{"id":4858,"date":"2018-05-12T14:57:21","date_gmt":"2018-05-12T14:57:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=4858"},"modified":"2019-11-15T11:37:25","modified_gmt":"2019-11-15T11:37:25","slug":"astounding-science-fiction-v21n04-june-1938","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=4858","title":{"rendered":"Astounding Science-Fiction v21n04, June 1938"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

_____________________<\/p>\n

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

Fiction:
\nMen Against the Stars<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Manly Wade Wellman –
\nBelow\u2014Absolute!<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Harry Walton \u2217\u2217<\/strong>
\nThe Legion of Time<\/em><\/strong> (Part 2 of 3) \u2022 serial by Jack Williamson \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>+
\nPhilosophers of Stone<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by D. L. James –
\nSeeds of the Dusk<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Raymond Z. Gallun \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nIsle of the Golden Swarm<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Norman L. Knight \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nThree Thousand Years!<\/em><\/strong> (Part 3 of 3) \u2022 serial by Thomas Calvert McClary \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong><\/p>\n

Non-fiction:
\nMen Against the Stars<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 cover by H. W. Wesso
\nInterior artwork<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 H. W. Wesso, uncredited, Charles Schneeman (x2), Jack Binder (x2), Eliot Dold (x3), uncredited (x2), Howard Brown (x2), Olga Ley (x4)
\nFantastic Fiction<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 editorial by John W. Campbell, Jr.
\nThe Great Eye<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 science essay by R. DeWitt Miller
\nMonstrous Twin<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 science filler
\nIn Times to Come<\/em><\/strong>
\nThe Analytical Laboratory: April 1938<\/em><\/strong>
\nWitnesses of the Past<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 science essay by Willy Ley
\nMars <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 cover artwork essay
\nScience Discussions <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 letters
\nBrass Tacks<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 letters<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

This issue has the second astronomical cover that Campbell commissioned, produced by Wesso for the Manly Wade Wellman story Men Against the Stars<\/em><\/strong>. The top and bottom colour bars that were missing on last issue\u2019s cover are back. John Campbell provides an accompanying essay to go with the cover:<\/p>\n

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As for the story itself, Men Against the Stars<\/em><\/strong> by Manly Wade Wellman1<\/sup> starts with spaceship fifty-one on its way from the Moon to Mars. However, the atomic hydrogen fuel they are using is not stable and, as the crew are discussing their chances of surviving the trip, the ship explodes.<\/p>\n

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The story then switches its point of view to Tallentyre, the lunar base\u2019s second in command, who has watched the ship explode and is now arguing with his hysterical superior. The latter is trying to deal with the mutinous crew of ship sixty-one, who are refusing to leave and, in any event, he doesn\u2019t want to send another crew to their deaths. After some speechifying from Tallentyre about the sacrifice required to travel in space (I note that when this subject comes up it is usually someone else<\/em>\u2019s sacrifice), and the problems with atomic hydrogen and jet tubes, he knocks his boss out and goes to deal with the mutineers. Things do not go well:<\/p>\n

Tallentyre\u2019s right hand rested easily in the pocket of his tunic. The cold, gray eyes watched the big spaceman steadily. \u201cYou think you could get away with violence?\u201d
\nThe big man took a step forward with a hamlike fist clenched before him. \u201cThink, brother? Hu-uh. I know I can,\u201d he said softly. \u201cYou tried it yourself inside there.\u201d Without turning his head, he spoke to the men behind him. \u201cCome on, boys. Grab this guy. And one of you tail for the ship and that gun.\u201d
\nWithout relaxing his moveless, wooden face, Tallentyre drew his hand from his tunic pocket. Space volunteers have to have a queer, reckless courage. With a bull roar, the giant captain dove forward with outstretched hands, his face twisted with sudden hate. Tallentyre shot him between the eyes. The big body fell with exaggerated slowness under Lunar pull. p. 10-11<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The other four crewmen, appropriately motivated, go on their flight: their spaceship blows up.
\nA female assistant, Noel, appears and tells Tallentyre she did love him but doesn\u2019t anymore (he never knew that she did). Police arrive from Earth to arrest him for the killing but he escapes outside the base, giving Noel a chance to relent\u2014she called the cops\u2014and tell them what really happened with the mutineers. Tallentyre comes back and finds he is no longer being pursued for the killing, and that a ship is returning. He orders the police to arrest the returning mutineers\u2014Tallentyre is nothing if not single-minded.
\nThe last scene (spoiler) reveals that the arriving crew have actually returned from a base on Mars and, not only that, they have discovered what the problem with the spaceship jet tubes is (this is analogous to the properties of Prince Rupert\u2019s Drop,2<\/sup>\u00a0a hard\/brittle glass phenomenon mentioned briefly at the start of the story).
\nThis is pretty dreadful fare, and it\u2019s hard to believe that it comes from the author of Pithecanthropus Rejectus<\/em> (Astounding<\/em>, January 1938).<\/p>\n

