{"id":3148,"date":"2017-07-24T14:16:34","date_gmt":"2017-07-24T14:16:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=3148"},"modified":"2017-10-20T18:52:42","modified_gmt":"2017-10-20T18:52:42","slug":"the-magazine-of-fantasy-science-fiction-16-september-1952","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=3148","title":{"rendered":"The Magazine of Fantasy &#038; Science Fiction #16, September 1952"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sfmagazines.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/FSF195209x.jpg?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"3136\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?attachment_id=3136\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sfmagazines.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/FSF195209x600.jpg?fit=425%2C600&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"425,600\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"FSF195209x600\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sfmagazines.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/FSF195209x600.jpg?fit=142%2C200&amp;ssl=1\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sfmagazines.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/FSF195209x600.jpg?fit=425%2C600&amp;ssl=1\" tabindex=\"0\" role=\"button\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3136\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sfmagazines.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/FSF195209x600.jpg?resize=425%2C600&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"425\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sfmagazines.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/FSF195209x600.jpg?w=425&amp;ssl=1 425w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sfmagazines.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/FSF195209x600.jpg?resize=142%2C200&amp;ssl=1 142w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 425px) 100vw, 425px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>ISFDB <a href=\"http:\/\/www.isfdb.org\/cgi-bin\/pl.cgi?61414\">link<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Editors, Anthony Boucher &amp; J. Francis McComas; Managing Editor, Robert P. Mills<\/p>\n<p>Fiction:<br \/>\n<strong><em>Budding Explorer<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Ralph Robin \u2665\u2665<br \/>\n<strong><em>Hilda<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by H. B. Hickey<br \/>\n<strong><em>Ganymedeus Sapiens: Modern Scientific Dilemma<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Kenneth R. Deardorf \u2665<br \/>\n<strong><em>Mother<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Alfred Coppel \u2665\u2665\u2665<br \/>\n<strong><em>The Factitious Pentangle<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by H. Nearing, Jr. \u2665\u2665\u2665<br \/>\n<strong><em>Extracts From a Bibliomaniac\u2019s Journal<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Harry Lawton \u2665\u2665<br \/>\n<strong><em>The Good Provider<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Marion Gross \u2665<br \/>\n<strong><em>The Fly<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Arthur Porges \u2665\u2665\u2665<br \/>\n<strong><em>The Mist<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Peter Grainger [as by Peter Cartur] \u2665\u2665<br \/>\n<strong><em>Three Day Magic<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 reprint novella by Charlotte Armstrong \u2665\u2665\u2665+<\/p>\n<p>Non-fiction:<br \/>\n<strong><em>Mother<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 cover by Emsh<br \/>\n<strong><em>With Dignity Yet<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 news item<br \/>\n<strong><em>Recommended Reading<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by The Editors<\/p>\n<p>There is a short note on the inside front cover that has\u00a0some\u00a0interesting news items.<sup>1<\/sup> The first is, with this issue, <em>F&amp;SF<\/em> is moving from bi-monthly to monthly publication; second, in line with the editor\u2019s \u2018efforts to please [readers],\u2019 they are going to increase the\u00a0amount of science fiction; finally, there will be a new cover layout (the \u2018three colour bars\u2019 design) to make it easier to find on the newsstands (at least I presume this is what they mean from the \u2018we think you\u2019ll find it easier to read and recognize\u2019 comment). This last change is a shame, I think: I rather like Salter\u2019s original title.