{"id":3367,"date":"2017-09-15T00:01:55","date_gmt":"2017-09-15T00:01:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=3367"},"modified":"2023-02-10T22:05:47","modified_gmt":"2023-02-10T22:05:47","slug":"astounding-stories-v20n02-october-1937","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=3367","title":{"rendered":"Astounding Stories v20n02, October 1937"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

ISFDB link<\/a><\/p>\n

Editor, F. Orlin Tremaine<\/p>\n

Fiction:
\nOut of Night<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by John W. Campbell, Jr. [as by Don A. Stuart] \u2217\u2217<\/strong>
\nMr. Ellerbee Transplanted<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Jan Forman \u2217\u2217<\/strong>
\nRule of the Bee<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Manly Wade Wellman \u2217<\/strong>
\nGalactic Patrol<\/em><\/strong> (Part 2 of 6) \u2022 serial by Edward E. Smith \u2217\u2217<\/strong>
\nA Menace in Miniature<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Raymond Z. Gallun
\nPenal World<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by John Russell Fearn [as by Thornton Ayre]
\nStardust Gods<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Raymond Z. Gallun and Robert S. McCready [as by Dow Elstar and Robert S. McCready] \u2217<\/strong><\/p>\n

Non-fiction:
\nCover<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by Howard V. Brown
\nInterior artwork<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by uncredited (x2), Elliott Dold, Jr. (x3), H. W. Wesso (x3),
\nInto the Future<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 editorial by F. Orlin Tremaine
\nRa, the Inscrutable<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 science essay by R. DeWitt Miller
\nSleet Storm<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 science essay by John W. Campbell, Jr.
\nScience Discussions<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0\u2022 letters<\/p>\n

With this issue of Astounding Stories <\/em>the magazine started to change. F. Orlin Tremaine1<\/sup>, who had been the editor for five years and had made it the leading SF magazine of its day, was promoted to become an editorial director at Street & Smith, the publisher of the magazine. Between this issue and the November one John W. Campbell2<\/sup> took over the editorial reins. At the time Campbell was one of SF\u2019s major writers, and he would go on to become probably the most important editor that the science fiction field would ever have. That said, the changes he made at Astounding<\/em> were gradual, and the next few issues saw only minor alterations.3<\/sup> The Golden Age period that started in July 1939 was still some way off.<\/p>\n

The Cover<\/em><\/strong> by Howard V. Brown is a fairly garish, crude affair that was, for the time, a fairly typical Astounding<\/em> cover. It would be a year or so before Campbell managed to improve the quality of the magazine\u2019s cover and interior art.4<\/sup>
\nOn opening this issue I was struck by the amount of advertising\u2014apart from the contents page there are eight pages of adverts before you get to the first story, and for the usual stuff, \u2018Train for a Good Job in Radio,\u2019 correspondence schools, medication for your prostate, fistula, kidney, \u2018glands,\u2019 and so on.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The fiction leads off with Out of Night<\/em><\/strong> by John W. Campbell, Jr., writing under his Don A. Stuart pseudonym, a story presumably bought (like the contents of the rest of the issue) by outgoing editor F. Orlin Tremaine.\u00a0It takes place on a far-future Earth dominated by the alien Sarn. It opens with Grayth, the representative of humanity, being told by the alien Sarn-mother that, to limit the future population of humanity, from now on there is to be a five to one ratio of women to men. There are two pages of talking head data-dumping done during this meeting, and I initially missed a key part, which is Grayth\u2019s warning to the Sarn-mother about the \u2018Aesir:\u2019<\/p>\n

