systems back on he realises he has drifted towards the sun and is doomed.<\/p>\n

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

In the final scene there is a point of view change to the pursuers, who explain his mistake: this involves a geeky mini-lecture about Trojan points only working when one of the two planets\/suns has a mass at least twenty-five times greater than the other (such as our sun and Jupiter).<\/p>\n

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

Arena <\/em><\/strong>by Fredric Brown opens with Carson, a scout ship pilot, engaging an alien Outsider warship beyond the orbit of Pluto\u2014he then wakes up naked, lying on blue sand under a blue dome, and notices a red spherical object in the distance.
\nCarson hears a disembodied voice which says that the speaker, an alien super-being, chanced upon the human and the Outsider fleets about to destroy each other. Rather than allowing this mutual destruction to occur (neither the human race or Outsiders would win outright, and both races would be left crippled), the super-being decrees that Carson and an Outsider (the red sphere) will engage in single combat: the loser\u2019s race will be annihilated, leaving the victor unscathed.
\nThe rest of the story tells of the fight between the Carson and the Outsider, which starts when the \u201cRoller\u201d moves towards him but is stopped by a force field. The pair throw rocks at each other for a while, and then the Outsider lobs a decapitated blue lizard which it caught and killed.<\/p>\n

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

The events of the rest of the story unfold against Carson\u2019s increasing thirst and weakness, and involve his unsuccessful attempt at negotiating peace (Carson can sense the Outsider\u2019s malevolent emotions in response), and experiments to see what will pass through the force field. Eventually, Carson passes out, but comes round when one of the lizards in the dome approaches him:<\/p>\n

\u201cHello,\u201d said the voice.
\nIt was a small, thin voice. It sounded like\u2014
\nHe opened his eyes and turned his head. It was a lizard.
\n\u201cGo away,\u201d Carson wanted to say. \u201cGo away; you\u2019re not really there, or you\u2019re there but not really talking. I\u2019m imagining things again.\u201d
\nBut he couldn\u2019t talk; his throat and tongue were past all speech with the dryness. He closed his eyes again.
\n\u201cHurt,\u201d said the voice. \u201cKill. Hurt\u2014kill. Come.\u201d
\nHe opened his eyes again. The blue ten-legged lizard was still there.
\nIt ran a little way along the barrier, came back, started off again, and came back.
\n\u201cHurt,\u201d it said. \u201cKill. Come.\u201d
\nAgain it started off, and came back. Obviously it wanted Carson to follow it along the barrier.
\nHe closed his eyes again. The voice kept on. The same three meaningless words. Each time he opened his eyes, it ran off and came back.
\n\u201cHurt. Kill. Come.\u201d
\nCarson groaned. There would be no peace unless he followed the blasted thing. Like it wanted him to.
\nHe followed it, crawling. Another sound, a high-pitched squealing, came to his ears and grew louder.
\nThere was something lying in the sand, writhing, squealing. Something small, blue, that looked like a lizard and yet didn\u2019t\u2014
\nThen he saw what it was\u2014the lizard whose legs the Roller had pulled off, so long ago. But it wasn\u2019t dead; it had come back to life and was wriggling and screaming in agony.
\n\u201cHurt,\u201d said the other lizard. \u201cHurt. Kill. Kill.\u201d
\nCarson understood. He took the flint knife from his belt and killed the tortured creature. The live lizard scurried off quickly.\u00a0 p. 89-90<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Carson (spoiler) then has an epiphany about the nature of the force-field, which leads directly to the climactic events of the story where he renders himself temporarily unconscious to get through the force field.<\/p>\n

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

This is an inventive and entertaining story, and is much better than the later Star Trek<\/em> episode (which made Brown\u2019s story more famous today than it might otherwise have been).2<\/sup><\/p>\n

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

Boomerang <\/em><\/strong>by Harry Walton has a narrator called Ed who lost his financial interest in a substance called Sodorite to a man called Carner who, in turn, lost a controlling 51% interest to a third man called Sporn. The story opens with all three meeting in a speakeasy with its own teleport booth. There, Carner makes a proposition to Sporn: if Carner can manage to kill Sporn in the next five days he gets all the shares in the company; if he doesn\u2019t manage to kill him, Sporn gets them (there is a duelling code in this world, so this would all be legal). Carner suggests that Ed holds all the shares until the end of the five day period, at which point they pass to the winner.
\nThis doesn\u2019t really convince, nor does (spoiler) the teleportation gimmick that lets Carner win. That said, the story\u2019s world-building is intriguing and noir-ish, with its duelling and psychodynamic conditioning giving it a similar feel to Kuttner\u2019s Private Eye<\/em>, or Alfred Bester\u2019s later 1950\u2019s novels. It\u2019s worth a look.<\/p>\n