<\/p>\n<p>As for the fiction, the vast bulk of this issue is taken up by a 30,000 word novella by Charlotte Armstrong, <strong><em>Three Day Magic<\/em><\/strong>. This is an uncut version<sup>2<\/sup> of the original story that appeared in <em>Today\u2019s Woman<\/em>, December 1948, and it takes up a whopping 72 out of the 128 pages!<br \/>\nWhen I first saw this my heart sank a little\u2014the reprint fiction in <em>F&amp;SF<\/em> is almost equally hit or miss, and the previous long reprint novella they ran (<em>Jane Brown\u2019s Body<\/em> by Cornell Woolrich, <em>F&amp;SF<\/em>, October 1951), struck me as, at best, a variable piece which seemed rather out-of-place in the magazine. I was pleasantly surprised by this one though.<br \/>\nThe editors describe the author\u00a0in the introduction as:<\/p>\n<p><em>\u2014a writer who understands the true nature of logical fantasy like few authors since E. Nesbit and F. Anstey, who can take all the formula ingredients of magic stories and twist them back to glittering newness, who can manage to be warm and imaginative and tender and extremely funny all at once.<\/em> p. 56<\/p>\n<p>An approximate genre comparison may be de Camp and Pratt\u2019s \u2018Incomplete Enchanter\u2019 stories, and I can imagine this novella appearing in the likes of <em>Unknown<\/em>, if it was still being published at the time.<br \/>\nThe story itself starts with a saxophone player called George who works in a quiet hotel in coastal Maine. There he meets a visitor called Katy, who is a wealthy heiress, and before long he is abandoning his sleepy life and chasing her to New York, determined to make a million dollars and secure her hand despite the reservations of Kathy\u2019s guardian, Mr Blair. However, once he is in the city he finds further problems to add to the ones he already has, and matters reach a nadir when he can\u2019t find employment and the rent is due. He manages to negotiate a reprieve from his landlady until the end of the day, and then goes to see Kathy and Mr Blair. His situation becomes even bleaker when Mr Blair rebuffs him and he argues with Kathy.<br \/>\nOn his way home he goes into a pawnshop to get some money for his saxophone, but the strange proprietor doesn\u2019t offer him a suitable price. To sweeten the deal he takes George into the back of the shop and offers him an old carpet bag and its contents. George opens the bag:<\/p>\n<p><em>George pulled at the double handle. \u201cNuh-uh. What would I want with . . .? Hey, what\u2019s that?\u201d He reached in. There was an old sword wedged diagonally in the bag. George had a fancy for old things and a smallboyish love for swords. He fondled the hilt of this one. The scabbard was some worn crimson stuff.<\/em><br \/>\n<em>George waked himself out of a dream. The old man\u2019s bright eyes were avid and sly. \u201cNo, no,\u201d said George.<\/em><br \/>\n<em>\u201cMaybe isss antique . . . .\u201d<\/em><br \/>\n<em>\u201cLooks antique, all right,\u201d George fished into the bag and found a small carved box. The lid opened by sliding. There was nothing in it but a flower. A rose. Artificial, he supposed. He dropped the box and rummaged again. There were soft cloth masses. There was a piece of flat metal, framed with a wrought design, burnished in the center. Old, very old. There was a small dark leather pouch. \u201cWhat\u2019s this?\u201d<\/em><br \/>\n<em>\u201cOpen,\u201d said the proprietor softly.<\/em><br \/>\n<em>George pulled the thong fastenings. Inside, he found a single piece of metal. Flat, lopsided, with some worn engraving on it, perhaps it was gold.<\/em><br \/>\n<em>\u201cHey,\u201d said George, \u201cdid you know this was in here?\u201d The old man made his butterfly shrug. \u201cIs it a coin? Is it gold?\u201d<\/em><br \/>\n<em>\u201cMaybe . . .\u201d <\/em><br \/>\n<em>\u201cThis might be worth something,\u201d George said honestly. \u201cOld coins, y\u2019know.\u201d<\/em><br \/>\n<em>\u201cMaybe . . .\u201d said the proprietor indifferently. \u201cYou take?\u201d<\/em><br \/>\n<em>\u201cWait a minute,\u201d said George, \u201chow do you know this isn\u2019t gold? How do you know it isn\u2019t worth a lot of money?\u201d<\/em><br \/>\n<em>\u201cI am tired,\u201d said the old man.