Grayth looked at her steadily, deep-set iron-gray eyes unwavering on jewel-flecked golden ones. He sighed\u00a0<\/em>softly. \u201cYour race does not know of the ancient powers of man; you are a race of people knowing and recognizing only the might of the atomic generator, the flare of the atomic blast as power. The power of the mind is great.<\/em>
\n[. . .]<\/em>
\n\u201cBut a crystallization has taken place during these forty centuries, a slow uniformity has built up. The mighty, chaotic thought wills of five hundred million men during three thousand generations were striving, building toward a mighty reservoir of powers, but their very disordered strivings prevented ordered formation.<\/em>
\n\u201cDuring a hundred centuries of chaotic thought, turbulent desire, those vast reservoirs of eternal, indestructible thought energies have circled space, unable to unite. During these last four millenniums those age-old forces have slowly united on a single, common thought that men destroyed by your race\u00a0<\/em>during the conquest have sent out. <\/em>
\n\u201cWe of our race have felt that thing in these last years, that slowly accreting oneness of age-old will and thought, developing reality and power by the gathering of forces generated by minds released by death during ten thousand years. He is growing, a one from many, the combined thought and wisdom and power of the fifteen hundred billions of men who have lived on Earth. Aesir, he is, black as the spaces in which he\u00a0<\/em>formed. <\/em>p. 12<\/p>\n

Grayth returns to the human settlement, sets up a jamming device to prevent the Sarn-mother from listening in, and meets with the other leaders. After some discussion they conclude that she hopes to foment a civil war that will decimate humanity, and will then intervene to impose her will. Grayth knows that the other side will be led by Drunnel, an old rival in politics and love, and realises the only way to stop the Sarn-mother is to develop\u00a0a device that will augment humanity\u2019s developing telepathic powers.
\nIn due course Drunnel\u00a0gets\u00a0various weapons from the Sarn, and discovers that the headbands they have received project a force-field that will protect the user not only from other humans but from the aliens as well. Civil war breaks out between the two sides, and this is engagingly described in a good fight scene where glow wands and force shields are repelled by\u00a0a hail of bricks and rocks, and water, which short circuits the headbands providing the force shield. The fight continues but Grayth\u2019s side cannot win. He agrees to surrender and stand trial if his men are freed.
\nNeedless to say, at Grayth\u2019s trial, Aesir finally turns up. Despite all the energy weapons the Sarn have, Aesir prevails. The Sarn mother changes her mind; all ends well.
\nOverall, this is a bit of a mess: the Aesir idea isn\u2019t placed in the story particularly adroitly, and his appearance at the end couldn\u2019t be more of a deux ex machina. Also, why is the Sarn mother allowed to survive? For the sequel? On the other hand, these shortcomings are offset by some good action, and the appearance of the Aesir at the end is quite dramatic. This was more of an action tale than I had expected from Campbell\u2019s \u2018Don A. Stuart\u2019 pseudonym.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Mr. Ellerbee Transplanted<\/em><\/strong> by Jan Forman5<\/sup> has a Mr Ellerbee\u00a0at\u00a0an exposition with his wife when he decides to slip off on his own:<\/p>\n

Not only was he tired, not only was it hot, not only did his feet ache, but he thought that he was ill, and angry, too. Perhaps the last batch of hateful rollercoaster rides?, accompanying his flushed and shrilly screaming wife\u2014she had a passion for roller coasters\u2014had indeed upset his stomach. Or perhaps it had been the stifling heat at the dress parade his wife had made him sit through, possibly pleasant enough if he had been nearer to the models. Or perhaps he was irked at his wife\u2019s attitude toward his suggestion that they go and visit Mlle. Sonia, who danced sensationally in the midway.<\/em>
\nBut now there was respite. For a brief and all too fleeting moment his wife was nonexistent, having retired to fix a shoe buckle which had given way under her enthusiastic promenading. Mr. Ellerbee stood ruminating, holding his hat in his hand and wiping the sweat from his nearly bald head with a large crimson handkerchief. And now, suddenly, his mind was made up. Very well, then, he would go and see this Mile. Sonia. And he sincerely hoped this dereliction would goad his wife. Frightened by this last thought he hurriedly put his hat back on his head and ducked into the crowd.<\/em>
\nAs he headed in the general direction of the midway, his spirit slowly ebbed. True, there was the midway, with its glamour, the raucous voices of its barkers, and the shrill confusion of its music; but afterward there would be questions, cross-examinations, there would be anger and recriminations, and, above all, his tearful wife in agonies of martyrdom and deep self-pity. Better to return, better to put temptation far away. But already in his mind\u2019s eye he could see her sweeping out of the rest room, looking for him, and finding not a trace of him ; he could see her mouth harden into the familiar thin line, and the cold, glittering look come into her eyes; and he knew it was much too late to retrace his steps. In for a penny, in for a pound, thought Mr. Ellerbee, furtively advancing in the direction of Mile. Sonia.<\/em> p. 40<\/p>\n