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Below\u2014Absolute!<\/em><\/strong> by Harry Walton starts with two spacemen providing a short data-dump about a dark spot between Alpha Centauri and Earth that they are going to investigate.
\nAs they approach the anomaly there is an interesting description that is similar to the one you would expect for a black hole:<\/p>\n

For space before them was empty, with an emptiness not of space. A black meteor, or a swarm of particles, they were ready to face, but sight recoiled from the sheer vacuum of non-spatial darkness which gaped ahead of the ship. This was nothingness made tangible, a canyon of blackness in which the stars were lost, incredibly empty and hostile in its very negation of all things normal.
\n[. . .]
\nThis was no dark body blotting out the stellar field beyond, no long-dead sun hurtling its cold way unseen through the burial place of the stars, no obscuring cloud of cosmic dust. Of that they presently felt certain. Its outline against the tapestry of the stars was that of an enormous, perfectly circular disk, and\u2014although neither man would have admitted it\u2014both felt it possessed of motion within itself. It crossed Holm\u2019s thought that this was an all-absorbing funnel draining into unknown space and tune, a sucking vacuum of nothingness alien to space as they knew it. p. 24-25<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As they approach they discover that the disc is sucking heat out of the universe, and the pair only just avoid freezing to death.
\nAliens later take control of their subconscious and start talking to them with their own voices. The aliens are in another universe on the other side of the disc, one that has a lower energy state than ours, and which is dying. The reason that they have opened a passage between the two is to let energy flow from our universe to theirs: as a result of this Earth and the solar system are doomed.
\nThe rest of the story (spoiler) concerns the two men\u2019s struggle to fly their spacecraft into the Passage to destroy the link between the two universes. During this the aliens attempt to physically control them.
\nThis is fairly standard pulp stuff, but there are one or two interesting ideas.<\/p>\n

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The middle part of The Legion of Time<\/em><\/strong> by Jack Williamson continues the story of the battle between the two possible timelines of Jonbar and Gyronchi, and it starts with the time ship Chronion<\/em> struggling to reach Jonbar\u2014the Gyrane have somehow reduced the probability of its future existence. The ship finally arrives at Jonbar two weeks later.<\/p>\n

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Lanning finally meets Lethonee, and they have dinner that evening on an outdoor balcony. She tells Lanning that Jonbar has only one night of existence left, but before they can discuss this further, Sorainya and Glarath, high Priest of the Gyrane, arrive to witness the end of the city. Lanning runs to the Chronion <\/em>as Lethonee fades out of existence.
\nOn the ship, McLan tells Lanning the reason Jonbar has flickered out of existence is that the Gyrane have managed to build a time ship too. With it they have gone back in time and taken someone or something, thus altering the future and assuring their existence. McLan also states that whatever they have taken will be kept under guard in Sorainya\u2019s castle. The Chronion<\/em>\u00a0heads for Gyronchi. En route the Gyrane ship appears beside them in the time stream and they find themselves heavily outgunned. One of their crew is killed and two wounded before they manage to escape (the serial is notable for the large number of casualties).<\/p>\n

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In the next chapter they climb up a cliff to Sorainya\u2019s citadel and gain entry. They move through the dungeons and come upon the guards, who raise the alarm.
\nThis section (the climb up the cliff and the fight through the dungeon) is a great boy\u2019s own adventure, fast-moving, bloody, and with lots of atmospheric description. One of the scenes shows Williamson\u2019s Weird Tales<\/em> licks:<\/p>\n