<\/em><br \/>\n<em>George looked dubious. He chewed on his lip. The whole thing was queer. Queer shivery feeling to this place. \u201cI certainly don\u2019t want this bagful of junk. Give me $25 and the coin. How about that?\u201d<\/em><br \/>\n<em>\u201cI give twenty and all thisss. So no more, not less.\u201d The sibilants sighed on the dusty air.<\/em><br \/>\n<em>\u201cYou seem to want to get rid of it,\u201d murmured George. His imagination was jumping. Maybe the coin was worth a lot. Maybe the sword would sell for something to a man who knew about swords.<\/em><br \/>\n<em>\u201cI am going,\u201d said the proprietor softly, \u201cto California.\u201d<\/em> p. 68-69<\/p>\n<p>During the rest of the story George learns (spoiler) that the contents of the bag are: a magic ring that gives three wishes to each person who wears it; a magic lamp that will summon Aladdin; the Rose of Love (self-explanatory); an invisible cloak; a pouch that produces identical gold coins; a youth potion; a mirror that shows you the location of the person you are thinking about; a flying carpet; and a sword that will cut through anything.<br \/>\nThe story that revolves around the eventual use of all these items is an enjoyable farce that involves George\u2019s continued pursuit of Kathy, complicated by, among other things, his landlady smelling the Rose of Love and then falling in love with George; the Russian spy in the room opposite (!) discovering that George has a device that can cut through anything; the Genie of the Lamp building George a big house that later causes zoning and regulation problems for him; Kathy\u2019s guardian Mr Blair taking the youth potion, then smelling the Rose of Love and falling for his ward; journeys across the country on a flying carpet, etc., etc.<br \/>\nIt\u2019s certainly worth reading, as you would expect from someone who would go on to win a 1957 Edgar Award for her novel <em>A Dram of Poison<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>There is one novelette in the issue, which is <strong><em>The Factitious Pentangle<\/em><\/strong>, the sixth \u2018C. P. Ransom\u2019 story from H. Nearing, Jr. It starts, as usual, with the two professors shooting the breeze:<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cSuppose you wanted to get to Mars,\u201d said Professor Cleanth. Penn Ransom, of the Mathematics Faculty. \u201cWhat would you do?\u201d He stuck out his little belly and began to swing in his swivel chair.<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Professor Archibald MacTate, of Philosophy, smiled with half his mouth. \u201cI suppose I\u2019d see my psychiatrist,\u201d he said.<\/em><br \/>\n<em>\u201cNo, no.\u201d Ransom stopped swinging and waved a reproachful hand at him. \u201cYou know what I mean. How would you get there?\u201d<\/em><br \/>\n<em>\u201cOh. Well\u2014\u201d MacTate crossed his long legs, folded his arms, and regarded the ceiling thoughtfully. Then he looked at his colleague and cocked an ingratiating eyebrow. \u201cFourth dimension?\u201d<\/em><br \/>\n<em>\u201cFourth dimension.\u201d Ransom\u2019s tone was acid. He began to swing again. \u201cEvery time you ask anybody a hard question, they say \u2018fourth dimension.\u2019 As if that meant anything. Why don\u2019t they\u2014?\u201d<\/em><br \/>\n<em>\u201cVery well.\u201d MacTate shrugged. \u201cI give up. How would you get to Mars? If you wanted to?\u201d<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Ransom stopped swinging and faced him. \u201cNow that\u2019s better. Don\u2019t throw some silly word around just because it sounds scientific. You can\u2019t get to Mars through a word.\u201d He aimed a finger at MacTate. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to get there through\u2014 You\u2019ve got to use\u2014 Well, as a matter of fact it is the fourth dimension. Sort of.\u201d He frowned accusingly. \u201cBut you had no way of knowing that, MacTate. You just picked a word out of\u2014\u201d<\/em><br \/>\n<em>\u201cI apologize, old boy.\u201d MacTate held up his hands. He looked somewhat nervously around the room. \u201cI presume you\u2019ve already worked out a fourthdimensioner?\u201d<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Ransom nodded. \u201cOver there.\u201d He pointed to a black box, the size of a large suitcase, that sat next to the door. \u201cYou plug that in, and the door opens on Mars.