{"id":4403,"date":"2018-03-17T13:40:33","date_gmt":"2018-03-17T13:40:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=4403"},"modified":"2019-11-15T11:45:06","modified_gmt":"2019-11-15T11:45:06","slug":"astounding-science-fiction-v21n02-april-1938","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=4403","title":{"rendered":"Astounding Science-Fiction v21n02, April 1938"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

_____________________<\/p>\n

Editor, John W. Campbell Jr.<\/p>\n

Three Thousand Years!<\/em><\/strong> (Part 1 of 3) \u2022 serial by Thomas Calvert McClary \u2217\u2217\u2217<\/strong>+
\nMatter Is Conserved<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Raymond A. Palmer \u2217<\/strong>
\nHyperpilosity<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by L. Sprague de Camp \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nNegative Space<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Nat Schachner
\nThe Faithful<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Lester del Rey \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>+
\nIszt\u2014Earthman<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Raymond Z. Gallun
\nJason Sows Again<\/em><\/strong> (Part 2 of 2) \u2022 serial by Arthur J. Burks \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cover <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 Howard V. Brown
\nInterior artwork<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 Howard V. Brown (2), Jack Binder, Elliott Dold (4), Charles Schneeman (4), H. W. Wesso (3)
\nIn Times to Come<\/em><\/strong>
\nOf the 500 Known Elements<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 science filler
\nDetail\u2014But Immensely Important to Engineering<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 science filler
\nRadiation in Uniform<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 essay by Herbert C. McKay
\nDemocracy<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 editorial by John W. Campbell, Jr.
\nIgnition Point<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 science essay by John W. Campbell, Jr. [as by Arthur McCann]
\nScience Discussions<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 letters
\nBrass Tacks<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 letters<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

This issue sees incremental progress by Campbell in his quest to change the magazine into what he wants it to become. The most notable evidence of that here is the d\u00e9but of Lester del Rey and a second appearance by L. Sprague de Camp.<\/p>\n

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The first part of Three Thousand Years!<\/em><\/strong> by Thomas Calvert McClary gets off to a rather dull start with an\u00a0argument between Drega, a wealthy industrialist, and Gamble, a scientist. The latter wants to release a number of his discoveries and inventions, which will provide cheap food for the masses, etc., but the businessman disagrees:<\/p>\n

Heaven knew, their vaults were loaded with secret formulas Drega did not dare release because of the economic chaos which would ensue. Certainly they were progress! One would wipe out the Bessemer steel industry overnight. Another would crash the wool, cotton and pulp wood industries in weeks. p. 9<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The story then leaps forward ten years, and picks up with a journalist called Lucky, who is discussing an end of the world story with his copy-editor when he suddenly thinks he is made of mud. Before this inexplicable event is explained there are a number of other bizarre episodes described:<\/p>\n

A psychiatrist sat with a \u201cclient\u201d overlooking a green inland valley. His client was under the delusion that there was no world except the imagination.
\n\u201cIf your theory were correct,\u201d the psychiatrist explained simply, \u201cwe could imagine that the ocean rolled up to the foot of this cliff and it would be there.\u201d
\n\u201cWell,\u201d insisted the client simply, \u201cit is.\u201d
\nThe psychiatrist smiled tolerantly. His smile froze. From the foot of the cliff came the hollow thunder of surf. A sea broke in mottled spume.<\/p>\n

At a famed university a renowned scientist held indignantly, \u201cProphecies are rubbish!\u201d and led the way into another room. He stopped, batting his eyes rapidly. The other room had somehow become a field of rampant violets. A brook ran at his feet.<\/p>\n

The Reverend Percival Tweedy stepped forward to the cement parapet of the stage. \u201cI would like to give a graphic illustration of the shockingness of modern dress.\u201d
\nThere was a burst of applause from hatchet-faced dowagers. The applause broke into startled gasps. Mrs. Hildebran said sharply, \u201cReally, Reverend, it is highly unnecessary to be so graphic!\u201d
\nBut Reverend Tweedy could not bring his mind to dwell on that statement. Mrs. Hildebran was staring at him indignantly through lorgnettes. She was wholly unclad! Even in his amazement he thought, \u201cSkinny old wretch!\u201d p. 11-12<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Lucky the reporter he finds that he isn\u2019t actually made of mud but encased in it:<\/p>\n