A dreadful silence filled most of the prison. But from one cell came an agonized screaming, paper-thin from a raw throat, repeated with a maddening monotony. Glancing through a barred door, as he passed, Lanning saw a woman stretched out in chains on the floor. A crystal vessel swung back and forth, above her, pendulumlike. And drops of cold green fire fell from it, one by one, upon her naked flesh. With each spattering, corrosive drop, she writhed against the chains, and shrieked again.
\nThe half-consumed body, Lanning thought, might once have been beautiful. Could this have been some rival of Sorainya\u2019s? A cold hate turned him rigid, and quickened his step. A muffled shot echoed behind him, and the screaming stopped.
\n\u201cMon coeur!<\/em>\u201d whispered little Jean Querard. \u201cShe shall suffer no more.\u201d
\nIn another cell was a great squeaking and thumping commotion. And Lanning glimpsed huge, sleek rats battling over a body in chains, newly dead, or dying.
\nOnce, beyond, that situation was reversed. A sightless, famished wretch had bitten his own wrist, to let a few drops of blood flow upon the floor. He crouched there, listening, and snatched again and again, blindly, with fettered hands, at the great wary rats that came to his bait. p. 46-47<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The instalment finishes with another bloody fight in the great hall, which only Lanning and his old friend Halloran survive. They make their way to the trapdoor in Sorainya\u2019s chambers, and in the vault below they find her embalmed ancestors, treasure beyond measure, and the object (a black brick) they are looking for.
\nOn their way out they find Sorainya and her insect-like kothrin<\/em> guards waiting. . . .
\nThis serial continues to be a lot of fun and, given its age, a surprising page-turner.<\/p>\n

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Philosophers of Stone<\/em><\/strong> by D. L. James is a pretty awful story that has an inventor called Voorland regain consciousness to find that his transportation machine has malfunctioned and stranded him on an alien planet. The large crystal rock he had previously gathered as a specimen starts talking to him telepathically, and he learns that\u00a0he will be taken to the Sigarians. On the way (the journey is by means of\u00a0pseudopods that come out of the ground) the crystal chats away.
\nVoorland later discovers (spoiler) that the rock is actually using him to gain access to a spaceship that has crash-landed and is buried underground. He manages to escape, and finds that the spaceship crew are humanoid. They need \u201cred metal\u201d to refuel their ship before they can escape\u2014which is conveniently provided by the copper cable of Voorland\u2019s machine.<\/p>\n

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Seeds of the Dusk<\/em><\/strong> by Raymond Z. Gallun1, 3<\/sup> starts off in third-person omniscient, and describes a spore drifting between the orbits of Mars and Earth in the far future. The spore eventually lands on Earth and starts growing:<\/p>\n

The spore had become a plant now. First, it was no bigger than a pinhead. Then it increased its size to the dimensions of a small marble, its fuzzy, greenbrown shape firmly anchored to the soil itself by its long, fibrous roots. Like any terrestrial growth, it was an intricate chemical laboratory, where transformations took place that were not easy to comprehend completely.
\nAnd now, perhaps, the thing was beginning to feel the first glimmerings of a consciousness, like a human child rising out of the blurred, unremembering fog of birth. Strange, oily nodules, scattered throughout its tissues, connected by means of a complex network of delicate, white threads, which had the functions of a nervous system, were developing and growing\u2014giving to the sporeplant from Mars the equivalent of a brain. Here was a sentient vegetable in the formative stage. p. 78-79<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The point of view then switches to Kaw, an intelligent crow. As the bird is flying overhead the plant he sees it begin to spore\u00a0and goes down to investigate. There are dead ants all around the plant, and Kaw receives an electric shock from one of its spines. As the plant sends out more spores Kaw realises the threat to life on Earth and flies to the Iterloo, the descendants of humanity. After he tells Zar, one of their irritable representatives, he gets shot for his trouble.<\/p>\n

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Zar\u00a0goes to see the plant for himself. When it shocks him, he promptly flames it to the ground with his pistol. He returns to his underground home where the remnants of humanity are preparing to leave the dying Earth for Venus. Despite this, and after discussions among the Iterloo, they decide\u00a0to build generators to irradiate the surface and kill the plants (and all other life as well).
\nMeanwhile, we find out that Kaw isn\u2019t dead but only injured. He slowly makes his way back home and, one night when he goes into a ravine to sleep, he does not notice the alien plants that are there and ends up under their hypnotic power. The plants then use Kaw to lure Zar to them, and the Iterloo in turn comes under their hypnotic power. After being encircled by vines for days he eventually escapes, and goes back to the city where the preparations for a move to Venus continue, as do the plans to irradiate the surface.<\/p>\n