\u201d<\/em> p. 23<\/p>\n<p>After a further and perhaps over lengthy description of the device, an alien couple from Mars come through his door and we are off. After moaning about their marital problems, caused by a third member, they leave. The professors quickly receive a visit from the third alien in question. At the end, they all meet to thrash things out with the two professors, Ransom and MacTate. Lightweight nonsense, but quite well done.<\/p>\n<p>After the space taken up by the Armstrong and Hearing stories, there is little room left for the remaining eight stories and they are mostly very short (the Hickey, Gross and Porges stories occupy four pages each, the Coppel, Lawton and Grainger, three).<br \/>\n<strong><em>Budding Explorer<\/em><\/strong> by Ralph Robin is amusing story of an alien who materialises on Earth and starts doing research on the American presidential election:<\/p>\n<p><em>Trying on a gray gabardine, Yeevee started his primary investigation. He asked the salesman, \u201cWho, in your opinion, is going to be elected president today?\u201d <\/em><br \/>\n<em>The salesman laughed, in an embarrassed way. \u201cThat\u2019s kind of a tough one to ask a salesman,\u201d he said. \u201cWouldn\u2019t want to give a customer the wrong answer.\u201d<\/em><br \/>\n<em>\u201cI am not a citizen of this country, so you may speak freely. Will it be Ferris or Nicholson?\u201d<\/em><br \/>\n<em>\u201cWell, I think Bob Ferris is likely to win.\u201d The salesman still seemed reluctant to talk.<\/em><br \/>\n<em>\u201cIs that just your prediction, or are you personally in favor of the Democrats?\u201d<\/em><br \/>\n<em>\u201cI\u2019m for Ferris, all right . . . It fits very nicely in the back, sir.\u201d<\/em><br \/>\n<em>\u201cTell me,\u201d Yeevee persisted, \u201cwhat are your reasons for supporting Ferris?\u201d<\/em><br \/>\n<em>\u201cMy wife\u2019s hot for Nicholson,\u201d the salesman said.<\/em> p. 4<\/p>\n<p>After questioning a few people at a polling station party workers chase him away, and ends up in the house of an essayist. The alien questions the essayist about the election and, when the latter leaves to vote, he is left alone with stenographer. He lies down on a bed with her\u2014attempting to do \u2018secondary research\u2019\u2014and then dematerialises. A weak ending.<br \/>\n<strong><em>Hilda<\/em><\/strong> by H. B. Hickey is a pretty awful story about a gigolo, and Hilda, his domestic robot. After saving him from an angry husband she makes coffee and meatballs. At the end she copies his love making routine and inadvertently kills him. No three laws, then.<br \/>\n<strong><em>Ganymedeus Sapiens: Modern Scientific Dilemma<\/em><\/strong> by Kenneth R. Deardorf is a sequel, accompanied once again with line drawings, to the writer\u2019s non-fact article in the December 1951 issue about the skiametric forms of <em>Ganymedeus\u00a0Sapiens<\/em>. This one left me cold, but there is an OK joke in the last line.<br \/>\nI didn\u2019t much care for Alfred Coppel\u2019s previous attempt at fictionalising the possible psychological problems of space flight <em>(The Dreamer<\/em>, <em>F&amp;SF<\/em>, April 1951) and thought that <strong><em>Mother<\/em><\/strong>, initially at least, was going the same way.<br \/>\nAn astronaut is in his \u2018womb,\u2019 and his spacecraft is en route to the moon:<\/p>\n<p><em>I can look outside if I choose, he thought. I can look out into the black sky and see the stars burning like beacons in the night. I can see the earth and moon as no man has ever seen them before. But he did none of these things. He lay in the warm darkness and let the ship comfort him.<\/em><br \/>\n<em>They had made the ship so\u2014the scientists and the surgeons and the psychologists. They were clever men, learned men. And though Kier was the most fit of many thousands, they knew that no man could live and be sane in space without the warmth, the darkness, the feeling of safety.<\/em><br \/>\n<em>For Kier they made a mother. A metal mother shaped like a projectile and pointed at the sky. They bound him to that mother so that he could step forth\u2014so that he could be born\u2014when she carried him across the<\/em><br \/>\n<em>gulf. <\/em><br \/>\n<em>Gulf. Compared to the distances between the stars, it was no gulf. And yet for a single man\u2014the first\u2014it was a chasm laden with the madness of loneliness, the terror of the unknown.