He moved his body slowly. Joints popped and creaked. Muscles cramped. He went through a series of simple exercises, but his motions were very limited and uncertain. Gradually, they became easier. Then, for a long time, his body was afire with prickling sensations and infinite small cramps. He knew that he should be in agony, but the sensations seemed very far away\u2014as if they might be in another body.
\nHe turned to careful inspection of himself. He found he was naked. There were numberless questions about how he got that way, but for the time being he simply accepted the fact. His nostrils were completely caked and closed, but only at the tips. He cleared them of chunks of rock-hard dirt. He found his whole body covered by a coating of peculiar mud, varying from one-eighth inch to two-inch thickness.
\nThe hair on his legs was eight to twelve inches long. But it was brittle and broke off. His skin was peculiarly white and colorless and dry, so dry that he peeled off a three inch strip of flesh before realizing it. Blood began to ooze through the raw gash. The blood of a dead man might look like that, just before it turned to water.
\n[. . .]
\nA lock of hair fell across his chest. It was fully three feet long, and broke off in a bunch with a slight yank. It was gnarled and filthy and lifeless. It made him think of cadavers he had seen. Systematically, he pulled off all his hair. He kept scratching himself by accident, and suddenly noticed his finger nails were three inches long. His toe nails had been long, too, but most of them had broken off while he shambled about. He bent his finger nails and they snapped. Dry\u2014brittle\u2014dead. It was unpleasant, this deadness of a living body. p. 14<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Although these events are not explained at the time, it becomes clear that all life has been in suspended animation for three thousand years (later, Gamble the scientist takes responsibility for this), hence the people encased in dirt with long hair and nails, and the changed landscape. There are myriad other environmental changes: buried buildings, steel and clothing has rotted away, etc.
\nThe rest of this far-fetched but intriguing instalment follows Lucky\u2019s subsequent adventures in this new world which include, at one point, a hand coming out of the soil and grabbing his leg! After digging the man out, Lucky swims across the bay (sunken city buildings can be seen at the bottom) to find Drega the businessman.<\/p>\n

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Once Lucky finds Drega, he describes what he has seen. Drega takes charge:<\/p>\n

Drega clapped Lucky on the shoulder. \u201cIt\u2019s marvelous, my boy!\u201d he boomed lustily.
\n\u201cWhat?\u201d asked Lucky.
\n\u201cThe opportunity to build!\u201d Drega said glowingly. \u201cLook at it. A whole city, maybe a whole world, to rebuild.\u00a0And this time we\u2019ll build it right.\u201d p. 23<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Drega organises a team of workers he comes upon and leads them all back to the city.
\nThe beginning of this installment could have been better structured but, if an unlikely start to the novel, it is also an intriguing, original, and enjoyable one.<\/p>\n

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Matter Is Conserved<\/em><\/strong> by Raymond A. Palmer1<\/sup> starts with a data dump (albeit a well done one involving a talking parrot) about the gravitational lensing of light proving the existence of aether. A lone scientist has developed a machine to see into the past, but when used he finds himself in the future, materialising in an alien body. When he returns to his own time he still that form.
\nSubsequently his friends burst into the laboratory and find the \u2018alien\u2019 there but their friend missing. They think the \u2018alien\u2019 has stolen the machine and left their friend in the future, so they force it to take them there.
\nThis is a poor pulp potboiler but it has (spoiler) a neat twist ending (the pair take some of the dust from the floor of the machine during their search for the scientist\u2014the remains of Byrne\u2019s body upon him taking alien form\u2014and when they reverse the process he is left dead of a chest wound\u2014the missing dust).<\/p>\n