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The story ends (spoiler) some time in the future, with Kaw and all the other surface life still alive: the plants infected Zar with a plague that subsequently wiped out humanity.
\nThis is quite a good piece, and one that I enjoyed for the detailed writing and the far-future Earth setting. However, I wondered why the humans were bothering to make the effort to wipe out the plants when they were planning on going to Venus anyway.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Isle of the Golden Swarm<\/em><\/strong> by Norman L. Knight starts with a passenger on a ship watching two natives help a badly injured man aboard:<\/p>\n

McGrath came aboard the ship at Port Said, in the middle of an afternoon of withering heat. Two swarthy, white-turbaned men carried him up the gangplank and into his cabin; his legs dangled inertly as if paralyzed. They passed within a few feet of my deck-chair, where I lay baking and sweltering in the shade of an awning. McGrath\u2019s appearance shocked me out of a semi-stupor and into a state of observant wakefulness.
\nHe seemed a youngish man, and yet he was extraordinarily emaciated. His hands were bony talons resting on the shoulders of the two porters. His clothes hung and flapped loosely upon him. Half of one ear was missing, and the tip of his nose had been sliced oft obliquely. The scars were dark red, and obviously recent. His face was the thinly masked face of a skull, the eyes retracted into cavernous sockets and haunted by the shadow of some abysmal fear. p. 97-98<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The narrator later meets McGrath on deck and they talk. He listens to a story about the injured man\u2019s adventures in a remote part of the jungle, where he had gone to study apes. After his tribal guides left him (with a warning to keep out of a nearby part of the jungle called the \u201chaunted forest\u201d) he had set up camp in a cave, and later established a relationship with a young male gorilla, \u201cGunga Din\u201d. They spent a lot of time together and, strangely, the creature forcibly prevents McGrath from entering the \u201chaunted forest\u201d.<\/p>\n

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Needless to say, the gorilla finds a mate and spends an increasing amount of time away. At this point, McGrath makes another attempt at entering the forbidden area. He is successful, but there is a strange atmosphere there, and a number of animal skeletons with a spiral hole bored in their skulls. The story comes to a climax (spoiler) when he stumbles on a lake with bone-littered shores, and an islet covered in tiny alien buildings. As he watches, a swarm of golden insect-like beings take flight towards him. They shoot tiny, paralysing darts at him when they arrive:<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were insects! They were giant hornets, the size of humming birds, and their bodies and limbs seemed wrought of burnished gold. They walked upon their two hinder pairs of limbs, but held the fore part of their bodies upright, in the manner of a praying mantis, and were very dexterous with their third and forward pair of limbs. The first squadron to arrive was armed with little crossbows of silvery metal.
\n[. . .]
\nA half-dozen of them trotted over me in an exploratory fashion, seemed to confer, then amputated a bit of my nose. The operation was painless; the venom of their darts must have been an efficient local anesthetic as well. They immediately applied a styptic paste to the wound. Then they retired with the fragment to a point just on the edge of my range of vision, where I could not see exactly what they were doing. But my impression was that they\u2014devoured it! p. 106<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The insects spend the rest of the day examining McGrath then, when night comes, they go back to their nest. Gunga Din the gorilla arrives to rescue him. The final paragraphs have McGrath display a number of small hypodermic needles, and a miniature cutlass and crossbow.
\nThe first part of this is quite well written, and it reads like a good Weird Tales<\/em> story, but the ending is a little unconvincing, and too straightforward.<\/p>\n

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The third and concluding part of Three Thousand Years!<\/em><\/strong> by Thomas Calvert McClary gets off to an entertaining start as Gamble the scientist discovers that his ideals conflict with the realities of human nature:<\/p>\n