<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Kier stirred within the ship\u2019s womb.<\/em> p. 20<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s difficult to take this type of story seriously as events later proved their theories wrong, and there is a little of that here, but this has a neat ending: he finds out why a competing country\u2019s astronaut did not emerge from a preceding spacecraft . . .<br \/>\n<strong><em>Extracts From a Bibliomaniac\u2019s Journal<\/em><\/strong> by Harry Lawton is an unlikely if OK story, told in diary format, about a collector acquiring books in the middle of an ongoing nuclear war. He sees the destruction and chaos as an opportunity to get the books he desires until, that is, he eventually gets radiation sickness. Unfortunately, none of his books are later than 18<sup>th<\/sup> Century, so he can\u2019t find out anything about the treatment for his symptoms.<br \/>\n<strong><em>The Good Provider<\/em><\/strong> by Marion Gross is an overly contrived tale about an inventor who creates a time machine\u2014but it will only take him to a specific place in the nearby town, only twenty years ago, and only for twenty minutes. His wife uses it to get cheap meat from the butcher. I realise that not all SF can have an epic scope, but . . .<br \/>\n<strong><em>The Fly<\/em><\/strong> by Arthur Porges is a short-short about a man looking at a spider\u2019s web while having his lunch. He notices a bluebottle\u2014or what he thinks is a bluebottle\u2014landing on the web. (Spoiler: a metal rod comes out of the fly, penetrates the spider and sucks it dry. When the man tries to catch the fly it burns his hand with something highly radioactive.)<br \/>\nIf you think about this afterwards it seems a rather daft idea, but it convinces as you\u00a0read it. In that way it is probably typical of those short shockers that are endlessly reprinted.<sup>3<\/sup><br \/>\n<strong><em>The Mist<\/em><\/strong> by Peter Grainger is about one man begging another to come to his bedroom and see an apparition. When they walk through it together (spoiler) they are both transported to an alien world.<\/p>\n<p>The cover by Emsh, <strong><em>Mother<\/em><\/strong>, is quite good, and an improvement on his first effort in the June issue. Emsh will be one of <em>F&amp;SF\u2019<\/em>s semi-regular cover artists in the year ahead.<br \/>\n<strong><em>With Dignity Yet<\/em><\/strong> is a short half-page notice advertising the tenth World SF Convention.<br \/>\n<strong><em>Recommended Reading<\/em><\/strong> by The Editors starts with this:<\/p>\n<p><em>The trend toward original hard-cover appearance of stories unpublished in any magazine reached its peak to date in the two-month period under consideration in this column, with the publication of ten new imaginative novels, eight of them science fiction. Unfortunately only two of these can be commended to the adult reader; but these two earn this department\u2019s loudest praise.<\/em> p. 43<\/p>\n<p>They go on to recommend <em>Sands of Mars<\/em> by Arthur C. Clarke and <em>Takeoff<\/em> by Cyril M. Kornbluth. They also go on to favourably review the rest of the reprint material, ending with this about <em>Five Adventure Novels of H. Rider Haggard<\/em> by H. Rider Haggard:<\/p>\n<p><em>The Haggard collection, which includes <\/em>She<em>, <\/em>King Soloman\u2019s Mines<em>, and <\/em>Allan Quartermain<em>, can hardly be overpraised, despite the Victorian ampleness called \u201cwordy\u201d by those same readers who tolerate the outrageous padding of most pulp science fiction. Here are lost-race themes treated with a combination of mysticism, depth of character, and glorious high adventure that no other story-teller has yet equaled.<\/em> p. 44<\/p>\n<p>This is an issue that is worth reading for the Armstrong novella and some of the other material.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ol>\n<li>The announcement page:<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sfmagazines.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/FSF195209intx1200.jpg?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"3164\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?attachment_id=3164\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sfmagazines.