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Hyperpilosity<\/em><\/strong> by L. Sprague de Camp is de Camp\u2019s second story for the magazine.2<\/sup> It has a man at a poker game telling of The Great Change, a historical account of a flu virus which had the side effect of causing permanent body hair growth on all humanity. De Camp uses this maguffin for occasional comedic and political purposes:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn July Natasha, the gorilla in the Bronx Zoo, escaped from her cage and wandered around the park for hours before anyone noticed her. The zoo visitors all thought she was merely an unusually ugly member of their own species.\u201d p. 43<\/p>\n

\u201cThe destitution in the South intensified the ever-present race problem, and led eventually to the Negro revolt in Alabama and Mississippi, which was put down only after some pretty savage fighting. Under the agreement that ended that little civil war the Negroes were given the present Pale, a sort of reservation with considerable local autonomy. They haven\u2019t done as well as they claimed they were going to under that arrangement, but they\u2019ve done better than the Southern whites said they would. Which I suppose is about what you\u2019d expect. But, boy, just let a white man visiting their territory get uppity, and see what happens to him! They won\u2019t take any lip. p. 43<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When the narrator and his boss finally create a cure (there is talk about alpha, beta and gamma proteins) there\u00a0is no interest\u00a0in returning to the status quo ante.
\nA smart if minor story told in a breezy style.<\/p>\n

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Negative Space<\/em><\/strong> by Nat Schachner has Space Commander Dan Garin getting things off to a fairly dire start:<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the Beard of the Comet,\u201d he roared suddenly, \u201cI\u2019m getting fed up with this silly patrol duty and sillier transportation of distinguished space tourists from one end of the Solar System to the other. I\u2019m a fighting man, and the Arethusa\u2019s a fighting ship. It ain\u2019t natural for us to shuttle back and forth like brood hens clucking over blasted little chicks. I think I\u2019ll ground me and spend my declining days in the Martian pulque-caves, mumbling over my drink and telling tall tales to the gaping tourists.\u201d p. 50<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Two other characters are quickly introduced, Jerry, a young scientist en route to a new job on Callisto, and his girlfriend Sandra. As the three are talking on the bridge, they watch a freighter fly towards what looks like a cloud of fireflies. Jerry tells Greer to issue a warning. He does so but the freighter ignores it (the freighter captain responds on the radio like a truculent fourteen-year-old) and it flies into the cloud and perishes. Greer, thinking this a new pirate weapon, attempts to attack but Jerry fires the rockets and they avoid the same fate.
\nJerry\u2019s research reveals that the sparkles are a huge negative energy space (there is another Dirac positron mini-lecture here, similar to the one inserted by Campbell into Kent Casey\u2019s story last issue). If the cloud continues on the same course the Earth will be annihilated.
\nThe Planetary Council ignore Jerry when he warns them. Thereafter it is just a matter of waiting until the Council\u2019s science expedition gets fried before they give him dictatorial powers to sort the problem out. The rest of the story describes the seemingly losing battle they fight firing massive rockets into the cloud to annihilate the positrons. When no more suicide volunteers are available (spoiler), Space Commander Dan Garin forsakes his boozy retirement in the pulque-caves to make the Final Sacrifice.
\nThe last part is marginally better than the beginning but, overall, it is pretty bad.<\/p>\n