He ends up not at Mlle. Sonia\u2019s, but in the Future City exhibit next to it. He ends up at the top of the Power Tower in a room marked \u2018Private,\u2019 where his nosiness takes him to the actual<\/em> future.
\nHere he runs in to varying degrees of trouble, and his strange behaviour eventually gets him taken to a \u2018Euthanatkin,\u2019 before he is arrested and put on trial. The interrogation he undergoes from the judges has one or two interesting aspects\u2014they are disgusted by his claim to have been born naturally\u2014and they eventually send him away to be used for experiments:<\/p>\n

So much had happened to Mr. Ellerbee during the last forty-eight hours that he was numb. Nothing mattered any more, neither the pain nor the fear. Even his memory was slowly fading from his consciousness. He barely remembered being dragged out of the courtroom, the terrifying journey in the\u00a0<\/em>rocket plane, halfway round the earth it seemed, the cold wastes that surrounded the tall towers of the First City, the grim buildings of the First College of Science, the humiliating tests, the countless pricks of hypodermics, the strange rays that made him reel and faint. Even the incredible sight of seeing all his entrails spread out along a table was fading into the growing haze of his subconscious.<\/em> p. 48<\/p>\n

At the end he somewhat arbitrarily ends up back in the present, where he learns that a madman placed what he claimed was a time machine in the Power Tower. His wife is not impressed by his absence.
\nThis is a fairly standard plot but it\u2019s a well told and very well written story with a some nice touches, and it reminded me of the little H. G. Wells I\u2019ve read.
\nRule of the Bee<\/em><\/strong> by Manly Wade Wellman is a reminder (to me anyway) that this writer was writing pulp SF long before he became better known for the likes of his \u2018Silver John\u2019 folklore fantasy in F&SF<\/em>.
\nUnfortunately this story shows little if any of his later prowess\u2014it is mostly a load of nonsense about a Dr Geiger and an experiment to increase the size of a honeybee to that of a horse. Geiger does this with a ray device:<\/p>\n

The ray burned for another hour. Twice during this hour Geiger went to a bench stacked with bottles and there mixed carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and other materials. Carefully weighing and checking them, he poured them into the great tank just above the glowing lens. In proportion as the bee grew to kitten-size, cat-size, dog-size, the mixture in the tank dwindled. When the doctor again switched off the power, the prisoner had increased to fill its soap box.<\/em> p. 52<\/p>\n

The enlargement takes place in stages, and Luther (Geiger\u2019s black assistant) suggests to the doctor three times<\/u> that they remove the creature\u2019s sting. Needless to say, the Good Doctor pooh-poohs this suggestion, stating bees are \u2018social animals,\u2019 \u2018easily domesticated,\u2019 etc., etc. After this it is just a matter of waiting to see who gets shanked first, and I don\u2019t think I\u2019m giving anything away by saying it isn\u2019t the Good Doctor . . . .
\nThere is a moderately interesting twist at the end where the bee hypnotises Shimada (Geiger\u2019s other, Japanese, assistant) with its big multifaceted eyes, and it later brings back a beehive so the occupants can receive the same treatment. An acid attack by Geiger stymies its plans.
\nThis is written in a readable enough style even if it does ignore the inverse-square law and, initially at least, have an idiot plot.<\/p>\n