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/FSF195209intx600.jpg?fit=416%2C600&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"416,600\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"FSF195209intx600\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sfmagazines.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/FSF195209intx600.jpg?fit=139%2C200&amp;ssl=1\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sfmagazines.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/FSF195209intx600.jpg?fit=416%2C600&amp;ssl=1\" tabindex=\"0\" role=\"button\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3164\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sfmagazines.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/FSF195209intx600.jpg?resize=416%2C600&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"416\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sfmagazines.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/FSF195209intx600.jpg?w=416&amp;ssl=1 416w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sfmagazines.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/FSF195209intx600.jpg?resize=139%2C200&amp;ssl=1 139w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 416px) 100vw, 416px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nI had a look at the address on Google Street View, but it looks like the original house has been torn down and a new house built on the site.<\/li>\n<li>There is an account of the previous publication history of Armstrong\u2019s novella in\u00a0<em>The Virtue of Suspense: The Life and Works of Charlotte Armstrong<\/em> by Rick Cypert\u00a0(<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Virtue-Suspense-Works-Charlotte-Armstrong\/dp\/1575911221\/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1508524534&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=9781575911229\">Amazon UK<\/a>\/<a href=\"https:\/\/play.google.com\/store\/books\/details?id=RaTaI6D3OWQC&amp;rdid=book-RaTaI6D3OWQC&amp;rdot=1&amp;source=gbs_vpt_read&amp;pcampaignid=books_booksearch_viewport\">Google Play<\/a>):<br \/>\n<em>Although <\/em>Today&#8217;s Woman<em> purchased Armstrong\u2019s &#8220;Old Fashioned Magic,\u201d the magazine changed the title to \u201cThree-Day Magic,\u201d much to the author&#8217;s dismay. In addition, Armstrong worried in a letter to Bernice Baumgarten about her family&#8217;s financial challenges with their new home and still unsold former home in New Rochelle: \u201cWe are on the point of getting ourselves into a ruinous loan at incredibly bad terms, because we simply must give out with 3,000.00 on November 1st. It&#8217;s this house, of course, and the fact that we can\u2019t sell our New Rochelle house fast enough. &#8230; I don&#8217;t see how they<\/em> [Today\u2019s Woman<em> with the title \u201cThe Three Day Magic\u201d] could have done worse. And if they have monkeyed with the text I\u2019m going to put my head under a pillow and howl. Sometimes I wish I was a bricklayer.\u201d<\/em><br \/>\n<em> After reading the story, Armstrong also expressed her concerns about its publication\u2014especially the omitted material\u2014with Carl Brandt: &#8220;Oh gosh, it isn\u2019t anything now. They knocked out the character drawing, the satire, the wit, the rhythm . . . everything that mattered, as far as I can see. And the very handsome blurb on the cover just makes me feel terrible. . . . Taint so . . . although it could have been nearer so. Is it legal for a magazine to cut a piece to ribbons and then print my name on something I am ashamed to read? Especially after I, having been asked, stated my opinion that it could not be cut to 20,000 words without bad damage?\u201d<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Carl Brandt, in his typically supportive way with authors, responded:\u00a0<\/em><em>I don\u2019t blame you for having a broken heart but I can\u2019t tell you anything except that this is one of the hazards of the magazine business. . . . Magazines are a tribe apart and you never get any real criticism from a cut version of a story from anyone that matters. Just what the legal situation is I\u2019ve never been able to find out. I suppose a case might be set up but precedent would be too much against you. They\u2019d call it editing and that would be that. My own idea about these things is that an author should never read the story when it appears in the magazine. Look at the pictures but don&#8217;t read it. You\u2019d be surprised how many people will come up to tell you what a good story it is even if you think it&#8217;s dreadful!