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The Faithful<\/em><\/strong> by Lester del Rey is his first published story, and it is a pretty impressive d\u00e9but. Written in response to Manly Wade Wellman\u2019s Pithecanthropus Rejectus<\/em> in the January issue,3<\/sup> it is narrated by an intelligent dog called Hungor in a future where mankind\u2014after a nuclear war, plague and poison gas attacks\u2014appears to have died off.
\nAfter the fighting stops, Hungor becomes the leader of his people. They eventually meet another group and, when they hear that the poison gas covering Chicago has dissipated, Hungor leads an expedition to the city. Once the wild dog packs are dealt with\u00a0they set it in motion again.
\nWhile engaged on this project\u2014problematical because of the dogs\u2019 lack of proper hands\u2014a man called Paul Kenyon arrives: he has survived because of the biological experiments he performed on himself before the war. He suggests to Hungor that the hands they want are\u00a0in Africa: men were creating intelligent apes there, although they had not gone as far as they had with dogs. Hungor agrees that they should send an expedition and, after they have trained pilots and repaired aircraft, Kenyon and a team leave.
\nIn Africa they search for the apes and eventually meet their leader, Tolemy. Nine hundred or so of the thousand apes eventually agree come to Chicago (attracted in part, no doubt, by the coffee and cigarettes they are given!)
\nTime passes, and matters progress successfully. In the last few pages Hungor talks of changing the apes to become more like men:<\/p>\n

Today I have come back from the bed of Paul Kenyon. We are often together now\u2014perhaps I should include the faithful Tolemy\u2014when he can talk, and among us there has grown a great friendship. I laid certain plans before him today for adapting the apes mentally and physically until they are men.
\nNature did it with an ape-like brute once; why can we not do it with the Ape-People now? The Earth would be peopled again, science would rediscover the stars, and Man would have a foster child in his own likeness.
\nAnd\u2014we of the Dog-People have followed Man for two hundred thousand years. That is too long to change. Of all Earth\u2019s creatures, the Dog-People alone have followed Man thus. My people cannot lead now. No dog was ever complete without the companionship of Man. The Ape-People will be Men.
\nIt is a pleasant dream, surely not an impossible one. p. 84<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A mature, sober, and affecting work.<\/p>\n

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Iszt\u2014Earthman<\/em><\/strong> by Raymond Z. Gallun starts with the alien Iszt climbing into a human-like robot and going to Earth\u2014the planet is going to be used by his race to prevent two suns crashing into each other and imperilling the galaxy. The rest of the first half has him driving a car to his base. Sitting next to him is\u00a0\u2018his\u2019 girlfriend Anne (Iszt has previously put the original Curt Shelby, who the robot was built to replace, in suspended animation). A farmer takes a pot shot at the car as they are driving along (don\u2019t ask) and Iszt\u2019s robot shell is damaged. They only just make it to the underground lair, where Anne learns that her boyfriend is an alien-controlled robot. She is given an amnesia drug.<\/p>\n

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The second half starts with descriptions of a variety of natural catastrophes that Earth is undergoing.\u00a0Iszt has caused\u00a0these so humanity will appoint him world dictator (that\u2019s two world dictators in this issue so far). When he is successful he starts his plan to save the Galaxy, although by now he has decided to protect the cities and give Earth a second chance.
\nThe final act has Earth and two hundred worlds being moved through space to stop the suns colliding (this requires burning off the top two hundred feet of the surface of the Earth). Iszt\u00a0threatens to wreck the plan unless\u00a0the rest of his kind help him give Earth a second chance after the collision is averted.
\nThere is a glimmer of some super-science sense of wonder in the last part, but it is smothered\u00a0by all the badly written and unconvincing pulp nonsense that precedes it. This story is even worse than the Schachner.<\/p>\n

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The second and last part of Jason Sows Again<\/em><\/strong> by Arthur J. Burks actually improves somewhat in quality (from the preceding dismal level) about a chapter in, by which time Jarl Strang has made ten copies of himself. They all depart by aircraft with the plan of photographing the newly arrived Emperor with the replication machine atom-cameras. The next part has some\u00a0interesting, and prescient, comment about the enemy they are facing (and some boilerplate \u2018Yellow Peril\u2019 material, it must be said):<\/p>\n