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

The second part of The Winged Man<\/em><\/strong> by E. Mayne Hull and A. E. van Vogt picks up after the fishmen\u2019s kidnap of Jones-Gordon, the submarine\u2019s commander. Kenlon, the first officer, tries to get the location of the fishmen\u2019s city from Nemmo so he can pursue the kidnappers, but has no success.
\nWhen Kenlon later goes above to check the other ships in the area he notices that an air boat is approaching. As the craft gets nearer Kenlon sees it is full of Amazonian women and, when it arrives, their six foot tall leader talks to him in a strange form of English.<\/p>\n

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

He learns that the woman is Dorilee, \u201cthe Tenant of Joannas guarding the Sessa Clen on her way to her marriage bed\u201d. Kenlon learns that the women\u2014the \u201cjoannas\u201d\u2014are from 10,000 AD.
\nWhen Dorilee asks to see around the submarine Kenlon takes her below. There, after more conversation, Dorilee sprinkles white crystals on the floor which immobilise the crew but leave her unaffected:<\/p>\n

She was speaking again: \u201cOrdinarily, we would never have taken such action as this. But the Sessa Clen must be prepared to occupy the marriage bed within two weeks. Or else her place will be taken by her sister.
\n\u201cYou may say, why not, when the winged men finally return us to our time, ask them to see that we re-emerge within seconds of where we entered. They have told me that the mechanical laws of time-travel make it necessary to allow for all the time that passes here.\u201d
\nShe went on: \u201cWhat was finally decisive was the statement of the winged men that they would permit no one to return to their particular age until the city of the fishmen was destroyed. So you see\u201d\u2014she shrugged\u2014\u201cwe have no alternative. We must use your ship to carry out their purpose.\u201d\u00a0 p. 147<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Two of the four men on the coning tower come down and are overcome by the crystals, which alerts the others: there is a standoff between Dorilee and the men left above. Kenlon is then released from the neural effect so he can order them to surrender. The other joannas come aboard, as well as a birdman who was circling above the boat. As the latter, Laren, talks to Dorilee, Kenlon realises that there are tensions between them. Laren then tells Kenlon that the council wants to talk to him, and they leave together, with Laren carrying Kenlon to the eyrie.
\nThe rest of the story is typically van Vogtian: Kenlon arrives at the eyrie, where he is fascinated by its construction and its angel-like occupants\u2014but then suddenly finds himself in the mind of a bird man far above the eyrie:<\/p>\n

He was flying. There was no mistaking the movement, the free, the strong, the immensely strong movement. Flying through a thick mist of cloud that hid even the tips of his wings.
\nHis vision included eye awareness of his legs drawn up against his body; and it included blurred visualization of his wings\u2014blurred because the two great pinions were hammering away at the air like the pistons of a swiftly running engine. His body glowed with power; his whole being exulted with the glory of winged flight. The exhilaration was a tingling joy inside him.
\nFor a long minute that was all there was. Then slowly his brain began to emerge from the state of rigidity into which it seemed to have frozen. The era of pure impression ended. And a personal thought was born, the first of many.
\nA thought so powerful, so devastating, that his wings ceased their pumping, his body twisted with amazement; he felt bewildered, stunned. And still that thought would not be eased, but rather grew like a storm, becoming more violent with each passing moment: What\u2014what<\/em>\u2014WHAT had happened?\u00a0 p. 157<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Kenlon sees (through the eyes of the birdman whose mind he is in) a group of two hundred have gathered above the clouds in the sun, and he watches as they sing about their history and a hoped-for return of land.
\nThen\u2014just as suddenly\u2014Kenlon finds himself inside the mind of a fishman who is part of a group hunting a shark. After they kill it, the fishman takes the body down into the undersea city. When he arrives, Kenlon sees around the undersea city and learns more about that society as the fishman goes about his business. When the fishman eventually reaches one of the far airlocks, Kenlon sees Jones-Gordon (the submarine\u2019s kidnapped commander) arrive, and realises he is going to be revived and taken to the fishmen\u2019s council.<\/p>\n