Gamble delivered his promised feast to the clan\u2014fourteen cases of food. Three thousand people looked at the small pile with astonishment.
\nGamble smiled. \u201cConcentrated. I assure you, it is sufficient.\u201d
\nHis four assistants prepared the lavish feast in a special catalytic stove. Twenty-three hors d\u2019oeuvres occupied a space about one inch square!
\nBut\u2014the course was delicious. So was the half gill of soup. At the end came a striped pill about the size of a peanut.
\n\u201cWhat\u2019s this ?\u201d Prescott grunted skeptically.
\nGamble smiled. \u201cA complete banana split. Twelve trimmings.\u201d
\nThe copper man leaned over to Lucky. \u201cI\u2019m not hungry, but I\u2019ll be damned if I et yet! A dinner just don\u2019t seem right unless you got something to wade into.\u201d
\nLater Lucky found him nibbling joyously on a piece of dried fish. p. 112-113<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

After this the novel meanders somewhat. There is a grisly chapter where they start making glass, and one of the glass makers has to sacrifice himself by going under the mould, which is full of molten material, to crack it open. There are also critical problems trying to get into a bank vault:<\/p>\n

Gamble did not know how men had first built their weary way through ten thousand years to civilization. Gamble could not find that road again, nor could his experts. If that gold vault defied them\u2014if that slim chain of vast science his laboratory preserved should break\u2014Gamble would be broken. He had no second string. Drega could work with raw rock and brute power, could build again. Gamble could not. He knew it. p. 120<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Later there are sections detailing other production problems, and attempts to trade with Drega and steel makers in Pittsburgh. There are cannibals and the outside world to contend with as well. Ultimately, a malaise starts to affect Gamble\u2019s society. People defect to Drega, and Gamble is eventually put on trial for putting the human race into suspended animation. Drega acts as the judge, and he ultimately frees Gamble: the two reconcile.
\nIn conclusion, this is a rather uneven piece, and it overdoes the detail of the various industrial processes required by a modern society (although I did go away with a greater realisation of the problems of restarting civilization after an apocalyptic event). Also, McCleary\u2019s premise about the human need for work isn\u2019t convincing (I suspect many\u00a0people who are in jobs they don\u2019t like would feel the same). Overall though this is an interesting and, at times, highly entertaining novel.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve already mentioned Wesso\u2019s cover above, but he also contributes Interior artwork<\/em><\/strong> for the Wellman piece and, I think, the Walton story on p. 23 (it\u00a0is uncredited but it looks like his work). There is other credited work by Charles Schneeman, Jack Binder, Eliot Dold, and Olga Ley. This leaves Brown and Coughlin from the list of artists on the title page to claim the illustrations for the McClary and Knight stories. Howard Brown did the cover for the McClary in the April issue, and the interior illustrations for all three issues look like that, therefore Coughlin is presumably the artist for the Knight story on p. 97.
\nI like a number\u00a0of the illustrations in this issue, the Wesso, Schneeman, Coughlin, Ley, and the first of the Dold pieces for Gallun\u2019s story.
\nFantastic Fiction<\/em><\/strong> by John W. Campbell is an interesting editorial about how technological changes creep up slowly on society as they are perfected. The last couple paragraphs are prescient in their observation that spaceships and atomic power will \u201ccome together\u201d and that their discoverers are \u201chere today\u201d.<\/p>\n

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The Great Eye<\/em><\/strong> by R. DeWitt Miller (who contributed March\u2019s novelette The Master Shall Not Die!<\/em>) is an interesting science article about the intended uses of the new Mount Palomar 200\u201d telescope, and the problems that will need to be overcome\u00a0in operating it.
\nMonstrous Twin<\/em><\/strong> is a short filler about the similarities between the \u201ctwin elelments\u201d sulphur and selenium. It grimly outlines the problem in certain agricultural situations:<\/p>\n

In certain regions of the West, the ground is poor in sulphur. Plants growing there, unable to get the \u201cbadly-needed sulphur, take the near-twin element, selenium, instead.
\nThen the deadliness of the element begins. Cattle and horses, chickens and similar animals eat those plants. Their growing cells require sulphur, and the selenium slips in instead. Hair-cells, trying to manufacture that sulphur-containing protein, first find that the substitute won\u2019t work. The hair-cells are poisoned, die, and ulcerous sores appear. The hair drops out in ugly patches. Sores, cuts, bruises fail to heal, as the growth-stimulating functions of the tissues fail for lack of sulphur. The wounds spread and fester. The animal\u2019s brain is affected.
\nBut selenium-fed hens laying eggs somehow manage to get the selenium into the proteins that should contain sulphur. And it works\u2014somewhat. The things that hatch out live, for a while at least. But they aren\u2019t chickens. They are monstrous things. Growth of young, new cells\u2014where sulphur is most vitally needed\u2014goes on somehow\u2014but it goes wrong. Calves and colts born to cattle and horses fed on that poisoned fodder are monstrous, the degree of wrongness increasing with the proportion of selenium the mother animal ate. p. 96<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In Times to Come<\/em><\/strong> plugs next issue\u2019s new novelette by Ray Cummings and the associated cover, as well as heralding the return of Clifford D. Simak.
\nThe Analytical Laboratory: April 1938<\/em><\/strong> presents the story-ratings for the April issue, which I commented on in that review.4<\/sup><\/p>\n