The undoubted highlight of the issue for fans of the time would have been the start of the new \u2018Lensman\u2019 series by \u2018Doc\u2019 Smith. Galactic Patrol<\/em><\/strong> began in the previous issue, and recounts the graduation and further adventures of Kimball Kinnison, a Lensman and member of the Galactic Patrol. He is implanted with a Lens, a pseudo-living telepathic jewel matched to its wearer by the enigmatic Arisians. Lensmen (eventually) have unlimited authority and scope to combat crime in a galaxy overrun with pirate ships that are controlled by the evil Boskone.
\nI was curious to see how I would get on with this as in my teens I picked up a copy of Triplanetary<\/em> and made no progress. When I recently started reading some of the Golden Age Astounding<\/em>s I deliberately started not with the July 1939 issue but the February 1940 one, so that I wouldn\u2019t have to read the sequel to this, Gray Lensman<\/em>. Now I am sort of looking forward to it: I was pleasantly surprised with this one; not only did I find it a reasonably easy read (it probably helped that I only read one of the half-dozen twenty to thirty page instalments every few days), but some parts are quite entertaining. You can actually lose yourself in some of it\u2014the story can be quite breathless and exciting\u2014and I also found out where a lot of those fan expressions came from (\u2018Clear Aether,\u2019 \u2018have the jets for it,\u2019 \u2018Boskone,\u2019 etc., etc.). On the other hand Smith has a multitude of bad habits: excessive violence, squirm inducing banter between Kinnison and his allies, a habit of describing things as \u2018undescribable\u2019 so he doesn\u2019t have to bother, etc., etc.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This episode places Kinnison on the planet Delgon after he and his sidekick VanBuskirk have managed to get vital information about the new power source that the pirate spaceships have, and which is causing problems for law enforcement. The pair are pursued by many pirate ships and are trying to hide on the planet. However, they are attacked by Catlats, before being unexpectedly saved by Worsel, a dragon-like alien. He is a scout for his species, who live on the neighbouring planet of Valentia, and who the sadistic Delgonians prey upon. Worsel soon teams up with Kinnison and VanBuskirk.
\nThe pair listen to Worsel\u2019s account of how all of the\u00a0earlier scouts from Valentia have disappeared, and Kinnison uses his Lens enabled telepathic power to find out what happened to them. This passage shows the degree of violence in the novel, which sometimes tends towards the sadistic:<\/p>\n

In a dull and gloomy cavern there lay, sat, and stood hordes of <\/em>things. These beings\u2014the \u201c nobility\u201d of Delgon\u2014had reptilian bodies, somewhat similar to Worsel\u2019s, but they had no wings and their heads were distinctly apish rather than crocodilian. Every greedy eye in the vast throng was fixed upon an enormous screen which, like that in a motion-picture theater, walled off one end of the stupendous cavern.<\/em>
\nSlowly, shudderingly, Kinnison\u2019s mind began to take in what was happening upon that screen. And it was really happening, Kinnison was sure of that. This was not a picture any more than this whole scene was an illusion. It was all an actuality\u2014somewhere. <\/em>
\nUpon that screen there were stretched out victims. Hundreds of these were Velantians, more hundreds were winged Delgonians, and scores were creatures whose like Kinnison had never seen. And all these were being tortured; tortured to death both in fashions known to the Inquisitors of old and ways of which even those experts had never an inkling.<\/em>
\nSome were being twisted outrageously in three-dimensional frames. Others were being stretched upon racks. Many were being pulled horribly apart, chains intermittently but relentlessly extending each helpless member. Still others were being lowered into pits of constantly increasing temperatures or were being attacked by gradually increasing concentrations of some foully corrosive vapor which ate away their tissues, little by little. And, apparently the piece de resistance of the hellish exhibition, one luckless Velantian, in a spot of hard, cold light, was being pressed out flat against the screen, as an insect might be pressed between two panes of glass. Thinner and thinner he became, under the influence of some awful, invisible force, in spite of every exertion of inhumanely powerful muscles driving body, tail, wings, arms, legs, and head in every frantic maneuver which grim and imminent death could call forth.<\/em> p. 65<\/p>\n