Hopelessness hung over the fortifications of the American army, as Jarl Harvey and Daryl Strang faced each other behind locked, soundproof doors, in a room off Strang\u2019s headquarters office. The arrival on American shores of His Majesty Hetira had turned every Yellow Girdle soldier into a starry-eyed, invincible fanatic. To die for his Emperor was the greatest glory a member of the Yellow Girdle could attain. Thousands, receiving the word that their God-Emperor had landed, raced to die on American bayonet points, before American bullets, in the midst of bomb-bursts, from sheer exuberation\u2014from sheer exaltation.
\nTheir God-Emperor had landed! The Godhead under whose inspiration Japan, China, all the races of color in the Orient, had been welded together into one vast whole, that whole the Empire of the Yellow Girdle.
\nNapoleon, long ago, had fired men to great deeds with a little piece of red ribbon on their left breasts. Hetira, copying everything that conquerors before him had used to inspire men and make themselves great in history, caused his followers to wear belts of yellow. And thousands went into battle and died, because they believed that while they wore the yellow girdles they would not die.
\nAnd those who wore them saw men die all around them, and still believed in the efficacy of the yellow girdle. Those men died, perhaps, because their hearts were weak, or evil, or their faith in the yellow girdle faltered. If a man died, sure of his faith, and his belief in the girdle, he could not tell the living that the girdle had betrayed him.
\nIf the girdle itself, a mere yellow strip of cloth, could inspire men to such deeds, all America realized what the actual physical presence of His Majesty Hetira would do to them.
\nNothing could stop those soldiers! p. 129-130<\/p>\n

Harvey thought, as he flew, how the chickens of many white powers were coming home to roost.While Japan had been fighting China, white nations had furnished China with their best scientific brains, in a vain effort to keep Japan from winning. Japan had won over and subdued China, and with her had conquered the fruits of white man\u2019s teachings. And while Japan almost never created or invented anything, she could take anything invented by others, and adapt it, or advance it, to a state of marvelous perfection.
\nGive Japan a plane, and she would develop that same plane into one of her own that could fly twice as fast and far, twice as high, and on half the fuel the original would have needed. Then she could further develop her own plane\u2014
\nWell, there seemed no end to it. And after conquering China, Japan had taken all other nations of color in her stride, because her Chinese vassal had the manpower she had always lacked. And so\u2014the army of fifty millions which Hetira could expend without thought p. 132-33<\/p>\n

Bombs burst, and where they burst clouds of mist came forth, to creep along the ground. It caught at those who fled, and they were gone. So that everywhere were the thousands and millions, fleeing from the creeping mist.
\nAnd the Yellow Girdle varied its attack. In many places, especially in cities, where \u201cregional strongholds\u201d had been more carefully constructed, and so withstood assault for longer periods, the Yellow Girdle released bombs which exploded\u2014and freed in the crisp air the horror of disease!
\nDisease which was worse than any gas. Disease of which medical authorities knew nothing. Disease bred in\u00a0Oriental tarns and swamps, in eastern slime, from the bodies of eastern carrion. Disease which mottled bodies of babies and women, and ate them slowly away\u2014 p. 136<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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While Jarl Harvey and his copies fly towards the Emperor, the war continues around them, and the men eventually parachute down on to enemy soil. Shortly after they land, and when the Yellow Girdle soldiers realise they all look the same, the Emperor arrives. The surviving Jarl Harveys are granted an audience, and manage to convince him to let them build replicator machines to produce gold.
\nWhat they actually do, of course, is (spoiler) make four copies of the Emperor who, with the original, descend into civil war. Nonsense, but quite a clever ending.
\nThis isn\u2019t a good story, but there are parts of this instalment that are interesting, compelling, and clever, and I came away with an inkling of why Burks was such a popular writer.<\/p>\n