\u2019\u2019<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Cecil Gold beck of Coward-McCann rejected \u201cOld Fashioned Magic\u201d for publication as a book. Armstrong, in her letter of response to Bernice Baumgarten about the rejection, stated: \u201cIt\u2019s not delusions of grandeur I\u2019ve got about that story. It\u2019s just that I have sat and watched several \u2018readers\u2019 or \u2018customers\u2019. . . just folks, you know, read it. . . . I\u2019ll do another mystery. In fact I am doing one. But don\u2019t you-all think you\u2019ve got me pushed back in my box. I\u2019ll break out again, another time, another way.\u201d\u00a0<\/em>p. 70-71<br \/>\nCharlotte Armstrong (Lewi) has a page at <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Charlotte_Armstrong\">Wikipedia<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>I had a quick look at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.isfdb.org\/cgi-bin\/title.cgi?55994+2\">ISFDB<\/a> for <em>The Fly<\/em> reprints: it looks like eight English language anthology appearances.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><em>Revised 20\/10\/2017 to add the footnote material about Armstrong\u2019s novella (thanks to @F&amp;SF for pointing this out)<\/em>.<\/p>\n<span class=\"synved-social-container synved-social-container-follow\"><a class=\"synved-social-button synved-social-button-follow synved-social-size-16 synved-social-resolution-normal synved-social-provider-rss nolightbox\" data-provider=\"rss\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" title=\"Subscribe to our RSS Feed\" href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/SFMagazines\" style=\"font-size: 0px;width:16px;height:16px;margin:0;margin-bottom:5px\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"rss\" title=\"Subscribe to our RSS Feed\" class=\"synved-share-image synved-social-image synved-social-image-follow\" width=\"16\" height=\"16\" style=\"display: inline;width:16px;height:16px;margin: 0;padding: 0;border: none;box-shadow: none\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sfmagazines.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/social-media-feather\/synved-social\/image\/social\/regular\/16x16\/rss.png?resize=16%2C16&#038;ssl=1\" \/><\/a><a class=\"synved-social-button synved-social-button-follow synved-social-size-16 synved-social-resolution-hidef synved-social-provider-rss nolightbox\" data-provider=\"rss\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" title=\"Subscribe to our RSS Feed\" href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/SFMagazines\" style=\"font-size: 0px;width:16px;height:16px;margin:0;margin-bottom:5px\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"rss\" title=\"Subscribe to our RSS Feed\" class=\"synved-share-image synved-social-image synved-social-image-follow\" width=\"16\" height=\"16\" style=\"display: inline;width:16px;height:16px;margin: 0;padding: 0;border: none;box-shadow: none\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sfmagazines.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/social-media-feather\/synved-social\/image\/social\/regular\/32x32\/rss.png?resize=16%2C16&#038;ssl=1\" \/><\/a><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ISFDB link Editors, Anthony Boucher &amp; J. Francis McComas; Managing Editor, Robert P. Mills Fiction: Budding Explorer \u2022 short story by Ralph Robin \u2665\u2665 Hilda \u2022 short story by H. B. Hickey Ganymedeus Sapiens: Modern Scientific Dilemma \u2022 short story by Kenneth R. Deardorf \u2665 Mother \u2022 short story by Alfred Coppel \u2665\u2665\u2665 The Factitious [&hellip;]<\/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":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fantasy-and-science-fiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pcj7-OM","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3148","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=3148"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3175,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3148\/revisions\/3175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}