The three of them subsequently go to the city and, as a result of\u00a0various pitched battles (which are nearly all fights to the death), they manage to destroy the Delgon overlords. Then they take their ship to Valentia. On arrival they set work building a communications jammer (a device that didn\u2019t exist before they dreamt it up), capture half a dozen pirate ships (more fights to the death), and set off for Earth.
\nThis section isn\u2019t the best part of the novel6<\/sup> (the episode on Delgon is little more than an unnecessary subplot) but, overall, it is okay.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never been that impressed by the little I\u2019ve read of Raymond Z. Gallun (too crude, too pulp), and the two contributions he has in this issue didn\u2019t change my mind. His solo effort is A Menace in Miniature<\/em><\/strong>, which starts with an overwrought data-dump from one of the members of a spaceship crew who are exploring a rogue planet that has entered the solar system:<\/p>\n

\u201cPaxtonia is just another name for hell!\u201d he whined into his ether phone, addressing his two companions. \u201cIt\u2019s just a broken piece of an inhabited world that exploded maybe ten billion years ago! It was shot away from that world\u2019s parent star! Why did it have to wander into our solar system, and establish itself in an orbit around our sun? Nothing could live on it except the spirit of death!<\/em>
\n\u201cThat\u2019s what it must be\u2014the spirit of death! Those ships that blew up when they got too close to Paxtonia\u2014 Some smart people think that maybe there\u2019s an intelligent agent here who did that by exploding the old-type rocket fuel. But there\u2019s nothing here that anybody can find, except the ruins of buildings and machines, and a lot of empty silence! Still, a week ago there were twelve men in this expedition\u2014and now\u00a0<\/em>there are only three of us left alive. Please! There isn\u2019t any sense in our staying on Paxtonia! We\u2019ve got to\u00a0<\/em>get out of this devil\u2019s paradise\u2014at once!\u201d<\/em> p. 88<\/p>\n

His forebodings prove prescient as he is almost immediately killed, leaving two crewmembers alive, the pilot and a scientist. As the atmospheric pressure is dropping they deduce they must be under attack from tiny projectiles, so they retreat to the war turret with the Scarab, their mini-probe. They use this to build a tiny, sand grain size probe to hunt for the invaders. They release this into the spaceship and find, and partly destroy, them. This, of course, completely overlooks the fact that a tiny probe looking for similar objects in a spaceship would be nigh-on impossible to find given the vast relative volume to be searched.
\nThe pair then follow the few surviving projectiles back to the tiny alien operators, at which point the scientist trots out some eugenics nonsense about how they bred themselves to their diminutive size. Pretty awful.
\nPenal World<\/em><\/strong> by John Russell Fearn is almost as bad. A prisoner on Jupiter sees a small ship land some miles off and decides to make for it and escape the planet. The rest of the story details his journey to the ship. He meets the governor\u2019s daughter along the way\u2014who also has plans to leave the planet\u2014and saves her from the local wildlife. Later, they meet an intelligent telepathic Jovian who helps them on their way: his payment is the smelling salt crystals that the prisoner used to revive the daughter.
\nStardust Gods<\/em><\/strong> by Raymond Z. Gallun and Robert S. McCready starts with a meteorite, a \u2018green star\u2019 landing beside a small town. It knocks out the power, suspends all life and movement, and makes a \u2018copy\u2019 of the town which it then takes into deepest space. There it meets up with three other green stars that have been to Venus, Mars and Jupiter.
\nMeanwhile, Bill, who lives outside the town, wakes up to the whiff of phosgene, something he recognises from his time in the Great War. He goes outside and sees a changed environment:<\/p>\n