At first glance, the Cover<\/em><\/strong> by Howard V. Brown for Three Thousand Years!<\/em> didn\u2019t really appeal, but when you look at a larger cleaned-up image it is striking to say the least. It depicts the \u2018resurrection\u2019 scene: look at those apparently elongated fingers, which look that way due to three-thousand-year old nails!
\nThe Interior artwork<\/em><\/strong> is by Howard V. Brown (uncredited, but the illustrations for the serial are presumably his as he did the cover\u2014and the figure in the \u2018drowned city\u2019 scene matches), Jack Binder (again uncredited but it looks like his work for the Palmer), Elliott Dold, Charles Schneeman, and H. W. Wesso. Hard to pick a favourite this issue but probably Brown (for the previously mentioned underwater scene) followed close behind by Wesso\/Schneeman\/Dold.
\nIn Times to Come<\/em><\/strong> trails a new three-part serial starting next issue, Jack Williamson\u2019s The Legion of Probability<\/em> (retitled The Legion of Time<\/em> on publication). Campbell says it will be \u201cour first mutant, new-concept story,\u201d and that Williamson\u2019s story embodies \u201ca completely new fundamental idea, an idea that permits of dozens of other plots.\u201d He also mentions a science article from \u2018Doc\u2019 Smith. The closing section has Campbell reiterate that the \u2018mutant\u2019 tag is only used for new concepts and ideas, and that he thinks it may be as long as six months before the next one.
\nOf the 500 Known Elements<\/em><\/strong> is a chemistry filler which states that isotopes are \u201cdifferent physical elements\u201d.
\nDetail\u2014But Immensely Important to Engineering<\/em><\/strong> is the second science filler, which is about new electrical motors and their glass tape insulation.
\nRadiation in Uniform<\/em><\/strong> by Herbert C. McKay is a science article on polarised light. I gave up on it after a few pages: it is unintelligible (and I say that as someone with a degree in physics and chemistry).
\nIn this month\u2019s editorial, Democracy<\/em><\/strong>, John W. Campbell, Jr. states \u201ca magazine is not an autocracy\u201d but a \u201cdemocracy by the readers\u2019 votes\u201d. Mmmm . . . for now, maybe. He adds that, while he can\u2019t print all the letters he receives, he will publish a representative selection, and that the letters received are helpful in \u201cforming and directing\u201d the magazine\u2019s expansion.
\nIgnition Point<\/em><\/strong> is another short pseudonymous science filler by Campbell which examines the energies required to produce atomic reactions.
\nA pseudonymous Campbell also contributes a ridiculous letter about the evolutionary pressures of modern living on man to Science Discussions<\/em><\/strong>:<\/p>\n

Man had prehensile toes once, and he probably had a nice prehensile tail. I\u2019ve seen worker in a steel-mill who worked controls on a special open-hearth furnace loading machine by using both hands, both feet, and by pushing controls with the side of his head. Just think how darned handy a man with prehensile, individually controllable toes, and a really useable monkeylike tail would be!
\nAnd eyes! Not a few creatures have eyes capable of individual operation. Give a man eyes that could at will, operate either as two separate units of vision or in stereoscopic cooperation, and you\u2019d have something. A little development of brain tissue already available, and he\u2019d be watching indicating meters, and the operations he was performing at the same time.
\nThat is, if a change does occur in Man so that a slightly variant type arises, he\u2019s apt to get his chance pretty quickly. That little thing like the two-way eyes, for instance. A workman who developed that knack would get a pretty good salary, because his efficiency would be higher.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A man with two-way eyes would probably not do that well on Tinder, and thus fail to reproduce and pass on his mutation.
\nAfter another letter about evolution, there is a request for an astronomical cover of Earth as seen from the Moon. The final letter is about escape velocity.
\nBrass Tacks<\/em><\/strong> has letters from a couple of names I recognise (Robert A. Madle, the long-time bookseller, and Langley Searles, the future editor of Fantasy Commentator<\/em>). As well as the usual comments about the stories4<\/sup> there are quite a few that mention the artwork, and their like or dislike of various artists.<\/p>\n

An interesting issue, with the appearance of del Rey the highlight. \u25cf<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

1. Ray Palmer was just about to start, or had just started, at Ziff Davis, taking over the editorship of Amazing Stories<\/em> from T. O\u2019Conor Sloane (Palmer\u2019s first issue was the June 1938 issue).<\/p>\n