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

Kenlon then departs this host and finds himself in mental communication with the Council. They discuss the war with him, and ask him to choose whether the birdmen or fishmen will survive. They say that, while he deliberates, he should regain control of his boat. Kenlon notes that, even though the fishmen are the aggressors, he admires their primitive energy.
\nThe rest of the story (spoiler) details how Kenlon regains control of the submarine; his mutiny against Jones-Gordon (who returns from the fishmen\u2019s city wanting to destroy the birdmen); and Kenlon\u2019s destruction of the fishmen\u2019s intelligence centre (which gave them the technology to wage their war). Kenlon leaves the rest of their underwater city intact as he knows that, without the intelligence centre, they are no longer a threat to the birdmen.
\nThe story closes with Jones-Gordon forgiving the mutiny, and the submarine going home.
\nThis part of this novella isn\u2019t nearly as good as last month\u2019s, and there are a number of reasons for this: first, the climax is incredibly rushed, to the story\u2019s detriment; second, the interesting interplay between Kenlon and Jones-Gordon is absent in this half due to the latter\u2019s kidnap; third, as the situation in the future is described and explained, the less convincing the story becomes; fourth, this part just isn\u2019t as smoothly written, and it feels like the work of an entirely different writer.3<\/sup>
\nA game of two halves, but I might pick up the book-length version to see if it is any better.4<\/sup>
\nThis issue unfortunately heralds the return of Probability Zero <\/em><\/strong>(I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve read one I like). There are three entries, led off by Contagion<\/em><\/strong> by George Holman, which is a briskly told piece about a man arriving on Venus, and undergoing a medical and inoculation process:<\/p>\n

I felt the prick of the needle and the swelling of a vein as the serum entered. \u201cTwenty years ago [kleptomania] was regarded as mental unbalance,\u201d the doctor said, as he laid the needle aside and opened my mouth. \u201cToday this peculiar human activity is known to be caused by the germ kleptococcus pilferatorius<\/em>. It is invariably accompanied by the germ prevaricatus falsificatum<\/em>, without which it cannot survive. Before being exposed to these germs by contact with human immigrants, these native Venusians would not lie or steal. After they became infected, they began to lie like Trojans and to steal everything they could get their hands on. But after Hansel isolated kleptococcus pilferatorius<\/em> an antitoxin was developed, and the Venusians were cured of stealing.\u201d\u00a0 p. 130<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The ending (spoiler), where a hunger epidemic and an outbreak of lying coincide at an alien village, didn\u2019t make any sense to me, but it sets up a punchline.
\nThe Absence of Heat<\/em><\/strong> by Randall Garrett is about the threat of crystalline aliens spreading throughout the universe. The daft ending depends on the idea that (spoiler) matter ceases to exist at absolute zero (it doesn\u2019t).
\nSecret Weapon<\/em><\/strong> by Robert Browning II is about (spoiler) sinking German U-boats by electroplating them (they become so heavy they sink).<\/p>\n

The Cover <\/em><\/strong>by William Timmins is another good effort and, like his last, shows only part of a larger vessel. In this case it is the stern of one of the scuttled boats that feature in the opening to Trog<\/em><\/strong>. The ruins in the background are New York.
\nTwo thirds of this issue\u2019s Interior artwork<\/em><\/strong> is by Paul Orban, who work ranges from the forgettable spot illustrations of Leinster\u2019s Trog<\/em>, to some not bad work for Hull & van Vogt\u2019s The Winged Man<\/em>.
\nA. Williams provides good, action-packed illustrations for Fredric Brown\u2019s Arena<\/em>, but dull productions for Walton\u2019s Boomerang<\/em> (although that is a tough one to illustrate).
\nThe Difference <\/em><\/strong>by John W. Campbell, Jr. is another short, turgid science essay masquerading as an editorial. It starts by talking about steam turbines and heat engines, then discusses their inefficiencies, and finally ends up with a discussion of the gas turbine. If you aren\u2019t familiar with the mechanical operation of these devices (compressors, etc.), then I\u2019m not sure this will make much sense.
\nI wish Campbell would use this editorial space to talk about matters that affect the magazine or the field.
\nThe Analytical Laboratory: February & March 1944 <\/em><\/strong>were discussed in those issues.5<\/sup>
\nBrass Tacks<\/em><\/strong> opens with \u201cCaleb Northrup\u201d (Campbell) supposedly replying to Murray Leinster\u2019s \u201cone-man war against \u2018brass hats\u2019, \u2018bureaucrats\u2019, and \u2018politicians\u2019\u201d, but it\u2019s just an opportunity for him to hold forth on one of his pet subjects: the habits of politicians and officers.
\nThe second letter is from the soon-to-be editor of New Worlds<\/em> magazine6<\/sup> (launched in 1946), John \u201cTed\u201d Carnell, who writes that he is back from \u201cworld-cruising\u201d (military service in WWII), and has found a pile of Astoundings<\/em> waiting to be read. He recounts his previous situation:<\/p>\n