Now Bill surveyed what lay beyond the smeary window. The mountains were there beyond doubt, even though, to the best of his knowledge, they must have sprouted overnight. At their bases, visible through a greenish-yellow murk, was a jagged plain of gray, pumicelike stone. Nearer, the plain ended in an abrupt drop, forming a sort of cliff, the face of which was glassy and smooth, as if fused by terrific heat.<\/em>
\n[. . .]<\/em>
\nThen he saw a sun, huge and red, rising in the gap between two monster mountain peaks. A little higher up, and apparently smaller, though this latter condition was probably due to a greater distance, was a second orb, quite like the first. Both were fuzzy and blurred; nor was this entirely an atmospheric phenomenon, caused locally by the murk in the air. These twin, or binary, suns were not ruddy because they had passed\u00a0<\/em>the hot glory of their prime; rather, as the age of stars is measured, they were very new, having just contracted from the tenuous nebular stage. Wispy rings of nebulous matter still belted the equators of both. In ages to come, these suns would contract farther and grow hotter.<\/em> p. 128<\/p>\n

The rest of the story falls into two sections. The first has Bill teaming up with a neighbourhood inventor to solve the phosgene problem. After this they go to organise shelters for the townspeople.
\nThe second section forms the bulk of the story and has Bill, the scientist and his female assistant travelling by car to a nearby airfield (fortunately the inventor is also a pilot). At this point a swarm of flying crystal like aliens appear and one breaks a window and enters the car. During this contact, and a later one, we learn that the aliens have brought the townsfolk here to torment them for a bit of \u2018fun.\u2019
\nAs they explore the other domes they have various adventures until, eventually, their gas mask filters become contaminated. Fortunately Bill\u2019s dog turns up wearing a gasmask (!) with a bottle of chemicals to refresh their filters. How the dog manages to smell anything in a mask, or cover the distance and terrain so quickly, is not explained.
\nFinally, the aliens get bored and leave\u2014which was pretty much how I was feeling by this point.
\nDespite the description above, the first three-quarters of this is an okay read, but when the dog turns up any remaining credibility vanishes.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Interior artwork<\/em><\/strong>, like the cover, is primitive stuff although I thought there were a few illustrations by Wesso7<\/sup> that have a certain charm, and maybe one of Dold\u2019s. (The illustrations here are all Wesso\u2019s apart from the uncredited illustration for Campbell\u2019s own story.)
\nInto the Future<\/em><\/strong> by F. Orlin Tremaine is a rather high flown editorial:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Ra, the Inscrutable<\/em><\/strong> by R. DeWitt Miller is a science article on Radium that is full of hyperbole but not much detail. There is some interesting information on the uses of Radium to treat cancer, but some of it is just mad:<\/p>\n

Atomic bombs are not yet a reality in warfare of man against man, but they are already in use in the struggle of man against cancer. Strangest of all, patients who have had within their bodies the ultimate force\u2014subatomic power\u2014feel no pain. In fact, some patients seem to feel a strange exhilaration. One\u00a0<\/em>woman in whose body four grams of radium had been placed overnight, refused to sleep. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to lose a moment of that strange feeling of joy and exhilaration,\u201d she explained.<\/em> p. 105-106<\/p>\n

Sleet Storm<\/em><\/strong> by John W. Campbell, Jr. is an interesting science article about meteorites and whether they will be a threat to spaceships during their voyages.
\nScience Discussions<\/em><\/strong> hasn\u2019t yet become Brass Tacks<\/em>, and is exactly what it says. It is subtitled \u2018An Open Forum of Controversial Opinion.\u2019 The letters begin with discussion about\u00a0Atlantis, pro and con. Other subjects include d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu, magnetic pole location, and lightning. There is a lot of amateur theorising going on.<\/p>\n