2. De Camp\u2019s first story for the magazine was The Isolinguals<\/em> (Astounding<\/em>, September 1937). He would become an important contributor to the magazine.
\nAlexi & Cory Panshin\u2019s The World Beyond the Hill<\/em> (Chapter 12) (Amazon UK<\/a>; ebook on iTunes<\/a>) has three or so pages about Campbell meeting de Camp and their early relationship. It includes this:<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t take Campbell long to see that de Camp had a highly developed sense of a universe of interconnection, a universe in which all things hang together. And Campbell was able to recognize this as the same in essence as the universe of his own vision\u2014the universe of underlying operating principles.
\nDe Camp became Campbell\u2019s right-hand man. In 1938, Campbell would publish only three short stories and one article by de Camp. But in 1939, the figures would be two two-part articles, two novels, and six stories, and Campbell would also use de Camp as a script doctor to do a complete revision of another author\u2019s not-quite acceptable novel.
\nIt would be hard to overstate the value de Camp held for Campbell in those early years. It was a complex and interrelated program of change that Campbell was attempting to engineer in\u00a0<\/span>Astounding <\/span><\/em>through 1938 and 1939, and the writing that best exemplified the modern science fiction that Campbell was striving to bring into being was the work of L. Sprague de Camp. Until other writers finally showed up with their own versions of the new Atomic Age vision, it was de Camp who served as Campbell\u2019s corroboration and proof.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

3. Del Rey describes how his first story came to be written in The Early Del Rey<\/em> by Lester Del Rey, Doubleday, 1975:<\/p>\n