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Witnesses of the Past<\/em><\/strong> by Willy Ley is a fascinating article about \u201cliving fossils\u201d, biological oddities such as the duck-billed platypus and the lungfish, etc., and the consternation these animals caused scientists at the time of their discovery.<\/p>\n

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The accomplished illustrations for this article are, according to the issue\u2019s ISFDB page, \u201cby Olga Ley, per editor response to Isaac Asimov, Astounding<\/em>, Aug. 1938.\u201d
\nI\u2019d be interested to know what corrections or additions, if any, a modern biologist would make to this article.
\nScience Discussions <\/em><\/strong>has the usual half-baked and semi-incoherent contributions punctuated by a couple of letters of interest. D. R. Cummins, of Sacramento, CA, comments on favourably on the astronomical covers that the magazine has started using, and has suggestions about others he would like to see:<\/p>\n

[How] about some lunar scenery in its probable real colors? The Moon is one of the most-pictured extra-terrestrial objects, but after all, it is the closest and the easiest to examine and will be the first landing place for space travelers. My impression is that the apparent uniformity of color on the Moon is due to the conditions under which we see it. Yesterday it was cloudy here but we could see the snow-covered Sierra Nevada Range sixty miles away illuminated with bright sunlight. It had a silvery brightness curiously like a lunar landscape as seen through a telescope. There was the same lack of variety in coloring, yet in the mountains there is great contrast between the snow and light-gray granite and the green of the trees (pine, fir, cedar, etc.) and the dark, volcanic rock. p. 149<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are a couple of letters that should probably be in Brass Tacks<\/em>, including one by A. S. McEckron, Galvaston, KA, who provides an amusing description of that column:<\/p>\n

It was with considerable surprise and some apprehension that I noted the rather uproarious emergence of Brass Tacks from its well merited banishment to the limbo of obsolescence. Such a department could and should be of inestimable value as a symposium of the opinions and preferences of your readers\u2014if all readers could be persuaded to present their mental reactions as opinions rather than pearls of wisdom from the treasure house of omniscience. Brass Tacks, for some time previous to its banishment contained more stridence than science, more concussion than discussion. It was about as interesting and instructive as a cacophonous wrangle between a covey of quail and a flock of crows; the quail perpetually interrogating \u201cBut why? But why? But why?\u201d: and the crows raucously \u201cBecause! Because! Because!\u201d And its short sojourn in the editorial hoosegow appears to have improved neither its temperament nor its technique. p. 151<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Brass Tacks<\/em><\/strong> starts with a couple of correspondents expressing a preference for Dold\u2019s artwork over Wesso\u2019s, which I find rather baffling (Dold has another admirer towards the end of the column). Elsewhere, there are positive comments about the beginning of McClary\u2019s serial Three Thousand Years!<\/em>
\nThere is one particularly negative letter from James S. Avery, Skowhegan, MA:<\/p>\n

In the few short months that you have been editor, you have destroyed practically all of the marvelous work that Tremaine had done for several years before you. You have broken up and disfigured every point that he strove to uphold. The magazine has now absolutely no tradition to look up to. From the first of your issues, the magazine has had a rushed, slapped-together air about it. Even the printers seem to sense it.
\nMy last few issues have been loosely bound, raggedy cut, covers set up unevenly\u2014 all in all a general slovenly appearance.
\nTruthfully, I can say the mag is not one quarter as good as in 1934, and not a fifth as good as in 1937\u2014certainly not very complimentary to you. Its stories have declined in quality\u2014each issue is just a bit poorer than the preceeding. Its art work has gone down frightfully. Brass Tacks has been neglected, heavy science articles have increased. All these signs point to a slow but sure break-down of the old policy. Worst of all\u2014 or perhaps it seems the worst to me\u2014is the disgracing placement of Brass Tacks. In the March issue its position was excellent. Why couldn\u2019t it have been left there, instead of being shoved among columns of advertising? Science Discussions is good and should be kept, but in moderation. Why is it today we rarely see any more of the highly enjoyable letters of the type once printed in the old Wonder Stories<\/em>? That was a department to be proud of! p. 156<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I suspect this may be a solitary outlier\u2014but Campbell liked an argument.
\nWith two good serials and a novelette, and a couple of okay short stories (not to mention an unprecedented\u00a0three<\/em> science articles I liked!), this issue is probably the best of the early Campbell Astoundings<\/em> I\u2019ve read so far. \u25cf<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