Overall, reading this essentially Tremaine-period issue7<\/sup> was an educational as much as a pleasurable experience. If the Golden Age of SF interests you then it is probably worth reading a few of these transitional issues to see the changes that occur between Campbell\u2019s first issue and the acknowledged beginning of that period, the July 1939 issue of Astounding<\/em>.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. F. Orlin Tremaine at SFE<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  2. John W. Campbell Jr. at SFE<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  3. As Alva Rogers notes in A Requiem for Astounding<\/em>, p. 49:
    \nAt first there was nothing to intimate to the average reader that a change in editors had taken place: the magazine in those days did not list the name of the editor on the contents page as it was to do later. The \u201cflavour\u201d of the magazine in the last three issues of 1937 was still that of Tremaine, and remained so, substantially, until Tremaine left Street & Smith in May of 1938 and his backlog of stories was used up.<\/em>
    \nMike Ashley offers more details in     The Time Machines<\/a><\/em>, p. 107:
    \nCampbell began at Street & Smith in October 1937, which meant that he started to have an editorial impact from the December issue, although he did not take over the full editorial reins until March 1938. Nevertheless his presence was rapidly noticeable in a variety of changes. In the January 1938 issue Campbell instigated \u2018In Times to Come\u2019, whetting readers\u2019 appetites for the next issue. With the March issue he began \u2018The Analytical Laboratory\u2019, reporting back on the popularity of stories in previous issues.<\/em>
    \nThere are other changes that have been pointed out to me. The January editorial mentions that the February issue will be the first of a series of occasional \u2018mutant\u2019 ones, an example of evolution in practice. These issues will test out \u2018genuinely new\u2019 ideas, the Brass Tacks<\/em> letter column will be used to validate them, and any successful ideas will be retained. More significantly perhaps, the magazine changes its name from Astounding Stories<\/em> to Astounding Science-Fiction<\/em> with the March issue.<\/li>\n
  4. If you look at the ISFDB galleries of covers for 1937<\/a>, 1937<\/a>, 1938<\/a> and 1939<\/a>, you will see a huge improvement in quality at the end of 1938, helped by a more modern cover redesign on the December issue of that year.<\/li>\n
  5. A cursory search revealed no further information about Jan Forman. It is hard to believe that this is the only story from this writer.<\/li>\n
  6. For the record (as I\u2019ll probably never read the all of these mags) the sections of the serial I liked the best were the first (an almost Leni Reifenstahl-ish graduation ceremony followed by space battles with pirates), part three (this one has a couple of chapters that are from Boskone\u2019s henchman Helmuth\u2019s point of view, and has an interesting part where he meets the Arisians), part four (more space battles) and part six (more interesting aliens on the way to a satisfying conclusion. The ending is rather abrupt though).<\/li>\n
  7. According to SFE<\/a>, Campbell eventually replaced Wesso with other artists. According to ISFDB<\/a>, after a short spell illustrating elsewhere he appears to have stopped altogether. This may have been partly to do with a 1940-onwards staff artist job at the New York Times<\/em>, which is mentioned in his Pulpartists<\/a> page. Just over a decade after these illustrations appeared he died, age 53.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    This magazine is still being published (as Analog Science Fiction<\/em>)!<\/b> Subscribe: Kindle UK<\/a>, Kindle USA<\/a>\u00a0or physical & digital copies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    Revised 17\/09\/2017 to remove the references about this issue being Campbell\u2019s first as editor.<\/em><\/p>\n\"rss\"<\/a>\"rss\"<\/a><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    ISFDB link Editor, F. Orlin Tremaine Fiction: Out of Night \u2022 novelette by John W. Campbell, Jr. [as by Don A. Stuart] \u2217\u2217 Mr. Ellerbee Transplanted \u2022 short story by Jan Forman \u2217\u2217 Rule of the Bee \u2022 short story by Manly Wade Wellman \u2217 Galactic Patrol (Part 2 of 6) \u2022 serial by Edward […]<\/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-3367","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-Sj","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3367","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=3367"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14866,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3367\/revisions\/14866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}