I was busy reading [Astounding<\/em>] a few days before Christmas [1937] when my girlfriend dropped by to see me. She lived a couple of blocks away, and the landlady knew her and liked her enough to let her go up to my room unannounced. So she appeared just as I was throwing the magazine rather forcibly onto the floor. I still do that sometimes when a story irritates me, though I\u2019m somewhat more tolerant now.
\nI can\u2019t remember why I was so disgusted. The story was one by Manly Wade Wellman, \u201cPithecanthropus Rejectus,\u201d in the January 1938 issue of Astounding Stories<\/em>, in which normal human beings were unsuccessfully imitated by an ape; I suspect my dislike was at the unsuccessful part of the idea.
\n[. . .]
\nAnyhow, my girlfriend wanted to know what all the fuss was about, and I responded with a long and overly impassioned diatribe against the story. In return, I got the most irritating question a critic can receive: \u201cWhat makes you think you have the right to judge writers when you can\u2019t write a story yourself?\u201d
\nMy expostulations on the great critics who couldn\u2019t write fiction got nowhere.
\n\u201cSo what makes you think I can\u2019t write?\u201d I wanted to know.
\n\u201cProve it,\u201d she answered.
\nThat was something of a stopper. But I couldn\u2019t back down at that stage. So eventually, I talked her down to admitting that maybe even successful writers couldn\u2019t sell every story, and that if I could get a personal letter from the editor, rather than a standard rejection slip, I would win the bet.
\nWhen she left, I sat down to do a little hard thinking. I was pretty sure I could win, partly because I knew that John W. Campbell had just been made editor of the magazine; I\u2019d written some very nice things about his stories in my letters to the editor, and I was sure he\u2019d remember my name, which would help. That was cheating, a bit, but I still didn\u2019t think the challenge was fair, either. Anyhow, I\u2019d stuck my lip out, and now I had to make good: I have always enjoyed challenges, and I meant to enjoy this one.
\nWell, I\u2019d read an amazing number of articles on how to write fiction in the old Writers\u2019 Digest<\/em>\u2014splendid articles by many of my favorite pulp writers. I\u2019d read them because it helped me to enjoy their fiction even more, but I must have learned something out of them. And I\u2019d also come up with a number of ideas for stories during the years of reading. I hadn\u2019t written any of them down, even in notes, but I remembered the best of them.
\nIn the end, however, I decided that the best idea was to rebut the story I\u2019d disliked by writing one in which man failed and some other animal took over. Wellman had used an ape, so I chose dogs as my hopefuls. So far as I could remember, few science fiction stories had used dogs, though a lot had messed around with the apes.
\nDuring that evening and the next day, I figured out what I hoped was a plot. Then I sat down at my old three-row Oliver and began writing steadily. It took me about three hours to finish. And looking at the results, I wasn\u2019t at all happy. It was too wordy in style, and too long. I knew that editors get too many long stories and are usually most interested in fiction that is under five thousand words in length. Mine ran to eight thousand. So I sat down with a pencil and began slashing out and shortening. When I finished, I had only four thousand words left, but the results were much better. I\u2019d also learned a tremendous amount about the art of writing fiction\u2014so much that I never had to resort to that business of slashing again; thereafter, I slashed mentally as I went along.
\nSo I shoved the old 1909 Oliver under the bed and dragged out my modern four-row Woodstock. (There was something about the old machine that suited it for composing; but the Woodstock made much neater copy.) I retyped the story neatly in approved form, put it in an envelope with the required stamped, return-address envelope, and mailed it off to John W. Campbell the day before Christmas, 1937.
\nThe story was entitled \u201cThe Faithful,\u201d and I thought it a little too simple to sell, but good enough to get a personal letter.
\n[. . .]
\nI\u2019d read enough about manuscripts from unknown writers to expect a long delay before I received any notice of my story. But to my surprise, there was an envelope from Astounding Stories<\/em> in the mail of January 8. And it was a small envelope, instead of the large return one I had sent to hold my manuscript. There was no personal letter from the editor\u2014but there was a check for $40.
\nIt\u2019s a little hard to find the right word to describe my reaction. Perhaps ecstatic delight is the best description; and from other writers, I\u2019ve heard that this is a sort of standard, normal feeling. There seems to be something about having one\u2019s first work of fiction accepted for publication that is not equaled by any other success on earth!
\nNaturally, I called the girl friend, who agreed that I\u2019d won the bet\u2014and who never again questioned my right to throw a magazine across the room! Then I called my uncle, who had sold a lot of pulp fiction himself; I think his reaction was fully the equal to mine when he finally figured out what I was saying.
\nBut I was far too practical to frame the check; that got cashed at once, leaving me with more money in one lump than I\u2019d had for several months. And then the second reaction began. How long had all this been going on? Forty dollars was a lot of money in those days; and I\u2019d earned it for only a couple of days of fairly easy work that had been fun. Aha! Mr. World, here I come!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019ve read very little of Del Rey\u2019s work, but the early stories of his that are always mentioned are Helen O\u2019Loy<\/em> (Astounding<\/em>, December 1938) and Nerves<\/em> (Astounding<\/em>, September 1942). That said, The Faithful<\/em> placed fifth in the 1939 Retro Hugo short story awards (Helen O\u2019Loy<\/em> placed second behind Arthur C. Clarke\u2019s How We Went to Mars<\/em>).<\/p>\n

4. The Analytical Laboratory<\/em> (a story-rating feature that begins next month) in the June issue reveals what readers thought of the stories in this one:<\/p>\n

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

The pecking order is close to my own: I would swap the del Rey\/McLeary and the de Camp\/Burks. It is interesting to note that the readers of 1938 also clocked the Palmer, Schachner and Gallun stories as the weak material in this issue. \u25cf<\/p>\n

Edited 15th November 2019: formatting, archive.org link.<\/em><\/p>\n\"rss\"<\/a>\"rss\"<\/a><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ISFDB Archive.org _____________________ Editor, John W. Campbell Jr. Three Thousand Years! (Part 1 of 3) \u2022 serial by Thomas Calvert McClary \u2217\u2217\u2217+ Matter Is Conserved \u2022 short story by Raymond A. Palmer \u2217 Hyperpilosity \u2022 short story by L. Sprague de Camp \u2217\u2217\u2217 Negative Space \u2022 novelette by Nat Schachner The Faithful \u2022 short story […]<\/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-4403","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\/p6Pcj7-191","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4403","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=4403"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4458,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4403\/revisions\/4458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}