1. In Campbell\u2019s letter of 28th<\/sup> February 1938 to his friend and correspondent Robert Swisher (in Fantasy Commentator<\/em> #59\/60\u2014recommended, and available at Lulu.com<\/a>), he talks about Wellman\u2019s and Gallun\u2019s stories, and the changing publication date of the magazine:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn June we\u2019ll have another astronomical cover\u2014Mars. I\u2019ll have to show it as seen from Diemos, the outer moon, because Phobos is so close you can\u2019t see the whole planet from there. It illustrates \u2018Men Against the Stars\u2019 by Manly Wade Wellman, who, incidentally, is coming along damn well. \u2018Pithecanthropus Rejectus\u2019 and \u2018Wings of the Storm\u2019 both received a way-above-average reception. \u2018Men Against The Stars\u2019 had a fine idea, but needed some rewriting. Wellman took a crack at it, and still unsatisfied, I took a hand. See if you can tell, when it appears, where the joinery was done. I rewrote about one third of the story.\u201d p. 82<\/p>\n

\u201cGallun\u2019s a funny one. Once in a while he hits a high-spot like \u2018Old Faithful\u2019 and deserves a lot. Most of the time he rides along. He\u2019s gotten three accepts in the last three weeks. One weak, hut not too weak. One medium good. One that almost reaches \u2018Old Faithful\u2019 \u2018Seeds of Dusk\u2019 is the latter. p. 83<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re playing hide-and-seek with Astounding\u2019s publication date,\u201d Campbell complained. \u201cYou noticed the nice banner line about \u2018second-Wednesday-of-the-month\u2019? But the June issue actually comes out the third Friday. The July issue will come out the fourth Friday. And the fourth Friday thereafter. Don\u2019t ask me why\u2014they, not I, conceived the shift.\u201d p. 83<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

2. Prince Rupert\u2019s Drop at Wikipedia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

3. It\u2019s not only me (and Campbell) who thought that Gallun\u2019s story was a good one\u2014it was anthologised in (among others) Adventures in Time and Space<\/em>, edited by Raymond J. Healy & J. Francis McComas, 1946, and in The Astounding-Analog Reader Volume 1<\/em>, edited by Harry Harrison, Brian W. Aldiss, 1972.
\nThe story has a sequel, When Earth Is Old<\/em>, written in the same period but rejected\u00a0by Campbell according to a note for the story on ISFDB<\/a>\u00a0(it quotes p. 86 of Gallun’s Starclimber: The Literary Adventures and Autobiography of Raymond Z. Gallun<\/em>). It eventually appeared in\u00a0Super Science Stories<\/em>, August 1951.<\/p>\n

4. The Analytical Laboratory<\/em> for this issue appeared in the August one:<\/p>\n

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

The success of the Wellman novelette and the poor showing for the two serials, especially Williamson\u2019s, perplexes me. At least the Gallun novelette was appreciated. For the record: the Walton, James and Knight stories were never reprinted. \u25cf<\/p>\n

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

ISFDB Archive.org _____________________ Editor, John W. Campbell Jr. Fiction: Men Against the Stars \u2022 novelette by Manly Wade Wellman – Below\u2014Absolute! \u2022 short story by Harry Walton \u2217\u2217 The Legion of Time (Part 2 of 3) \u2022 serial by Jack Williamson \u2217\u2217\u2217+ Philosophers of Stone \u2022 short story by D. L. James – Seeds of […]<\/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-4858","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\/p6Pcj7-1gm","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4858","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=4858"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11507,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4858\/revisions\/11507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}