You might be interested in knowing that I\u2019ve found copies of your magazines in the most unexpected places\u2014there were numerous back issues available in Cape Town and Cairo\u2014at fancy prices, too\u2014and for a short spell I was in Damascus, Syria, and was stopped on the main street by a dirty old Arab who was selling clean American magazines, amongst which were two copies of 1942 ASF\u2019<\/em>s. Again, during a storm in the Mediterranean we came across a derelict hulk, and upon boarding her I found two copies of this year\u2019s issues.\u00a0 p. 97-98<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The last letter from R. Silbiger (no address) is a complaint about the shrinkage of Astounding<\/em> and the cessation of Unknown<\/em>, while paper continues to go to less worthy magazines.<\/p>\n

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

Mathematician <\/em><\/strong>looks like it\u2019s a short photo essay about a wall-sized early computer, but is actually about a supply-and-demand simulator for a regional electricity company.<\/p>\n

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

I was dreading the prospect of reading \u201cThey Were Dead\u2014\u201d<\/em><\/strong> by Willy Ley as it has some ghastly photographs of dogs that were killed and brought back to life (there is one particularly unpleasant photograph of a dog\u2019s severed head exhibiting basic sensory and motor response\u2014needless to say this was not a dog that was brought back to life).
\nThat said, it covers these experiments fairly quickly before moving on to describe cell death and the different periods that the body and brain remain viable, and in what conditions (temperature, etc.). Ley concludes with a discussion on the revivification of humans, and the ethical problems this poses\u2014do you revive people who will be brain-damaged?:<\/p>\n

It would need a new set of rules of professional ethics.
\nAnd it might require a law\u2014but the legislators will have a hard nut to crack when confronted with the question whether a person\u2019s intellect is, on principle, to be valued higher than his body. It is possible, in legal practice, to restrict a person because of insanity. But I don\u2019t think that any country has a law which provides that a hopelessly insane person can or must be killed. (The German SS does it, but the practices of the German SS are far outside of recognized ethics, legal or otherwise.)\u00a0 p. 118<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A lacklustre issue apart from Frederic Brown\u2019s Arena<\/em>, and some of the artwork.\u00a0 \u25cf<\/p>\n

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

_____________________<\/p>\n

1. Alva Rogers says of Fredric Brown\u2019s Arena:<\/p>\n

The idea of an inter-galactic war being settled by single combat in the old chivalric tradition is an interesting one and Brown handled it quite well, notably in the combat scenes, and his handling of the alien champion was exceptionally well done.\u00a0 p. 131<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

2. The Arena<\/em> episode of Star Trek<\/em> was written before the discovery of Brown\u2019s story\u2014probably why it is so naff. The Wikipedia page for that episode is here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

3. I note that the Sevagram link<\/a> I provided in last month\u2019s review (about the idea that \u201cE. Mayne Hull\u201d was a pseudonym for A. E. van Vogt) isn\u2019t as categorical as I thought. There is another link<\/a> at the top of the article which provides a counter argument that suggests Hull was<\/em> the author or partial author of these works.<\/p>\n

4. The Winged Man<\/em> grew from a 32,000 word novella to a 46,000 word novel which was published in 1966. I can\u2019t remember the Sphere SF paperback from 1977 (most of the van Vogt I bought was published by Panther), but it\u2019s got a pretty good cover:<\/p>\n

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

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

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

Trog<\/em> a joint winner? Words fail me. I will never understand the Astounding<\/em> voters.<\/p>\n

6. I\u2019ve reviewed the first issue of New Worlds<\/em> magazine here<\/a>.\u00a0 \u25cf<\/p>\n\"rss\"<\/a>\"rss\"<\/a><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Summary: A lacklustre issue whose only story of note is Frederic Brown\u2019s Arena. E. Mayne Hull and A. E. van Vogt\u2019s The Winged Man concludes (it isn\u2019t as good as the first half), and there are stories by Hal Clement, Murray Leinster, and Randall Garrett (the latter is a pseudonymous entry in the unfortunately returned […]<\/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-12404","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\/p6Pcj7-3e4","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12404","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=12404"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12456,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12404\/revisions\/12456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}